Billie Joe Armstrong, talking to Rolling Stone about “Minority:”
After “Time of Your Life,” I started getting into playing more acoustic guitar, and I really wanted to have more for Warning. And there was also a lot of kind of bad pop punk that was starting to happen, and I wanted to go against that genre. This felt like the next step. I had been getting into listening to more of the Kinks and the Who, who found a lot of power in an acoustic song, and used the guitar almost like a drum. “Pinball Wizard” is so percussive. I wrote this right before the election between George Bush and Al Gore. I started feeling the political wheels starting to turn toward conservatism a little bit. I think that song is sort of about declaring that you’re stepping out of the line, you’re not part of the sheep, and trying to find your own individualism. It felt like we were diving into something that was more conceptual for sure.
I’d like to go back and rerecord that album. It was right when Pro Tools started happening. I want to go back and just do everything more live, because I think “Minority” live is a lot better than it came out on the album. But that’s just one of those things that you think about too much.
Warning is still my favorite Green Day album.
