Green Day: Billie Joe Armstrong thought people would “fucking hate” ‘Good Riddance’

It’s one of their most successful tracks, played at countless graduations, and even served as hit sitcom Seinfeld’s farewell song, but Green Day rocker Billie Joe Armstrong was convinced fans would hate ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’.

Speaking with Kerrang!, Armstrong admitted it was “terrifying” adding the 1997 acoustic ballad to their fifth studio album Nimrod.

“Doing something like ‘Good Riddance’ was terrifying for me, to put myself out there and be that vulnerable,” he said in the mag’s cover story.

“I think the way that it resonated with people, I was able to kind of go, ‘Okay, now I’ve really accomplished something that was a shift.’ And, as an artist, I felt more empowered that I could keep doing my thing without having to feel like I had to please everybody.”

He explained that the release served as a lesson about going with his gut when it comes to releasing his own music.

“It’s important to never give people what they want; you give people what they don’t know they want,” he laughed. “It can definitely turn people off, but, I mean, with me, Mike [Dirnt, bass] and Tré [Cool, drums], it’s always just been this collective effort. It’s like being a three-headed monster.”

He admitted, however, that it can be difficult to push musical boundaries when so many fans have a preconceived idea of your music.

“There’s the [label] of being in Green Day, and people associate you with everything that you’ve done in the past,” he says. “People have a snapshot of you in their own lives based off of something that you did many years ago, and it’s like they’re uncomfortable with change. And I’m uncomfortable with change, too, but it’s inevitable; you have to do it.

“With Green Day, it gets difficult when people just want you to be the Dookie guy, or the Kerplunk! guy, or the Insomniac guy, or the Nimrod guy. Life just changes, and you have to be able to roll with it, and have new dreams and fantasies about the kind of changes that mean something to you.”