Why Green Day Stepped Away From Political Songwriting

If you've heard Green Day's "The American Dream Is Killing Me," then you know it has an underlying political message. In a new interview about their upcoming album Saviors, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong explained why the band stepped away from political songwriting for a while, and why they've returned to it now.

Armstrong revealed to 102.1 The Edge that "The American Dream Is Killing Me" was actually written several years ago around when Green Day were working on their 2020 album Father of All Motherfuckers. However, they decided to hold the song, as they hadn't released political material for some time and wanted to wait until it felt appropriate to do so again.

"For Father of All..., we didn't want to go political because it was so obvious and it was such low-hanging fruit, because we had such terrible politics and terrible division in the United States. But this time, we brought it out, and we felt like it was the perfect time for it," Armstrong said.

"We got away from the politics for a while to where we just didn't want to be, you know, another pundit on CNN finger pointing. But songs and political songs, it takes a lot of heart to do that, and I think if you keep doing it for the sake of doing it just because you're angry, then you take the heart out of it. And then it just becomes part of what everyone is complaining about."

Earlier in the discussion, the vocalist also described Saviors as being almost an all-encompassing collection of Green Day's entire catalog. He teased that it has the best of what the band has to offer, from Dookie to American Idiot, making it somewhat of an "essential record" for them.

See the full interview for yourself below.

Saviors will be out Jan. 19, 2024 and can be pre-ordered here now. To celebrate the release of the album, Green Day will embark on a North American stadium tour with The Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid and the Linda Lindas starting July 29 in Washington D.C. See the full itinerary at this location.