Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong and Billie Eilish have sat down to discuss their very different experiences of fame and success in a special edition of Rolling Stone magazine.
The punk icon and 2019 break-out star sat down together for the “Musicians on Musicians” issue, which sees music stars interviewing each other about significant milestones in their career.
For Armstrong, it was a chance to explain how he admire Eilish’s music for being “earnest” and sounding like “freedom”.
“I know this sounds [weird], but I always gravitate toward music that sounds like freedom. And that’s what I get from your music. It’s like an earnest person that’s expressing themselves and incorporating new sounds. Some of it sounds like jazz to me, if that’s cool to say?,” he told her.
“The lyrics are also just very real. That’s important when you’re surrounded by things that sound synthetic and not very real.”
BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG + BILLIE EILISH FOR ROLLING STONE pic.twitter.com/qaypdmEhxr
— وحيد القرن (@usuallyhungover) October 29, 2019
Armstrong also encouraged Eilish to enjoy her new-found success and explained how he never took the chance to take a moment for himself after Green Day’s ‘Dookie’ sold 10 million copies in 1994.
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“I was only 22. I had a kid at the same time, and I was married. So it was a crazy year. I remember being pretty freaked out,” he said.
“I was playing a kind of music that had never been on that kind of scale before. But what I really wanted to do was keep working, and keep writing songs. I never wanted to feel like I was taking advantage of the situation. I didn’t really stop and smell the roses. Later on, I was kind of like, ‘Did I enjoy myself enough? Was that fun?’ Because the feeling of when you first get popular as a musician, that never happens twice. After that, you have to keep creating new stuff to keep things interesting in your life.”
Eilish, meanwhile, opened up on the pressures of touring and explained her fears of returning home to find that her closest friends have moved on.
“There was a period where I was like, ‘Do I even enjoy music?’ It just felt like so much touring. And I don’t mean the shows,” she explained.
“The shows are always my favorite part. But it was just traveling and being alone all the time, on a cold bus in Europe, horrible food, and when you come back, everyone’s kind of moved on from you. This last tour I went on was the first I’ve ever enjoyed. I feel like I have this amazing thing that now I actually see.”
Meanwhile, Green Day will return next year with their new album ‘Father Of All…‘ having released the title track and follow-up single ‘Fire, Ready, Aim‘.
They are also preparing to head out on their ‘Hella Mega’ UK, European and US joint tour with Fall Out Boy and Weezer.
Eilish will head back to the UK next year for a massive arena tour and European festival dates including the newly announced Mad Cool Festival.