TRE COOL TALKING TO MTV ABOUT WARNING
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From: MTV
Interviewer: Robert Mancini
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Sometime within the last three months, as the band slaved away in an Oakland studio working on its first album since 1997's "Nimrod," the guys of Green Day completely lost it.
Not in a bad way, mind you. As drummer Tre Cool told MTV News' Robert Mancini, the vacation from sanity has yielded some "f***ing amazing" results. "Warning," which will be the band's first album in three years when it arrives this fall, is shaping up to be a more ambitious and more optimistic album, according to Tre. There's talk of acoustic guitars, deeper grooves, and even a touch of hope in frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's lyrics.
Tre seems optimistic that the album and the band's slot on this summer's Vans Warped tour will help Green Day reclaim its spot at the top of the punk-pop heap and "remind everybody who's the best." He explains that theory, as well as his affinity for grass skirts and more, right here in our MTV News Online feature interview...
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Tre Cool: What are you wearin'?
MTV News: Uh, I'm wearing a top hat, tails, spats...
Tre: I got a grass skirt... some coconuts.
MTV: Nice. Now, are you guys sprinting to get this album finished before the Warped Tour starts?
Tre: Everyone's sprinting somewhere. I don't know where we're sprinting. We're not really sprinting. We're just doing the same pace, but it's a pretty fast pace for recording. We're faster than every other band, pretty much. That's what I've been told by people. We practice for a long time, like two years. We've been practicing and writing songs and playing them, and playing them, and writing new ones, and playing them, and playing them, and just hanging out at home with our families and getting together every day, five days a week, playing. People think we're off in Hawaii, you know, kicking back and sh**, but we're in Oakland playing our jams. [RealAudio]
MTV: You must know the stuff inside out.
Tre: Dude, literally, we could play the album, all our parts, without the other guys there, we know the songs so well.
MTV: How close are you guys to being done at this point?
Tre: We've got to mix and stuff, so I'd say it's a month until we got a disc that we can flaunt and brag about. I can brag right now, but I really can't back it up, because it's really not done. But I'm still braggin', 'cause its f***in' amazing.
MTV: Really? Well, how would you describe it?
Tre: It's got so much more color. It's just got depth. It's got different layers. It's like each song has its own life. It's like each song has its own feel to it, its own vibe. It's like each song could be its own album. It's not like everything is totally wacky. It's not like The Who's "A Quick One" or anything like that. Everything's very well thought out and well placed on the record. The sequence is good. It's like we got all these things that are always a problem when we record, and it's all thought out already on this record. We didn't leave anything to the last minute. [RealAudio]
There's more acoustic guitars... not, like, sappy acoustic. It's like the kind of acoustic that's just really aggressive, like kind of percussive acoustic. It's just real f***in' raunchy and sick, dope acoustics. There are different kinds of wider and deeper drum and bass tracks, and they sit really well. You can kind of dive inside the record. Billie's lyrics are getting better and better.
MTV: I read something online a couple months ago -- it was actually a letter from Billie, and he talked about how the lyrics were more optimistic this time around.
Tre: Yeah, it's true. There not all, like, downers. I guess people have described other songs that we have as really happy music, and then once you get into the lyrics, it's like, 'Oh, f***.' We had kind of dark lyrics, and I don't think there is as much as that going on [this time]. It's still got some of that. It's got the sarcasm and the snottiness, but it's got a little light at the end of the tunnel, if you know what I mean... a little more hope.
MTV: Are these songs that came while you guys were on the road, or do you set aside time to try to write?
Tre: Billie writes songs when they come to him. I don't know how he does it. I've seen other people try and write songs, and they try and write songs -- I'm not going to name names or anything, but I've seen people do it in other bands -- 'Let's write a song,' and that's not how it happens. That's not a real song. Not a Green Day song, anyway. For me, that's a real song. For me, Green Day songs are real songs, and all other songs are less important, but that's just because I'm in Green Day, and I think everyone else in Green Day probably feels the same way.
MTV: Well, it sounds like you guys are excited about the new material. What's the vibe like in the studio as you're recording it?
Tre: F***in' heavy emotions, man. It's really happy, really tense sometimes. When we're here and we're partying, we're partying good, we're partying hard. When we're working, we're working hard. Ideas have just been flowing around this place, like, just f***ing bouncing everywhere. We've kind of lost our minds a little bit, actually... in a good way. It's, like, a blessing to lose our minds in such a way. We're in creative mode for such a long time now. It's like we can't stop. We did some photos, and we just went f***ing berserk, man. Everything we do, we do the extreme amount. [RealAudio]
MTV: You guys are heading out on the Warped Tour this summer. What's the appeal of doing that tour at this point? You could probably be headlining your own thing, so why do this?
Tre: Well, we've got to stake our claim a little bit, to remind everybody who's the best. We haven't played live for a while, and I think people are forgetting. There's a lot of imitators out there, so we've got to remind people.
MTV: I doubt they forgot.
Tre: They remember, but if they can't get Pepsi, they're going to get RC, you know. They can't get the real, they're going to get the substitute.
MTV: What else are you looking forward to about the tour?
Tre: I'm going to learn how to skate the ramps. I'm going to learn how to drop in this tour. Well, first I'll have to learn how to skate at all. Mike and Billie know how to do that sh**, and Timmy Chunks. Timmy Chunks has been with us for a long time... since July 4, 1994. He's our guitar tech, and he plays guitar with us sometimes, and he skates good. But I don't skate.
MTV: Well, you'll have plenty of time to learn.
Tre: Yeah, I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn to skate really good, and if I can't, I'm going to get hurt doing it.
Source: MTV
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