Green Day: “If you’re finding your music via algorithms then that’s just lazy”

Green Day have criticised the notion of finding new music “via algorithms”, such as on TikTok, as “lazy”.

• READ MORE: Green Day – ‘Saviors’ review: their best work since ‘American Idiot’

The legendary rock trio have said in a new interview that they think listeners can miss out on a broader spectrum of new music if they’re reliant on social media to discover emerging artists.

“Social media is great for kids but if you’re finding your music via algorithms then that’s just lazy,” bassist Mike Dirnt told The Sun. “I like to organically find new things. All I can say is just clear your search history to find new [stuff].”

“I was told that ‘Brain Stew’ was a sudden popular thing on TikTok with a lot of hip-hop kids dancing to it. And that’s cool,” added vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong. “But I don’t have the patience to use it. It’s just like, eurgh. It’s cool for other people but we’re old-school man.”

Armstrong went on to express concern at similar algorithms fueling the spread of misinformation online.

“With all the algorithms that people live on, there’s so much false information, and there’s people diagnosing themselves with Asperger’s off TikTok. That’s absurd to me,” he said.

Armstrong also explained why you won’t hear him express his opinions on social media, despite them forming a strong part of Green Day’s music. “My opinions are always in my songs. I don’t like to Tweet or Instagram about politics, because you’re contributing to insane people who are just arguing and taking sides. So I write about it in my songs.”

Green Day’s new album ‘Saviors’ was released today (January 19). In a four-star review, NME said: “There’s some serendipity in the band hitting the road to celebrate 30 years of ‘Dookie’ and 20 years of ‘American Idiot’ later this summer. Not only does ‘Saviors’ spiritually bridge the gap between the two, but it uses the palette of the best of the band to tell us something else.

“Look to the artwork: ‘Dookie’ was a cheeky carpet-bombing of shit, ‘American Idiot’ was a hand grenade, ‘Saviors’ is an act of defiance met with a shrug; a band saying, “We’re still here and we’re still fucked”.

The band celebrated the release of the album by playing an intimate show in New York City, where they played ‘One-Eyed Bastard’ live for the first time.

The band will be embarking on a huge world tour this year in support of the album. Nothing But Thieves, The Hives, Donots, The Interrupters, Maid Of Ace, The Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid, and The Linda Lindas are set to join as support across select dates and tickets can be found here.

In other news, Green Day have recently shared a riotous video for their new single ‘Bobby Sox’.

“It’s the ’90s song that we never wrote. It started out being a song I wrote for my wife but as it materialised, I wanted to switch it up and added, ‘Do you wanna be my boyfriend?’ on top of ‘Do you wanna be girlfriend’… So the song becomes a kind of universal anthem,” said Armstrong in a press release.