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I Started Off Small And Then This Was Just The Great Opportunity.

-Billie Joe Armstrong

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I Started Off Small

Billie Joe Armstrong

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I Started Off Small And Then This Was Just The Great Opportunity.

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Great Opportunity

More From Billie Joe Armstrong

That Was The Hard Part Of Having Kids: Trying To Be On Their Schedule, Then Fighting To Get To Sleep While They Are Sleeping.

There Were A Couple Of Times, Leading Up To Shooting [ordinary World], Where I Was Like, "oh, My God, What Did I Get Myself Into? Hopefully, I Don't Ruin This Guy's Precious Script." And Then, After A Couple Of Days Of Shooting, I Started Getting In The Groove Of It And It Was Really Fun. I Love Being A Rookie At Stuff. It Makes It Feel Vital. I Love Doing Things I've Never Done Before, And I Love Making Stuff.

My Goal Is To Be One Of The Biggest Bands In The World, And I Have Never Been Bashful About Saying That.

To Me, It Doesn't Feel Like It's Just Another Rock Record That Somebody Put Out. It Feels Like We Taped Into The Culture A Little Bit

I'm Not Going To Conform To Some Consumer Need.

There Are A Lot Of Bands Who Claim To Be Punk And They Only Play The Music, They Have No Clue What It's All About. It's A Lifestyle. It's Not About Popularity And All That Crap.

Just Because You're In The Missionary Position Don't Make You No Missionary.

Music To Me Is The Air I Breathe It's The Blood That Pumps Through My Veins That Keeps Me Alive

My Job Description Is That I'm A Rock Star. And I'm Good At It.

Moshing And Broken Glass Just Don't Go Together.

Controversy What Controversy This Is Reality. What I See Is That No Matter If You're A Conservative Or A Liberal Or Whatever Side You Stand On, This Is The Reality Of The Situation - That People's Families And Their Young Kids Are Being Affected.

Never Run In The Rain With Your Socks On.

To Do Something That You Feel In Your Heart That's Great, You Need To Make A Lot Of Mistakes. Anything That's Successful Is A Series Of Mistakes.

I Like To Keep My Girlish Figure

Life Isn't Pretty But It Sure Is Beautiful.

Rock 'n' Roll Can Be Fun And Dangerous At The Same Time.

The Darkness Is Coming Now God Dammit!

It's Not Only Exciting To Watch, But You Can Also Speak A Different Language With Each Other. It's A Music Language That's Unique, Compared To What Other Parents Do, Especially In Their Professional Lives. Not Everybody Can Talk About Being An Accountant.

I Think The Working-class Part Of Me Comes Out. Sometimes The People Who Have The Loudest Mouths Are Upper-class, Upper-middle-class. The Quietest Are Often Working-class People, People Who Are Broke. There Is A Fear Of Losing Whatever It Is That You Have. I Come From That Background.

You Can't Go Voicing Something If It's Just Not Right.

The First Time I Ever Saw Him Play, Tre Cool Was Wearing A Tutu And An Old-womans Swimming Cap.

I Just Want To Write Good Songs That People Love, Which Is A Tough Thing To Do.

We Had A Lot Of Fun Together. We Really Were In Sync With Each Other, A Lot.madisyn Shipman Is A Great Kid.

I Would Definitely Say The Oakland Raiders Are The Punk Rock Band Of Football.

Madisyn [shipman] Was Great. She's A Really Talented Kid. We Got Along Great. It Was Fun, In Between Scenes, I'd Pull Out My Ipod And Show Her Different Old Rock 'n' Roll And Punk Stuff, And She Was Really Into It.

I Think It's Your Own Choice If You Turn From An Angry Young Man To A Bitter, Old Bastard.

I Don't Like La. The Majority Just Seem To Be So Artificial. Look At How They Worship Everything They Think Is Fashionable. Isn't It Sick?

In Every Song I Write, Whether It's A Love Song Or A Political Song Or A Song About Family, The One Thing That I Find Is Feeling Lost And Trying To Find Your Way.

Punk Rock Isn't Supposed To Be For Everyone. There Is That Sort Of Private Club Mentality, Which Is Necessary. It Keeps Things From Getting Watered Down And Boring.

I Have No Idea Where My Career Is Going. I Just Make The Best Music That I Possibly Can.

In One Of The Scenes [in The Ordinary World], You Can See A Little Cameo Of My Son, Who's In The Party. You've Just Gotta Bring It All Back Home.

I Never Thought Being Obnoxious Would Get Me Where I Am Today.

I Approach Playing Acoustic Guitar More Of As A Percussive Instrument. It's Fragile. I Don't Have A Lot Of Finesse When It Comes To My Guitar Playing.

Anything That Is Successful Is A Series Of Mistakes.

A Man Once Asked Me, What's Punk? I Kicked Over A Trash Can And Said That's Punk. He Kicked Over A Trash Can And Then Asked Me Again, Is That Punk? I Replied No. That's Just Trendy.

We Pride Ourselves On Trying To Put On The Best Show We Can And We're Not Afraid To Say That We Happen To Be The Best Live Band In The World.

I Don't Want To Limit Myself Musically. It Would Be Really Limiting If We'd Neglect Something We Really Want To Do, Like Explore Other Styles Of Music.

She Smashes Her Knuckles Into Winter As Autumn's Wind Fades Into Black She Is The Saint Of All The Sinners, The One Whose Fallen Through The Cracks... (iviva La Gloria!)

When Someone Is In A Car Accident And They're Driving At 100 Mph, Drunk, Who's Tape Do You Think His Listening To At That Time? Think About It.

Minority Is About Being An Individual. It's Like You Have To Sift Through The Darkness To Find Your Place And Be That Individual You Want To Be Your Entire Life.

They Have Bad Taste. I Am Not A Good-looking Guy.

I Don't Care What You Do, I Just Don't Want To Be A Mud Hippie Like You. [from 1994 Woodstock]

When You Start Getting Into Your Politics It's Like You Have To Be Vulnerable And You Have To Be Sort Of Sensitive. Because If It's Always Like Straight Aggression All The Time, There Becomes No Empathy For The Stance That You're Taking. You're Not Telling People To Think, You're Telling Them What To Think. And Also You Have To Be Honest With Yourself On That, Too.

Woodstock Was About The Closest Thing To Anarchy I've Ever Seen In My Whole Life, And I Didn't Like It.

I Hate Television. I Hate The Internet. I Hate Cell Phones. I Hate Cameras. I Hate Everything That Destroys Creativity.

Coffee Is The Absolute Most Dependably Ordinary Thing I Could Have Every Single Day.

Ordinary Things

We've Been Together As A Group For A Long Time So This Means A Lot... We've Done Everything Ourselves Until This Point, So Thank You To Everybody ... Do Everything You F - -n' Believe In, Because This Is What It's All About.

If You Have Children, You Don't Want To Have Drugs And Drinks In The House. It's Just Not Good.

I Don't Feel Any Shame I Won't Apologize If There Ain't Nowhere You Can Go Running Away From Pain When You've Been Victimized Tales From Another Broken Home.

I Love My Friends And Family, But Playing, That's My Dna.

Family And Friends

I Love My Friends

I Think People Are Born Bisexual, And It's Just That Our Parents And Society Kind Of Veer Us Off Into This Feeling Of 'oh, I Can't'. They Say It's Taboo. It's Ingrained In Our Heads That It's Bad, When It's Not Bad At All. It's A Very Beautiful Thing.

It Would Be Great To Do A Rock Opera, But Using More Low-fi Technology. I Love Shitty-sounding Records.

I'm Not As Depressed As I Used To Be. The Prozac's Working!

We Stayed Very Close To Each Other [with Leek Kirk], And Lee Was Amazing. We'd Go Through The Script Together, Rehearsing It Before Every Shot With The Other Actors. He Was Just Easy To Work With. We Were Able To Put It In My Language, Which Was Really Important.

You Want A Drumstick? Like A Ice Cream Cone Or A Chicken Wing!?

What I See In A Lot Of Music Movies, Or Rock 'n' Roll Movies, That Feature A Band Is That They're Lip-synching.

I Threw A Big-ass Party. It Turned Out A Bit Different From Perry's [in That's Ordinary World], But It Was Pretty Nuts. It Wasn't Me That Threw It Though, My Wife Threw Me A Surprise Party. So [unlike Selma Blair's Character] She Didn't Forget.

Punk Is Dead To Anyone Who Didn't Get It In The First Place

I Hate Celebrities. I Really Hate Them.

Our Passion Is Our Strength.

A Lot Of Punk Rock Is Not Going To Be In The Mainstream. It's Below The Radar. The Beauty Of It Is That You're Not Supposed To Always Know. It's Subterranean.

I Started Off Small And Then This Was Just The Great Opportunity.

Great Opportunity

What Annoys The Hell Out Of Me Is The Arrogance Of Some People. They Don't Even Listen To Our Music, They Decided In Advance That They Don't Like It.

You Don't Get Nothing And Like It.

We've Been A Band For 16 Years. This Is What You Dream About.

I'm An Idiot Anyway, But Sometimes You Feel Like An Idiot Times Ten When You're Stoned.

I Sort Of Enjoy The Fact That I'm Misunderstood Most Of The Time. That's Fine.

This Never Gets Old, And When It Does, I'll Go Do A Movie. I Like The Fact That I Can Get Into Other Projects Because Everything Feels Fresh When I Come Back To Music.

For Some Young People, Their First Experience Ever Hearing Punk Rock Music Was Playing The Green Bay Packers On 'madden'.

I Think The Little Bush Is A Bit Stupid And More Or Less The Puppet Of His Old Man.

I Thought Everybody Was In On The Joke. But I Was The Joke.

My Brother David Was A Great Athlete And I Knew There Was No Way I Could Live Up To That.

History Will Tell If We Were Really A Good Band Or Just A One Day Fly.

The Things That People Do Now In Sports, You Can't Even Believe. These Are Complete Total Athletes. To See What Human Beings Can Do In The Highest Level Is Amazing.

Thats What Green Day Is-there Are No Rules.

Time Passes By Like Lightning. Before You Know It You're Struck Down.

Every Night I Play As If My Life Depends On It.

We Never Fit In Completely To [the Punk] Scene Because We Were Writing Love Songs That Were Heartfelt And Endearing. Some Of The Punks Didn't Know What To Make Of Us, But I Finally Realized That Was What Made Us Punk. We Sang What We Meant, From The Heart, And Didn't Worry About What Anyone Was Going To Think.

A Punk Concert Isn't Fun Without A Pit.

The Main Thing About The Character [in The Ordinary World] Is That He Loves Music, And He Shares It With His Daughter. He's Having A Mid-life Moment, And It's A Small Moment, Really. I Think That The Character Actually Really Loves Where He's At, In His Life. He's Just Trying To Have It Make A Little Bit More Sense While He Figures Out What He Actually Wants To Do With It.

No Matter What, If You're A Parent, You Have To Make Sacrifices.

I Want To Go Home And Just Go For A Long Walk. And Where I Want To Go, I Have No Idea

The Thing Is, Acoustic Could Be Like A Four-letter Word To A Lot Of Kids.

I'm A Father. It Isn't Just My Life Any More. I Don't Want My Kid Finding Bottles In The House Or Seeing His Father Completely Smashed.

Eventually, If Something Pops Up, That's Cool, But I Still Wanna Continue The Process Of Learning How To Be A Good Actor.

Dont Test Me, Second Guess Me, Protest Me, You Will Disapear! (east Jesus Of Nowhere)

I Was On Drugs When I Wrote Some Of My Songs. It Was A Rough Time For Me, But I'm Lucky Enough To Be One Of The People Who Learned From That Experience And Moved On, Where Other People Just Got Addicted And More Addicted And More Addicted Until It Killed Them.

It's Not Necessarily Getting Older Or The Change That Comes With It, I Think It's More About The Memories That You Have. Where You Can Look At Your Life In These Eras.

I Know I'm Always Going To Be A Musician, For The Rest Of My Life. That's For Sure. It's About How You Balance Between Being A Musician And Being A Parent, And Making It Intertwined.

I Just Plug In And Let Go.

I'd Love To Go To Art School. I'd Love To Learn How To Draw. I'd Love To Be Fluent In Spanish. I'd Like To Be A Brain Surgeon.

I Played St. Jimmy On Broadway I Sort Of Caught The Acting Bug. But I Didn't Want To Go Full-bore Into It Because I Have A Lot To Learn.

It's Okay To Grow Up, It's Just Slowing Down That's The Scary Part. Running Out Of Time. It's Okay To Grow Up, But It Doesn't Mean You Have To Become Like Your Parents.

I Got Body Lice In Germany! I'd Tell You They Were Crabs, But I Wasn't Getting Laid.

I'm A Dirt Bag Rock And Roller. I Want To Represent That Before Anything Else

The Thing About Punk Is That There Are Purists. Once You Start Going Outside Of That, They Don't Think What You're Doing Is Punk Rock.

The Fact That I Was Taking Naps In Churches, In Between Takes Of The [ordinary World], And There Was That Guerilla Style Of Filmmaking, I Felt More At Home With That.

You Can't Live On Planet Rock Star 24/7; You Have To Be Down And Dirty And Have Some Fun.

People Are So Damned Afraid That One Day They Might Wake Up And Discover That They've Grown Old.

I'm Not F-ing Justin Bieber, You Motherf-ers!

I Think We Have The Worst Name In Rock, I Really Do. It's The Worst Name In The World

The First Time That You Escape From Home Or The Small Town That You Live In - There's A Reason A Small Town Is Called A Small Town: It's Because Not Many People Want To Live There.

I Think Everybody Should Get Married. Boys And Girls. Girls And Boys. Boys And Boys! Girls And Girls! Shouldn't We All Be Entitled To A Family-civil Rights Baby It's Civil Rights. It Doesn't Get Any Better Here In Berkeley I'll Tell You That.

The Musical Is Amazing. I Mean,i Don't Throw Around That Word Very Often Unless Im Talking About Myself. Being Humble Is One Of My Many Fine Qualities. Ign Interview May 2009

A Lot Of People, When They Talk To Me, I Can't Wait For Them To Shut Up. Like, Shut Up. You're A Moron. I Have Nothing To Say, You Know?

We Do Have American Idiot Picked Up By Hbo And I Wrote The Record And Concept To It. [we Have] The Writer Rolin Jones And [director] Michael Mayer [who Also Directed The Broadway Production], So We'll See What Happens.

There's An Honesty In Our Family - My Kids And I Are Able To Talk About Things Without Me Putting The Fear Of God Into Them.

That's Where All Good Music Comes From, I Think - Anything That's Likely To Have An Impact On Pop Culture Comes From A Point Where There's No Expectation Of It Becoming Anything Other Than Personal.

Just Because You Sing Songs About A Certain Feeling Doesn't Mean You Have To Go Feeling That Way Forever. You Can Sing About That For The Rest Of Your Life, But That Doesn't Mean Things Aren't Going To Change In Your Own Life.

One Thing I Can't Do Is Do Anything Half-assed. I Want To Make Sure Everything Is Right, That The Song Is Fully Realized.

Set Lists Are Tough Because You Come Up With This Structure Of How The Songs Are Going To Go From One To The Next, But At The Same Time, You Have To Be Spontaneous And Take Requests And Change The Set List At The Drop Of A Hat.

We're Not A Political Band. We Don't Want To Tell People What To Do Or What To Think. We Just Want To Tell Them To Think.

If I Look At My Old Lyrics, They Seem To Be Full Of Rage, But Empty. There Was An Emptiness In My Life.

There's Nothing Wrong With Being A Loser, It Just Depends On How Good You Are At It.

Punk Is Not Just The Sound, The Music. Punk Is A Lifestyle.

My Wife Is The Ceo Of The Family. I'm The Fun Guy, Just Trying To Make It Up As I Go Along.

I Don't Want To Live In An Ivory Tower, Being The Songwriter Who Just Turns Inward.

With Age, It Really Becomes Thinking About How Time Has Passed - That's Sort Of The Root Of Age.

I'm A Songwriter-i'm Obligated To Keep Pushing Myself.

Punk Will Never Be Dead To Me. It's My Life. I Can Never Just Drop This Lifestyle. It Embodies Me.

I Definitely Related A Lot To Perry [from That's Ordinary World Movie]. I Liked How He Put Family First. I Identified With The Exhaustion And Klutziness That Comes With Being A Parent, And How He's Just A Rock-and-roller At Heart. For Me, It Was Fun To Kind Of Imagine Whether Or Not This Could've Been The Path I Went On, Or Not.

If Journalists Ask You Again And Again About The Same Bands, You'll End Up Saying You Hate Them Just Because You're So Fed Up With Being Asked All Those Stupid Questions.

With My Family, My Sons Both Love Music And Play Music, And They're Really Good At It.

Pretty And Demented At The Same Time, Like Me.

Punk Is Always Something That's Going To Be With Us And To Try And Explain That Would Be Stupid At This Point.

That's The Gamble That You Make When You Decide To Become A Rock Musician. It's Totally Unpredictable.

When I Was Done With The Movie [ordinary World], I Felt Really Compelled To Start Working On Another Album. Little Did I Know, They Were Going To Come Out Back To Back.

Do You Have A Problem? I Have A Gun. I'll Shoot You. No Problem.

Well, You Know, I Look At Myself In The Morning And Yes, Yeah I-i Am A God.

One Thing I Want To Teach My Son Is Sensitivity To Other People. I Want To Teach Him Not To Be This Macho Freak.

When We Were Making The Record, I Just Decided, At The Last Second. I Thought, "this Song ["ordinary World"] Makes A Lot Of Sense, Being On The Album [revolution Radio]."

You Don't Mow Another Man's Lawn!

I Can't Sleep Very Well At Night. It Takes Me A While To Get To Sleep. I Could Just Be Nocturnal. I Have My Nighttime Witching Hour Where I Hang Out, Listen To Records Or Watch Tv.

Attack Your Instruments. Don't Let Them Attack You.

The Record [american Idiot ] Felt Special To Us, When We Recorded It, With All Of The Artwork And The Concept Behind It And It Being A Rock Opera, But We Didn't Really Know Where It Was Going To Go. It's Like I Always Say, You Just Follow The Music. Not Only Was American Idiot A Special Moment For Us, But It Also Led To Ordinary World, Too.

What Is Going On In America Is Extreme. The Youth Cult, They Worship Youth So Much It's Almost Paranoid. And La Is The Mecca Of It All; They're Taking It To The Hilt.

You Have To Search The Absolute Demons Of Your Soul To Make A Great Record.

If Britney Spears Would Paint Her Ass Green, I'm Sure You Would Spot Green Asses All Over L.a., As Soon As The Word Was Out.

I've Been Playing Rock And Roll Since I Was 16 Years Old, And Now I Have A 16-year-old.

I Heard Davey Havok Has A Brand Of Eyeliner Out Now... Its Afi-liner

I'm Always A Work In Progress.

Work In Progress

It Came Up After Doing St. Jimmy On Broadway For American Idiot. I Loved Acting, And So I Just Kept My Options Open.

People Think We Really Look Good. I Think That's The Biggest Misconception People Have.

And You Don't Want To Always Write About Politics Just For The Sake Of Writing About Politics.

With The Video For Boulevard Of Broken Dreams We Were Going For Something A Bit Like Ladykillers, You Know? Pretty And Demented At The Same Time...like Me!

We Are Not Afraid To Be Entertainers.

I Sound Like An Englishman Impersonating An American Impersonating An Englishman.

We're Gonna Get High, High, High, When We're Low. The Fires Burn From Better Days. She Scream Why, Oh Why? I Said I Don't Know!

As Agent Asked If I Wanted To Be Represented, And I Said, "yeah, Sure, I'll Give It A Shot!" It Was Never Something I Had Really Put That Much Thought Into. But Then, Lee Kirk Reached Out And Asked If I Was Interested, And I Read The Script Of The [ordinary World] And Said, "absolutely!"

A Guy Walks Up To Me And Asks, "what's Punk?". So I Kick Over A Garbage Can And Say. "that's Punk!". So He Kicks Over The Garbage Can And Says, "that's Punk?", And I Say, "no That's Trendy!

The Thing Is, My Education Was Music. I Knew I'd Be Playing Music No Matter What. That's All I Thought About, I Was Obsessed With It. I'm Still Obsessed With It. It Gets The Best Of Me Sometimes.

I Think That's The Big Difference Between This One [ordinary World] And A Lot Of The Other Rock 'n' Roll Movies. They're Playing To Tape, But Fred Armisen And I Were Actually In A Rock 'n' Roll Bad Together. I Also Really Related To The Character, Especially When It Came To The Parenting Part. I'm A Pretty Klutzy Parent.

I Just Wanted To Get The Hell Out Of My Town. I Wanted To Leave With Reckless Abandon. I Didn't Care Where I Ended Up, As Long As I Saw As Much As Humanly Possible.

Just Seeing The Things On Tv And The Things In Front Of You, The Amount Of Information Coming In, And The Lack Of Information Not Coming In, How Could You Not Help But Write Songs About It.

I Loved The Independent Spirit Of The Whole Experience, Instead Of Doing A Big Hollywood Picture, Or Something Like That Where I Would Have Felt More Out Of Place.

If Me And Mike Dirnt Are In The Same Room, It's Not Quite Right If He's Not On Stage With Me.

I Just Open My Mouth And Out It Comes.

It's Better To Regret Something You Have Done Than To Regret Something You Haven't Done.

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