Billie Joe Armstrong On the Fire and Freedom Behind "21st Century Breakdown" : Rolling Stone

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Mike was also talking about the period after the Warning album, when your sales were slowing down and the crowds getting smaller. He said it was a dark time for him — and for the band.
We had to question ourselves deeper than we ever had before — investigate our relationships, how we feel about each other, how we get on each other's nerves. We had to step it up about 10 notches.

The interesting thing about that time was we were playing live shows better than we ever had before. We were playing like we did last night, when nobody was noticing. We're like, "We know that we're a great band. Why isn't anybody else noticing?" But we had never had a monumental record, where we did that on record. "We can't listen to the record company. We can't do things the way they are now. Bands are listening to A&R guys who say you don't have a single, who are hearing that from the radio stations." I don't want to play that game. I want to make sure we're making an album that is pure, bold — a statement with one song that leads to the next, and each song is an experience in itself.

You've done that with 21st Century Breakdown. But you are addressing demons — in songs like "Christian's Inferno" — from a position many would consider comfortable: success, a nice house, a good family. Why are the demons still there? And why put them out in public?
They're just photographs of what goes on inside my head — and wanting to connect with yourself, and your audience too. I'd like to write something more about joy and happiness. But for me, that's the release, putting it out there. To put it out there and create some kind of human connection and strive for something that's about humanity. It's like trying to battle past all those demons, your confusion and chaos, to reach something on the other side.

I don't know why I'm like that. I've always felt desperate in some way.