Bandmates Watch Out For Green Day's Billie Joe

Billie Joe Armstrong’s Green Day bandmates won’t let any ‘idiots’ backstage to prevent him relapsing.

Green Day - image By Ros O'Gorman

The band went on a temporary hiatus last year when lead singer Billie checked into rehab for substance abuse, following a public breakdown during a show in Las Vegas.

The star has now been released and the band are set to play UK music festivals Reading and Leeds this summer.

Mike Dirnt says the group will make some changes to help Billie stay on the straight and narrow.

‘He’s in a good place,’ the bassist assured NME.

‘What I will say is backstage is going to be a lot different from now on. We’ll watch for stuff getting passed around, not let idiots walk backstage, not get hammered and shit like that. When you’re in a band, everyone in the world wants to have a shot with you. But if you have a shot with everyone in the world, you’d be dead.’

During the fateful Las Vegas show, Billie Joe went on a profanity-laden rant and smashed his guitar in front of the audience.

Mike admits he was ‘shocked’ and is relieved to see his friend looking well again.

Whereas he didn’t visit the singer in rehab, he remembers the first time he bumped into Billie Joe after his breakdown.

‘It was funny, after about a month and a half, I was getting coffee and I randomly ran into him on a bench near a coffee shop. I was like, ‘This is like two old friends running into each other on a park bench.’ I hope we can do that when we’re, like, 90,’ he recalled.

‘He looked great, but what do they say, the symptoms are the last thing to show up but the first thing to go away.’