Difficult Day True To Punk Form, Green Day Doesn’t Seem To Care Whether People Like Follow-Up Album To ‘Dookie’

You know Bay Area punk rockers Green Day have entered the national consciousness when the 6- and 7-year-olds at your son’s birthday party request the band’s hit single “Basket Case” and blithely bop along with that ode to neurosis, boredom and lost control.

Selling 9 million copies of their debut album, “Dookie,” appearing virtually non-stop on MTV and instigating a free-for-all mudfight at Woodstock II will do that for a band, though Green Day recently rejected a chance to solidify their hold on the kiddie market by turning down an invitation to appear on “Sesame Street.”

“We couldn’t handle a mosh-pit full of 5-year-olds,” says singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong.

“That’s how old I was when I smoked my first joint,” snorts bassist Mike Dirnt.

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. Back in 1983, Armstrong and Dirnt (ne Pritchard) were 11-year-olds when they met in Rodeo, Calif., a dreary, blue-collar suburb of Berkeley located in the shadow of an enormous refinery.

Four years later, they founded a band called Sweet Children, which played bad heavy metal at an unending series of parties and small clubs until changing their name to Green Day, after one of their songs that celebrated the joys of “smoking dope and hanging out.”

By the time the pair were 17, they inked to the Mendocino-based indie Lookout label, released the album “39 Smooth” in 1989, and ended up touring the U.S. and Europe several times before hooking up with drummer and Northern California native Tre Cool (a.k.a. Frank Edwin Wright III) for their second record, “Kerplunk,” in 1992.

At the time, the band was much-celebrated on the punk-indie circuit, and when they left Lookout in early 1993 to test the waters for a major label, there was certainly no lack of interest.

But even Reprise Records, which signed the group, couldn’t imagine that “Dookie” would go on to become the biggest-selling punk rock album of all time.

Taking its sound from such punk pioneers as the Ramones and the Buzzcocks and updating it with an air-tight rhythm section and Armstrong nasal, faux-Brit vocals, Green Day turned out to be the long-vaunted Next Big Thing which had been predicted for every punk rock band from the Clash and the Sex Pistols to Rancid.

Cut to summer 1995 and all is not exactly well in the Green Day camp. The boys are defensive about their success in a genre that doesn’t necessarily reward commercial achievements, but they’re learning quickly.

It’s a rather wary trio that greets me at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles as they put the finishing touches on their new album, “Insomniac.”

Armstrong, Dirnt and Tre Cool are in the control room listening to mixes of the first single, “Geek Stink Breath.” Tre Cool greets me by saying, “Every question you ask we don’t like, you have to remove an article of clothing.” I envision doing the interview in my underwear and it’s not a pretty sight.

The demands of fame seem to have frazzled the guys, two of whom (Armstrong and Tre Cool) are now fathers for the first time.

“I feel like I’m in a surreal kind of dream,” says the green-haired Armstrong. “I really do. Sometimes I feel like it’s a nightmare and sometimes it’s like a fantasy.”

“People are going to think what they wanna think and that’s fine,” adds Tre Cool. “Let the rest of them get on with their own lives. You can’t defend making music.”

For the members of Green Day, though, punk - or whatever you prefer to call their three-chords-and-a-cloud-of-dust, hook-filled pop - was always more than just music.

It was a culture, a way of life for three kids whose home lives were pretty erratic, with single parents and unstable situations.

Armstrong and Dirnt actually moved into a squat in Oakland together, celebrated in the hit song, “Welcome to Paradise.” The group found a community at the famed Gilman Street Project, a punk rock venue and hangout Armstrong called his “salvation,” but a place they realize, somewhat reluctantly, they’ve outgrown.

“We were getting too big for that scene in ‘93,” says Armstrong. “The only friends we had anymore were the three of us. The last thing I want to do is limit myself. Because that’s not a good way to vent your creativity. You have to keep moving forward or you’ll get stuck in the same place.”

On “Insomniac,” it would seem the band wants to do what Nirvana set out to do on their second album, “In Utero” - weed out all the fair-weather fans with an album that’s harder, more difficult, more punk.

There’s strings, some slow songs and a little reggae mixed in with punk anthems like “Geek Stink Breath” and “Stuck With Me.” Other tracks include “No Pride,” an anti-American tirade against nationalism; “Brat,” about kids waiting for their parents to die so they can collect their inheritances; and “Walking Contradiction,” apparently a rant against the pressures of overnight fame.

It’s the old second album syndrome - even though it’s technically Green Day’s fourth - an experience which might prepare them for the cursed “sophomore jinx,” even while Armstrong insists he wouldn’t care if a fourth of the people who bought “Dookie” purchase “Insomniac.”

But while “Dookie” captured a recognizable lifestyle of vegging in front of the TV, drinking beer and smoking pot, the latter is set against a backdrop of increasing wealth and isolation from their fans.

“Many of the songs on this album are about breaking the borderline of insanity,” explains Armstrong. “We’re trying to capture a time and place. It’s more interesting that way.”

But can they maintain that delirious sense of righteous anger which fueled “Dookie”?

“I probably feel (madder) now than I have in my whole life,” insists Armstrong. “There are a lot more irritations now. OK, so you don’t have a day job or a stupid boss, but you come across a whole new realm of total morons and complete foolishness all the time. It’s a little more out of control.

“You have to fight for any kind of privacy you can get. It sucks sometimes. Hey, I’m not gonna deny it’s nice when people come up and say they like your music. Especially when they really understand the band.”

“You gotta realize two minutes of your time is an entire moment in someone’s life,” adds Dirnt, a safety pin dangling from his ear. “That’s a lot of pressure.”

“You create this nice, little packaged thing called a CD,” says Armstrong. “And then everybody gets their chance to see it, criticize it, rip it apart, love it to death - until it becomes theirs. Since we’re such a big part of that, people feel to some extent like part of us belongs to them. These days, you’re just handed rock stars day in and day out on MTV. It’s not like with the Beatles.”

Ah, the double-edged sword of MTV. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Certainly, without the all-powerful video channel, Green Day wouldn’t have upwards of 9 million albums sold. On the other hand, without its pervasive saturation, the guys might have lives of their own.

“I don’t have MTV,” says Dirnt. “I just got rid of it. I don’t like to watch other people on TV. I don’t like to watch myself on TV.”

“I can’t say it’s evil, because I’ve gotten into it,” confesses Armstrong. “It’s just one of those things where you shouldn’t swim in it constantly.”

One thing Armstrong can’t stand is being made, like Kurt Cobain, the spokesman for his generation.

“I feel like that pressure has been thrown on me,” he says. “I feel sorry for politicians because I’m sure they get that way more than we do. Of course, I feel sorry for them more for the simple fact they’re stupid enough to be politicians in the first place.”

Despite their aversion to politics, Green Day have been scrupulous about supporting good causes, whether it’s having militantly gay rock bands like Pansy Division open for them to counter punk homophobia or doing benefit concerts for groups they truly believe in. For example, the band recently donated all the money from several shows in the Bay Area to Food Not Bombs, the Homeless Coalition and several AIDS clinics in the area.

So what kind of run do they think they’ll have with Green Day?

“We’re not looking for a run,” says Dirnt. “We’re just looking to do what we do no matter what.”

Is it more like a sprint or a marathon?

“It’s like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump,” laughs Tre Cool.

“This is no marathon,” says Armstrong. “This is a sit-back-relax-and-enjoy-your-future life.”