Green Day: No ‘Idiots’ here
I’ll be rooting for “American Idiot” tonight to win Best Musical at the Tonys. It has a few issues, though I guess the ending has been fixed since I saw it in previews. However, it’s hard not to love the energy behind it and the rebellion it feeds. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong told me that even though the George W. Bush administration that “American Idiot” rails against is over, he’s still angry about all the problems that still have to be undone. But he sees progress. “This health-care bill that we’re passing – if you compare it to the Baby Boomers, as an era that kind of never became realized – shows that I think, right now, with my generation, there’s something to look forward to, something that can become realized.”
NEW YORK — For Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, the seven-year transformation of his band’s punk-rock opera “American Idiot” into a Broadway musical didn’t hit him until he arrived at the St. James Theatre.
“I always thought ‘American Idiot’ could be staged in some way — I just didn’t really know how,” says Armstrong, the day after the show started in previews. “Watching the whole thing come to life was overwhelming. When we first heard it was going to Broadway, we were stoked, but when I saw the St. James Theater when they were loading things in and I saw a sign down by the bathrooms that said ‘George M. Cohan,’ I said, ‘Holy (expletive), this is (expletive) for real.’ It’s pretty mind-blowing right now.”
It’s no wonder that Armstrong connects with Cohan, known as “The Man Who Owned Broadway” during the first two decades of the last century by bringing informal language, the popular music of the time and patriotic themes to The Great White Way. In a way, that’s what Armstrong wants “American Idiot” to do.
(Full interview at Newsday 4.15.10 and Pop Matters, 4.19.10)
PHOTO: Will, Tunny and Johnny from “American Idiot” by Paul Kolnik
