News

Billie Joe Armstrong Is A Drug Dealer

• 27th Sep 2010

Billie Joe Armstrong is set to tread the boards as St Jimmy, a drug dealer, in the Broadway musical based on the 2004 Green Day album, American Idiot before he jets off to South America to tour with his band.

The musical, composed and co-written by Armstrong, is about an anti-hero who escapes from suburbia and finds sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in the bright lights of the big city. The front man told the New York Times “It doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's what I love about it. When people see it, it's going to be my wildest dream.”

You can say that again Billie Joe, it certainly makes no sense to me at all. I can just about get my head around the musicals based on Abba and Queen’s music. They were hugely influential and have mass appeals the spans decades and generations but to make a musical out of one album? Not just one album though, the one Green Day album that signalled the band’s descent into mediocrity. Prior to American Idiot, Green Day were an incredible punk band, afterwards they just sounded like just another band to fall off the conveyor belt of drivel that sounds exactly like everything else around at that time. Come on boys, you’re old enough to know better than that.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion and it’s clearly a different one to the masses who I am sure will flock to see this production.

Well, if Green Day aren’t your cup of tea either we have loads on the site this week that could be right up your street. We have interviews with Paul Van Dyk, Devil Sold His Soul, Shout Out Louds and Republica. We also have new videos from The Last Republic, The RockCorps Allstars, 3OH!3 and Janelle Monae. We also have the chance for you to win a DJ set at an Ibiza closing party, tickets to the Mobo tour, tickets to the NME Weekender and an exclusive We Are Scientists t-shirt. As if all that wasn’t enough Lisbee Stainton, Haight-Ashbury, Ricky Warwick and The Strange Death Of Liberal England are all hitting the road. Enjoy!