November 26, 2021 • 29 mins
Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy got to honor their heroes as they inducted Green Day into the Hall of Fame. They both commend the trio for their ability to both defy and define labels, refusing to box in a genre as paradoxical as punk rock.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Welcome to Induction Vault, a production of I Heart
Radio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame m
(00:30):
members of the band Fallout Boy. We're lucky enough to
honor their punk rock heroes Green Day, and their excitement
is as tangible as Billy Joe Armstrong's famous guitar wielding leap,
Mike Dirt's unmistakable basslines, or Trade Cool's enigmatic drum fields.
Patrick Stump and beat Wins commend the trio for their
ability to both defy and define labels, refusing to box
(00:51):
in a genre as paradoxical as punk rock. In their
acceptance speech, Green Day thank their own music heroes, a
list that's filled with fellow Rock Hall inductors, and even
thank Ford Motor Company for their Econo Line band, a
vehicle that was essential to the band's early success. The gritty,
rebellious spirit of punk rock is alive and well with
(01:11):
Green Day. So let me ask everybody a question, Uh
what is punk rock now? That should seem like a
simple enough question to answer, but kids and critics argue
with the fervor and furious devotion of opposing religious sex,
or political parties or star wars fans. So I guarantee
(01:33):
that someone somewhere will be very piste off when I
say this, And man, what's more punk rock than pissing
people off when I say that. One of my all
time favorite punk bands is Green Day. So I remember
the first time I heard Green Day, um in a
little background, I was I was a little bit of
music snot when I was a kid. My dad was
(01:55):
a Chicago folk singer. Would be very psyched to see
all the other bands over here today, um and uh.
And he played a lot of fusion jazz around the house.
So you can imagine I was pretty out of step
with my friends who were enthralled with the grunge era
and the advent of gangster rap. So one day some
friends got me to sneak out of class and we
were gonna pretend to be bad kids, you know, And
mostly we just went in the hallway and listen to
(02:15):
this cassette tape that one of them had. It was
Dookie Now, the thing that Stukey excellent album. So the
thing that struck me right off the bat was how
musical it was. It was all the things that you'd
expect in punk rock. It was angry, it was loud,
it was fast, but there were these subtle overtones of
an awareness of music theory and music history that were
(02:36):
wise beyond its years. Now. The other kids had guns
and roses in Nirvana, and I fell in love with
those things later, but none of that was for me. This,
this one, I was like, this is mine. After that,
I was all in. I tried to dress like them.
I tried to play my dad's acoustic real low like
Billy Joe did, and it did not look cool, not
work on me. I followed every interview, I watched every
(02:59):
TV performance, and the more immersed in their world I got,
the more I could tell that this band was one
of the greats. Great bands have to feed on the
strength of the collective. You have to think yourself, wow,
how did they get all these guys in one band together? Now?
The thing that you know kills me. Sometimes you have
a band that you really like and you think they
should maybe be in the Hall of Fame, But then uh,
maybe not. Everyone's pulling their way. Maybe maybe you see
(03:22):
one guy you're like, yeah, you know, he's he's cool,
but I don't know, maybe he just drove a van
or something. But with Green Day, every like every sound
that came out of these three guys was as important
to the entire thing. I mean it was that you
couldn't remove one guy. Billy Joe's signature snarl and sarcastic lyrics,
that eternal, youthful voice, those bright, open chord structures, the
(03:45):
way a silhouette of him playing guitar would be as
recognizable a posture to any punk rock kid as Michael
Jordan's midair dunk would be to a sports fan. Mike Dern.
Mike Durran's aggressively asked yes, Mike turns aggressively, tinny tone
and those melodic base basselines put him in my mind
(04:06):
and you're ready to pistomore people up up there with
the likes of James Jamison and and Jacob the Stories
is one of the most identifiable bass players in the
history of bass playing, which when you turn on the
radios can go who's playing? That's epic Tray cool. You
have a drummer. Your drummer is named Trey fucking Cool.
(04:32):
That is the coolest thing ever. And there's not a
drummer under the age of thirty you can attest the
this Yes, who didn't spend their time entire summer trying
to learn the rat to play that rapid fire fill
and then at the beginning of basket Case, just like
Trey and guess what, no one can. He's the only
one that does it right with the passion, and he
makes it look easy. It's incredible. Now no one else
(04:53):
can really do anything the way Green Day does. I
have this vivid memory of Billy Joe did this interview
on MTV somewhere around the awesome departure album nim Rod,
where he said something along the lines of I don't
want to make be making punk rock for the rest
of my life. Sorry, man, you still are. When you
(05:14):
followed up your massive major label debut with a single
about meth and Phantom Maine and another one that had
two movements, that was pretty punk rock when conventional wisdom
demanded another fast, loud punk song, and instead you put
down a stripped down ballad as a single, which became
the go to prom song for a decade. That was
pretty punk rock. When you put out a three companion
(05:37):
albums in a year of and an era of digital singles,
that was pretty punk rock. When you put out an
acoustic folk album at the time when radio was ruled
by obviously Green Day inspired pop punk that was pretty
punk rock when in an era of basically no socially
(05:57):
conscious discourse and pop music, you put out a skatingly
political rock opera and somehow managed to make that your
career redefining Grammy winning smash hit second act that was
insanely fucking punk rock. Not to mention your alleged involvement
in the John rebending side projects like The Network and
(06:18):
Foxboro Hot Tubs. We all know it's you. Everything you
guys do is punk rock in the sense that you've
never gone for the easy route, the obvious route, the
safe route. You've never repeated yourselves, and you've never done
anything to please the suits. Suits aren't really pleased by change.
But when a great band plays through a set of
(06:40):
their hits, there should be a lot of change, like
Queen the Who or The Clash the Best. But the
best bands both defy and define the labels that get
saddled with the best bands are legend on record and
on stage. Now, I have to say, to get an
off script for a second, the impact that that Green
Day has had on popcult Sure, when we walk through
(07:00):
an airport, about eight percent at the time when someone
takes a picture with us, you you hear him walk
off and they're like, holy sho it, I just got
a picture with green Day. That's totally true. Now, follow
Boy has never had the honor of plane with Green Day,
and honestly, a part of us kind of likes it
that way, because Green Day is literally one of the
(07:23):
best live bands on the planet Earth. If you've ever
opened for them, they put on a show that's so
epic and engaging. The audience absolutely forgets about you by
the way they're by the way they're halfway through their
first chorus and an assault of cutting fetti cannons, And
if you've ever played after them, sorry, This is a
(07:47):
band that's so in tune with their audience that they
let a random kid come on stage and play in
the band in arenas. They literally fulfilled the improbable day
dream that every kid has a plane on stage with
their favorite band. And that's the kind of balls you
build up not through image consultants clever A and R
for media training, but by cutting your teeth in community
(08:07):
halls and basements and cross punk squads. So let some
Reddit feed argue the definition of punk rock me already
have my answer. It is our great honor to induct
Green Day into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
(08:30):
After the break, we'll hear Green Days acceptance speeches on
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ball. Well,
thank you Fallout Boy, and that fucking made me cheer
up a few times, and thank all you fuckers coming here.
We love you. Ah. They don't let drummers use teleprompters.
(08:57):
So I wrote this ship old school on a typewriter. No, actually, okay,
but music is the forest that gets us up in
the morning. It's also the ship that keeps us up
all night. We're all in this room together to celebrate music,
and it's a beautiful thing. Um, it's overwhelming, the amount
(09:18):
of talent and and love in the room. It's it's
it's overwhelming. And when we uh, we're on tour in
our yellow forty cono line that we called the Two,
we're playing punk clubs, squats, backyard parties. We were screen
printing T shirts on Billy Joe's guitar case and hanging
(09:41):
them in people's backyards, sleeping off floors, couches, wherever we could.
I didn't think back then that we'd be here now
in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I thought
it would take at least another year or two. But
we grow older, and we change and and and we
(10:03):
get weird and weird, weird and crazier and it's awesome.
We we grow together, and with every beat of the drum,
you know, our love for music gets even stronger. And uh,
being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
is an enormous honor. And uh, I'd like to mention
a few people who make my crazy world turn around.
(10:25):
My beautiful wife Sarah Rose, Ramona and Frankie, my kids,
my mom and dad, Frank and Linda, my sister Laurie,
who actually um brought music into our home in an
early age. And Uh, I love you. I love you
all of course, Billy and Mike, I love you guys,
(10:49):
the Big Three, Jason Jason, Jeff, Kenny Butler, Oh, I
love him, Pat Magnarella, Chris Dugan, Bill Schneider, Chris Fucking Lord, Algae,
(11:09):
Michael Motto, Rob Like, Rob Cavallo, Mike the Sack, Fasano,
John Passman, Steve Kay, Mike Shapprary from s j C drums.
Love those love you Larry Livermore, who gave me the
name Trey Cool when I was a we lad of
(11:31):
about eleven or twelve, and I thought him as hard
as I could on that, but I'm fucking stuck with it.
I mean the Rocket Roll Hall of Fame now, Kane Kong,
the bass player for the Lookouts, Kick Ass Dude, Um
Paul and Sue, my aunt Jenny, my aunt Sue, and
(11:53):
my cousin Kenny, Uncle Mark Reprise Records, and I oh
so much to my favorite drummers, were You Go, Star,
Keith Moon, John Bonham, Mitch Mitchell, Charlie Watts, Buddy Rich,
(12:18):
John Wright, from No Means No, Alex van Halen, Dave Mellow,
Aaron Elliott, Alsh Fitz An extra special thanks to my
good buddy and drummer extraordinaire John Kiffmeyer right away there,
and of course to the Green Day Idiot Nation. Love you,
thank you. See now it's none of us, Like Hella Prompters,
(12:52):
I got a couple of things, no particular order. First
and foremost, I also have a mom who gave me
a guitar, a pawn shop base and it only had
two strings on it. There were flat wounds, but Luckily
for me they were A and E, so I was
halfway there. Um, I'd like to thank radio. I'm a
big fan of radio. I like good radio shows. I
(13:15):
hate commercials, but I love good radio shows. So you know,
there's something about a radio show that when we're listening
to it, we all were all connected, and it's a
human connection that I really have always resonated with. Uh.
Lawrence Livermore, you created Lookout Records. You start a small
record label for all the right reasons, and you gave
(13:35):
a home to a lot of bands, and for that,
I want to thank you huge. Thank you to all
the kids who booked us in small vets, halls and
backyards in Europe, all the people who booked us in
clubs and squats, and to the hundreds of people whose
floors you let us sleep on, thank you very much.
Those were life changing experiences and I wouldn't change it
(13:56):
for the world. Um. Randomly, I would like to thank
the Ford Motor Company for creating the forty Conno Line van,
the best damn van any smelly torrean van could have. UM,
We're Prise Records. Thank you guys, all of you guys,
(14:20):
no matter what era you were there. We have a
few other people, let me see, uh Brian Bumbrey Chinn Adler,
Bill v Chris Lord, Algae. You guys have been with
us a very long time and even longer. Pat Magnarella
our manager. Pat, you have very thick skin, You're very patient.
(14:46):
Nobody in the world would have let us be ourselves
the way you have, and we truly appreciate you. To
Michael Mayer and everybody involved with the American Media stage production,
this is his close as we'll ever get to seeing
Green Day live and it will always be a highlight
of our lives. Thank you very much. I'm sure a
(15:10):
lot of the musicians in this room, will Um and
everybody who are family of the musicians can understand this one. Um.
I want to thank our friends and family at home
for allowing us to be gone so much of our
lives and still being there for us. It meant a
lot to us over the years and it still really does.
Thank you. To the Armstrong family, I want to thank
(15:31):
you guys for taking me in as a kid, figuratively
and literally. Thanks for letting me live with you. To
my amazing wife, Brittany, your wonderful mother, you kicked cancer's
ass last year. Thank you, you're a great partner your crime.
(15:52):
I love you, Bretty Kitty. To my children, it's still
my lovely daughter here, my son Brixton at home, and
my daughter Ryan at home. I love you, guys, and
each one of you is my entire world. Thank you
all right, wrapping it up here, um, to every one
of our fans and to the idiot nation. This is
(16:17):
this is much more about you, guys than it is
about me, and I'm very proud to share this life
on earth with you. Thank you, last mynlies, UM. To
my two brothers behind me on stage here, Believe me,
it's been way too many years to want to count.
(16:37):
I love you, guys. I'll see a band practice. I
(16:59):
feel like I man line of the d m V
or something. Um, I I don't, I don't know. I'm
finding a loss for words right now. The gratitude that
I feel right now is overwhelming. And I didn't really
uh I didn't really know how to prepare it for
(17:19):
something like this, so uh I didn't. I couldn't. I
couldn't really write a speech. So I'm just gonna make
it up at the top of my head, but with
a few talking points. So uh, I mean, first off,
I just want to thank my family, my boys, Jacob
and Joey. You guys blow me away every day. And Adrian,
(17:45):
I love you. We've been married forever and it's uh
it's a rare thing in this crazy rock world. And
I love you so much for the best. And uh,
I wanna I gotta thank my mom, Ali Louise Armstrong.
(18:08):
She's from Oklahoma. Uh, moved to California. Um, you had
you and dad had six kids. I'm the youngest one,
and like my house. The one thing that I'm so
greatful for is all of the music that it was
in our house. It's like from my brother, my oldest brother, Alan,
(18:28):
you know, he had first of I heard the Beatles
and the Stones and the Kinks, and you know, we
used to come come to his house and sleep over
there and we'd watch Showtime at night and I watch
Alice Cooper, you know, at twelve o'clock because that was
the good time to watch it. Um. And my sister Marcy,
(18:49):
he was pretty much the person that showed me Elvis
Presley for the first time. And I, you know, I
thank you. And my sister Holly is like cooling the
game and my sister Anna who basically that record collection
that you have turned my world inside out. I thank
(19:11):
you so much. Um Um, it's anything. It's like a
lot of people here right now. It's like my record
collection is actually sitting in this room, you know. I
mean the fact that I got to hear an album
(19:32):
like Horses by Patti smith Man. I and and there
you are standing right. I love it. This is great.
And uh um you're my brother David. We listened to
led Zeppelin and Van Halen and Molly Crue and and
uh um you know and Cheap Trick and you know,
(19:56):
Pyromania by def Leppard and um, you know and a
few others that hopefully will be in the rock and
Roll Hall of Fame soonerr so um so, I just
it was like my house was like rock and roll
high school. I mean literally, I mean it was nuts.
I mean, all my friends with her in to my house.
It's like where do you smoke? We did. It's a
good bit room strong house. You know. No I didn't
(20:20):
have them, am Um, but uh and I you know,
I my bandmates, Mike, me and my basically me and
I got together. Um. Our school district went bankrupt, so
they closed down the main junior high and they combined
the two elementary schools to come together. And Um, so
(20:41):
he went to one elementary and I went together and
I we used had to take the bus out there,
and first day of elementary school or in in uh,
I think the fifth grade, I walk up and then
I was like the class clown, but Mike was like
the class clown, and so it was kind of like
this dueling banjo's that was gonna go back and fourth
I was like, so, you know, we both were you know,
(21:04):
what'd you get his deliverance? And uh, I went to
a show Um William's. Mike, you are my my musical
soul mate. Man. I love you so much and we've
been through everything together and this whole thing, and I
(21:25):
thank you so much for everything, your friendship, your family.
I love you. And uh I met Trey was playing
at this band called the Lookouts, and they were I
was like, they have this really young drummer and he
(21:47):
was back and he was wearing a old lady shower
cap and a two tube and so that's the first
time I I saw Trey and I was like, oh cool,
um and uh and then UM I don't know. And
then you know, as years went by we got to
know each other. We uh, just seeing him at shows
(22:09):
and things like that, and then he joined the band,
and I don't know. It was just amazing, amazing drummer.
One of my favorite drummers of all time. I mean,
I am a If there is one instrument that I
love to hear is because my father is a jazz drummer,
(22:30):
my brother is a drummer, and my uncle was a drummer.
I'm the odd ball and uh but Trey is just
a phenomenal and he pushes and he he's the most
dangerous drummer on the planet. And I love this guy.
Um um. And there was this backyard party that Sweet
(22:54):
Children played that was us before Green Day, and the
kid that was filling in at the time, we and
Mike we're looking for a drummer, and this guy was
in this crazy band called Disocracy. Um. His name is
John Kiffmeyer, also known as Al Sabronte, and he's a
(23:17):
couple of years older. And at the time, it was
like a veteran in our in in that community. And uh,
you know, John, thank you, thank you so much. You know,
I love you and God, bless your family. Thank you
so much. And I don't know, and what can I say?
Look Out Records, Like you know, it's so rare that
(23:39):
you get to have like an independent label that it's
putting out bands that are in a in a scene
that are like a place like Gilman Street from where
we come from. And uh, and they're putting out my
favorite records at the time, whether it was crim Shrine,
Operation Ivy Isocracy through upt the Morals, Tim, Tim Armstrong
(24:00):
of you brother, Um so uh yeah, we uh you know.
We we had this gig that John booked and it
was going to be on top of this mountain in Mendocino.
So we drive up there. We're supposed to play at
the Lookouts and Trade booked the show. So we drive
(24:20):
all the way up to the top of this mountain
and we play in this cabin that didn't have a
roof or electricity. Now, how the hell you're supposed to
have a gig, I have no idea, but um, they
got some generators and we plugged in. And that's where
we've really met Larry Livermore for the first time. And Larry,
(24:40):
you have been so great to us. Thank you so much. You.
You opened your door and you thank you. It's like
for kids like us and other kids playing and in
rock and roll bands and to have that independent spirit
and it's just great. Thank you so much. And uh,
(25:01):
I also want to thank the other people that worked
at Lookout Records, like David Hayes, Chris Applegren and Pat Hines. UM.
And which leads me to all the people at Reprise.
Thank you so much. UM we've had I have to say,
we've had a great experience there, so we've been there
(25:21):
for twenty years. Thank you so much. For everyone that
worked in the mail room, UM, that goes out to
try to find bands, what a thankless job. UM, and
that you know everybody over there and m But most
of all, I have to thank Rob Cavallo. We've we've
(25:44):
only worked with two producers in our entire career and
the we Butcher Big did one record, so thank you Butch,
but Rob you did all of them, so thank you
so much. And I really feel like we you are
a rather we are kindred spirit. And the fact that
we we could sit around and play songs all day
(26:05):
long together and just speak in that language. I just
love to talk about and love to talk about it
with you and stuff, and we'll talk about it later,
all right, Thank you, rob Um, Pat macgarella, you're a
brave man. You're our manager. I want to apologize for
(26:27):
the hotel rooms. I want to apologize for trades, drum
sets catching on fire. I want to uh, you know,
thanks for rehab, um right, and thanks for doing those
talks that we were not capable of doing. So thank you.
(26:49):
Thanks a lot. We love I love you all right, um.
And in closing, so we come from this place. It's
called Gilman Street. It's a club. It's in Berkeley, and uh,
I am so fortunate. We are so fortunate to be
able to to to play there because it was it's
all ages, and it was nonprofit and it's just all
(27:14):
of these goofballs and it was just like like it
was like romper room for degenerates and so great and
what a great scene. And we got to watch our
friends bands and they got to watch us play, and
they got to heckle us, and we tried to heckle back,
but they heckled better. So and I got to see
Operation IVY, and I got to see Crimpshry and I
got to see Sewer Trout and Nasal Sex and these
(27:39):
far out their bands, and I am truly fortunate. And
but you know, I just I love rock and roll music.
I always have as soon as I opened my eyes
and took my first breath. I am a fan. And
that's the one thing that I'm going to close with
is that I love rock and roll and I love
(28:00):
it for the rest of my life. Thank you. Thanks
for joining us on this week's episode of Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame Induction Vault. For more on your
(28:21):
favorite inductees, To shop inductee merch or to plan your
trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, visit
rock hall dot com plus Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame Induction Special on demand on HBO Max. Our executive
producers are Noel Brown, Shelby Morrison, and Esa Gurkey. Supervising
producer is Taylor shakogn Research and archival assistants from Isabelle
(28:44):
Keeper and Shannon Herb. Thanks again for joining us on
this week's episode of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Induction Vault. Induction Ball is a production of I Heart
Radio in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. M
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
(29:07):
favorite podcasts.
M Welcome to Induction Vault, a production of I Heart
Radio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame m
(00:30):
members of the band Fallout Boy. We're lucky enough to
honor their punk rock heroes Green Day, and their excitement
is as tangible as Billy Joe Armstrong's famous guitar wielding leap,
Mike Dirt's unmistakable basslines, or Trade Cool's enigmatic drum fields.
Patrick Stump and beat Wins commend the trio for their
ability to both defy and define labels, refusing to box
(00:51):
in a genre as paradoxical as punk rock. In their
acceptance speech, Green Day thank their own music heroes, a
list that's filled with fellow Rock Hall inductors, and even
thank Ford Motor Company for their Econo Line band, a
vehicle that was essential to the band's early success. The gritty,
rebellious spirit of punk rock is alive and well with
(01:11):
Green Day. So let me ask everybody a question, Uh
what is punk rock now? That should seem like a
simple enough question to answer, but kids and critics argue
with the fervor and furious devotion of opposing religious sex,
or political parties or star wars fans. So I guarantee
(01:33):
that someone somewhere will be very piste off when I
say this, And man, what's more punk rock than pissing
people off when I say that. One of my all
time favorite punk bands is Green Day. So I remember
the first time I heard Green Day, um in a
little background, I was I was a little bit of
music snot when I was a kid. My dad was
(01:55):
a Chicago folk singer. Would be very psyched to see
all the other bands over here today, um and uh.
And he played a lot of fusion jazz around the house.
So you can imagine I was pretty out of step
with my friends who were enthralled with the grunge era
and the advent of gangster rap. So one day some
friends got me to sneak out of class and we
were gonna pretend to be bad kids, you know, And
mostly we just went in the hallway and listen to
(02:15):
this cassette tape that one of them had. It was
Dookie Now, the thing that Stukey excellent album. So the
thing that struck me right off the bat was how
musical it was. It was all the things that you'd
expect in punk rock. It was angry, it was loud,
it was fast, but there were these subtle overtones of
an awareness of music theory and music history that were
(02:36):
wise beyond its years. Now. The other kids had guns
and roses in Nirvana, and I fell in love with
those things later, but none of that was for me. This,
this one, I was like, this is mine. After that,
I was all in. I tried to dress like them.
I tried to play my dad's acoustic real low like
Billy Joe did, and it did not look cool, not
work on me. I followed every interview, I watched every
(02:59):
TV performance, and the more immersed in their world I got,
the more I could tell that this band was one
of the greats. Great bands have to feed on the
strength of the collective. You have to think yourself, wow,
how did they get all these guys in one band together? Now?
The thing that you know kills me. Sometimes you have
a band that you really like and you think they
should maybe be in the Hall of Fame, But then uh,
maybe not. Everyone's pulling their way. Maybe maybe you see
(03:22):
one guy you're like, yeah, you know, he's he's cool,
but I don't know, maybe he just drove a van
or something. But with Green Day, every like every sound
that came out of these three guys was as important
to the entire thing. I mean it was that you
couldn't remove one guy. Billy Joe's signature snarl and sarcastic lyrics,
that eternal, youthful voice, those bright, open chord structures, the
(03:45):
way a silhouette of him playing guitar would be as
recognizable a posture to any punk rock kid as Michael
Jordan's midair dunk would be to a sports fan. Mike Dern.
Mike Durran's aggressively asked yes, Mike turns aggressively, tinny tone
and those melodic base basselines put him in my mind
(04:06):
and you're ready to pistomore people up up there with
the likes of James Jamison and and Jacob the Stories
is one of the most identifiable bass players in the
history of bass playing, which when you turn on the
radios can go who's playing? That's epic Tray cool. You
have a drummer. Your drummer is named Trey fucking Cool.
(04:32):
That is the coolest thing ever. And there's not a
drummer under the age of thirty you can attest the
this Yes, who didn't spend their time entire summer trying
to learn the rat to play that rapid fire fill
and then at the beginning of basket Case, just like
Trey and guess what, no one can. He's the only
one that does it right with the passion, and he
makes it look easy. It's incredible. Now no one else
(04:53):
can really do anything the way Green Day does. I
have this vivid memory of Billy Joe did this interview
on MTV somewhere around the awesome departure album nim Rod,
where he said something along the lines of I don't
want to make be making punk rock for the rest
of my life. Sorry, man, you still are. When you
(05:14):
followed up your massive major label debut with a single
about meth and Phantom Maine and another one that had
two movements, that was pretty punk rock when conventional wisdom
demanded another fast, loud punk song, and instead you put
down a stripped down ballad as a single, which became
the go to prom song for a decade. That was
pretty punk rock. When you put out a three companion
(05:37):
albums in a year of and an era of digital singles,
that was pretty punk rock. When you put out an
acoustic folk album at the time when radio was ruled
by obviously Green Day inspired pop punk that was pretty
punk rock when in an era of basically no socially
(05:57):
conscious discourse and pop music, you put out a skatingly
political rock opera and somehow managed to make that your
career redefining Grammy winning smash hit second act that was
insanely fucking punk rock. Not to mention your alleged involvement
in the John rebending side projects like The Network and
(06:18):
Foxboro Hot Tubs. We all know it's you. Everything you
guys do is punk rock in the sense that you've
never gone for the easy route, the obvious route, the
safe route. You've never repeated yourselves, and you've never done
anything to please the suits. Suits aren't really pleased by change.
But when a great band plays through a set of
(06:40):
their hits, there should be a lot of change, like
Queen the Who or The Clash the Best. But the
best bands both defy and define the labels that get
saddled with the best bands are legend on record and
on stage. Now, I have to say, to get an
off script for a second, the impact that that Green
Day has had on popcult Sure, when we walk through
(07:00):
an airport, about eight percent at the time when someone
takes a picture with us, you you hear him walk
off and they're like, holy sho it, I just got
a picture with green Day. That's totally true. Now, follow
Boy has never had the honor of plane with Green Day,
and honestly, a part of us kind of likes it
that way, because Green Day is literally one of the
(07:23):
best live bands on the planet Earth. If you've ever
opened for them, they put on a show that's so
epic and engaging. The audience absolutely forgets about you by
the way they're by the way they're halfway through their
first chorus and an assault of cutting fetti cannons, And
if you've ever played after them, sorry, This is a
(07:47):
band that's so in tune with their audience that they
let a random kid come on stage and play in
the band in arenas. They literally fulfilled the improbable day
dream that every kid has a plane on stage with
their favorite band. And that's the kind of balls you
build up not through image consultants clever A and R
for media training, but by cutting your teeth in community
(08:07):
halls and basements and cross punk squads. So let some
Reddit feed argue the definition of punk rock me already
have my answer. It is our great honor to induct
Green Day into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
(08:30):
After the break, we'll hear Green Days acceptance speeches on
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ball. Well,
thank you Fallout Boy, and that fucking made me cheer
up a few times, and thank all you fuckers coming here.
We love you. Ah. They don't let drummers use teleprompters.
(08:57):
So I wrote this ship old school on a typewriter. No, actually, okay,
but music is the forest that gets us up in
the morning. It's also the ship that keeps us up
all night. We're all in this room together to celebrate music,
and it's a beautiful thing. Um, it's overwhelming, the amount
(09:18):
of talent and and love in the room. It's it's
it's overwhelming. And when we uh, we're on tour in
our yellow forty cono line that we called the Two,
we're playing punk clubs, squats, backyard parties. We were screen
printing T shirts on Billy Joe's guitar case and hanging
(09:41):
them in people's backyards, sleeping off floors, couches, wherever we could.
I didn't think back then that we'd be here now
in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I thought
it would take at least another year or two. But
we grow older, and we change and and and we
(10:03):
get weird and weird, weird and crazier and it's awesome.
We we grow together, and with every beat of the drum,
you know, our love for music gets even stronger. And uh,
being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
is an enormous honor. And uh, I'd like to mention
a few people who make my crazy world turn around.
(10:25):
My beautiful wife Sarah Rose, Ramona and Frankie, my kids,
my mom and dad, Frank and Linda, my sister Laurie,
who actually um brought music into our home in an
early age. And Uh, I love you. I love you
all of course, Billy and Mike, I love you guys,
(10:49):
the Big Three, Jason Jason, Jeff, Kenny Butler, Oh, I
love him, Pat Magnarella, Chris Dugan, Bill Schneider, Chris Fucking Lord, Algae,
(11:09):
Michael Motto, Rob Like, Rob Cavallo, Mike the Sack, Fasano,
John Passman, Steve Kay, Mike Shapprary from s j C drums.
Love those love you Larry Livermore, who gave me the
name Trey Cool when I was a we lad of
(11:31):
about eleven or twelve, and I thought him as hard
as I could on that, but I'm fucking stuck with it.
I mean the Rocket Roll Hall of Fame now, Kane Kong,
the bass player for the Lookouts, Kick Ass Dude, Um
Paul and Sue, my aunt Jenny, my aunt Sue, and
(11:53):
my cousin Kenny, Uncle Mark Reprise Records, and I oh
so much to my favorite drummers, were You Go, Star,
Keith Moon, John Bonham, Mitch Mitchell, Charlie Watts, Buddy Rich,
(12:18):
John Wright, from No Means No, Alex van Halen, Dave Mellow,
Aaron Elliott, Alsh Fitz An extra special thanks to my
good buddy and drummer extraordinaire John Kiffmeyer right away there,
and of course to the Green Day Idiot Nation. Love you,
thank you. See now it's none of us, Like Hella Prompters,
(12:52):
I got a couple of things, no particular order. First
and foremost, I also have a mom who gave me
a guitar, a pawn shop base and it only had
two strings on it. There were flat wounds, but Luckily
for me they were A and E, so I was
halfway there. Um, I'd like to thank radio. I'm a
big fan of radio. I like good radio shows. I
(13:15):
hate commercials, but I love good radio shows. So you know,
there's something about a radio show that when we're listening
to it, we all were all connected, and it's a
human connection that I really have always resonated with. Uh.
Lawrence Livermore, you created Lookout Records. You start a small
record label for all the right reasons, and you gave
(13:35):
a home to a lot of bands, and for that,
I want to thank you huge. Thank you to all
the kids who booked us in small vets, halls and
backyards in Europe, all the people who booked us in
clubs and squats, and to the hundreds of people whose
floors you let us sleep on, thank you very much.
Those were life changing experiences and I wouldn't change it
(13:56):
for the world. Um. Randomly, I would like to thank
the Ford Motor Company for creating the forty Conno Line van,
the best damn van any smelly torrean van could have. UM,
We're Prise Records. Thank you guys, all of you guys,
(14:20):
no matter what era you were there. We have a
few other people, let me see, uh Brian Bumbrey Chinn Adler,
Bill v Chris Lord, Algae. You guys have been with
us a very long time and even longer. Pat Magnarella
our manager. Pat, you have very thick skin, You're very patient.
(14:46):
Nobody in the world would have let us be ourselves
the way you have, and we truly appreciate you. To
Michael Mayer and everybody involved with the American Media stage production,
this is his close as we'll ever get to seeing
Green Day live and it will always be a highlight
of our lives. Thank you very much. I'm sure a
(15:10):
lot of the musicians in this room, will Um and
everybody who are family of the musicians can understand this one. Um.
I want to thank our friends and family at home
for allowing us to be gone so much of our
lives and still being there for us. It meant a
lot to us over the years and it still really does.
Thank you. To the Armstrong family, I want to thank
(15:31):
you guys for taking me in as a kid, figuratively
and literally. Thanks for letting me live with you. To
my amazing wife, Brittany, your wonderful mother, you kicked cancer's
ass last year. Thank you, you're a great partner your crime.
(15:52):
I love you, Bretty Kitty. To my children, it's still
my lovely daughter here, my son Brixton at home, and
my daughter Ryan at home. I love you, guys, and
each one of you is my entire world. Thank you
all right, wrapping it up here, um, to every one
of our fans and to the idiot nation. This is
(16:17):
this is much more about you, guys than it is
about me, and I'm very proud to share this life
on earth with you. Thank you, last mynlies, UM. To
my two brothers behind me on stage here, Believe me,
it's been way too many years to want to count.
(16:37):
I love you, guys. I'll see a band practice. I
(16:59):
feel like I man line of the d m V
or something. Um, I I don't, I don't know. I'm
finding a loss for words right now. The gratitude that
I feel right now is overwhelming. And I didn't really
uh I didn't really know how to prepare it for
(17:19):
something like this, so uh I didn't. I couldn't. I
couldn't really write a speech. So I'm just gonna make
it up at the top of my head, but with
a few talking points. So uh, I mean, first off,
I just want to thank my family, my boys, Jacob
and Joey. You guys blow me away every day. And Adrian,
(17:45):
I love you. We've been married forever and it's uh
it's a rare thing in this crazy rock world. And
I love you so much for the best. And uh,
I wanna I gotta thank my mom, Ali Louise Armstrong.
(18:08):
She's from Oklahoma. Uh, moved to California. Um, you had
you and dad had six kids. I'm the youngest one,
and like my house. The one thing that I'm so
greatful for is all of the music that it was
in our house. It's like from my brother, my oldest brother, Alan,
(18:28):
you know, he had first of I heard the Beatles
and the Stones and the Kinks, and you know, we
used to come come to his house and sleep over
there and we'd watch Showtime at night and I watch
Alice Cooper, you know, at twelve o'clock because that was
the good time to watch it. Um. And my sister Marcy,
(18:49):
he was pretty much the person that showed me Elvis
Presley for the first time. And I, you know, I
thank you. And my sister Holly is like cooling the
game and my sister Anna who basically that record collection
that you have turned my world inside out. I thank
(19:11):
you so much. Um Um, it's anything. It's like a
lot of people here right now. It's like my record
collection is actually sitting in this room, you know. I
mean the fact that I got to hear an album
(19:32):
like Horses by Patti smith Man. I and and there
you are standing right. I love it. This is great.
And uh um you're my brother David. We listened to
led Zeppelin and Van Halen and Molly Crue and and
uh um you know and Cheap Trick and you know,
(19:56):
Pyromania by def Leppard and um, you know and a
few others that hopefully will be in the rock and
Roll Hall of Fame soonerr so um so, I just
it was like my house was like rock and roll
high school. I mean literally, I mean it was nuts.
I mean, all my friends with her in to my house.
It's like where do you smoke? We did. It's a
good bit room strong house. You know. No I didn't
(20:20):
have them, am Um, but uh and I you know,
I my bandmates, Mike, me and my basically me and
I got together. Um. Our school district went bankrupt, so
they closed down the main junior high and they combined
the two elementary schools to come together. And Um, so
(20:41):
he went to one elementary and I went together and
I we used had to take the bus out there,
and first day of elementary school or in in uh,
I think the fifth grade, I walk up and then
I was like the class clown, but Mike was like
the class clown, and so it was kind of like
this dueling banjo's that was gonna go back and fourth
I was like, so, you know, we both were you know,
(21:04):
what'd you get his deliverance? And uh, I went to
a show Um William's. Mike, you are my my musical
soul mate. Man. I love you so much and we've
been through everything together and this whole thing, and I
(21:25):
thank you so much for everything, your friendship, your family.
I love you. And uh I met Trey was playing
at this band called the Lookouts, and they were I
was like, they have this really young drummer and he
(21:47):
was back and he was wearing a old lady shower
cap and a two tube and so that's the first
time I I saw Trey and I was like, oh cool,
um and uh and then UM I don't know. And
then you know, as years went by we got to
know each other. We uh, just seeing him at shows
(22:09):
and things like that, and then he joined the band,
and I don't know. It was just amazing, amazing drummer.
One of my favorite drummers of all time. I mean,
I am a If there is one instrument that I
love to hear is because my father is a jazz drummer,
(22:30):
my brother is a drummer, and my uncle was a drummer.
I'm the odd ball and uh but Trey is just
a phenomenal and he pushes and he he's the most
dangerous drummer on the planet. And I love this guy.
Um um. And there was this backyard party that Sweet
(22:54):
Children played that was us before Green Day, and the
kid that was filling in at the time, we and
Mike we're looking for a drummer, and this guy was
in this crazy band called Disocracy. Um. His name is
John Kiffmeyer, also known as Al Sabronte, and he's a
(23:17):
couple of years older. And at the time, it was
like a veteran in our in in that community. And uh,
you know, John, thank you, thank you so much. You know,
I love you and God, bless your family. Thank you
so much. And I don't know, and what can I say?
Look Out Records, Like you know, it's so rare that
(23:39):
you get to have like an independent label that it's
putting out bands that are in a in a scene
that are like a place like Gilman Street from where
we come from. And uh, and they're putting out my
favorite records at the time, whether it was crim Shrine,
Operation Ivy Isocracy through upt the Morals, Tim, Tim Armstrong
(24:00):
of you brother, Um so uh yeah, we uh you know.
We we had this gig that John booked and it
was going to be on top of this mountain in Mendocino.
So we drive up there. We're supposed to play at
the Lookouts and Trade booked the show. So we drive
(24:20):
all the way up to the top of this mountain
and we play in this cabin that didn't have a
roof or electricity. Now, how the hell you're supposed to
have a gig, I have no idea, but um, they
got some generators and we plugged in. And that's where
we've really met Larry Livermore for the first time. And Larry,
(24:40):
you have been so great to us. Thank you so much. You.
You opened your door and you thank you. It's like
for kids like us and other kids playing and in
rock and roll bands and to have that independent spirit
and it's just great. Thank you so much. And uh,
(25:01):
I also want to thank the other people that worked
at Lookout Records, like David Hayes, Chris Applegren and Pat Hines. UM.
And which leads me to all the people at Reprise.
Thank you so much. UM we've had I have to say,
we've had a great experience there, so we've been there
(25:21):
for twenty years. Thank you so much. For everyone that
worked in the mail room, UM, that goes out to
try to find bands, what a thankless job. UM, and
that you know everybody over there and m But most
of all, I have to thank Rob Cavallo. We've we've
(25:44):
only worked with two producers in our entire career and
the we Butcher Big did one record, so thank you Butch,
but Rob you did all of them, so thank you
so much. And I really feel like we you are
a rather we are kindred spirit. And the fact that
we we could sit around and play songs all day
(26:05):
long together and just speak in that language. I just
love to talk about and love to talk about it
with you and stuff, and we'll talk about it later,
all right, Thank you, rob Um, Pat macgarella, you're a
brave man. You're our manager. I want to apologize for
(26:27):
the hotel rooms. I want to apologize for trades, drum
sets catching on fire. I want to uh, you know,
thanks for rehab, um right, and thanks for doing those
talks that we were not capable of doing. So thank you.
(26:49):
Thanks a lot. We love I love you all right, um.
And in closing, so we come from this place. It's
called Gilman Street. It's a club. It's in Berkeley, and uh,
I am so fortunate. We are so fortunate to be
able to to to play there because it was it's
all ages, and it was nonprofit and it's just all
(27:14):
of these goofballs and it was just like like it
was like romper room for degenerates and so great and
what a great scene. And we got to watch our
friends bands and they got to watch us play, and
they got to heckle us, and we tried to heckle back,
but they heckled better. So and I got to see
Operation IVY, and I got to see Crimpshry and I
got to see Sewer Trout and Nasal Sex and these
(27:39):
far out their bands, and I am truly fortunate. And
but you know, I just I love rock and roll music.
I always have as soon as I opened my eyes
and took my first breath. I am a fan. And
that's the one thing that I'm going to close with
is that I love rock and roll and I love
(28:00):
it for the rest of my life. Thank you. Thanks
for joining us on this week's episode of Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame Induction Vault. For more on your
(28:21):
favorite inductees, To shop inductee merch or to plan your
trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, visit
rock hall dot com plus Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame Induction Special on demand on HBO Max. Our executive
producers are Noel Brown, Shelby Morrison, and Esa Gurkey. Supervising
producer is Taylor shakogn Research and archival assistants from Isabelle
(28:44):
Keeper and Shannon Herb. Thanks again for joining us on
this week's episode of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Induction Vault. Induction Ball is a production of I Heart
Radio in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. M
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
(29:07):
favorite podcasts.
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