Mike Dirnt on Green Day's Dark, Drunken Path to Rock & Roll Glory : Rolling Stone

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Was it a stress on your friendships with Billie and Tré?
It's a stress when you're touring heavily, drinking heavily, and your popularity is going down. At one point, we were in Europe, talking to the German record label, having lunch with the guy, and he tells us, "This record [Warning] is not going to do good here. You're not going to sell many records." That was discouraging, to go all the way there, do everything we can to promote this record, and he's like, "Well, nice try." And as he's driving away in his Mercedes, he goes, "Hey, look at the car punk rock built." I'm like, "Fuck you. This is art. You didn't get it."

We came home and did some soul searching. We were still writing some of the greatest rock & roll music coming out. I look at Warning as a phenomenal record. Why is it not clicking? We had to ask ourselves the hard questions. First of all, we were drinking too much. We looked like shit. Second, I didn't think we were all on the same page as a band.

Was this a single meeting?
It was a series of meetings. At one point. Billie called me. He's like, "Do you want to do this anymore?" I said, "Honestly, it's not any fucking fun. I'm miserable. Why are we going to band practice? To hash out another record? To do a single, to go on tour? Where's the fucking difference? In us, in growth, in the music?" We kept asking ourselves: What do you want?

What did you want?
I wanted to be in the biggest fucking rock & roll band in the world — and the best.

Do you feel you made it?
We've reached new heights. We're not in a holding pattern anymore. I have had people tell me, who saw us in those in-between years, "You guys were a lot happier when you were busted broke." Well, we had a lot of stress. We had families. We were on tour all the time. I was divorced when I was young. I didn't have time to process it, because you're giving all this time to your band. I don't expect anybody to understand that. People see my house, and they think it's all cool. But I have a 1980s Café Racer motorcycle in the garage that I haven't ridden in six months, because I haven't had time [laughs]. There's prices to be paid. We didn't win the lottery.