Billie joe armstrong what kind of drugs

I had no choices anymore. It was just this routine. My backpack sounded like a giant baby rattle from all of the vials inside. Anytime I feel like drinking, I can think about it.

Radar and RadarOnline are registered trademarks. Growing up around [the nonprofit no-alcohol Berkeley club] Gilman Street, we drank behind the bushes until we were old enough to get into bars.

I played onstage loaded a lot. Fall asleep, wake up the next day, feel like shit, do soundcheck…. It was over and over again. In that way, I was a functioning alcoholic. Were there any warning signs on the way to Las Vegas? We were playing some shows in Europe. One night, I called a friend of mine who was in the hotel room next door.

What the fuck are you talking about? We talked about it later. We got to this theater gig we were playing in London. Tell you what. It was a great gig — 40 songs over nearly three hours. You also looked like you were dancing on the edge of control. I threw back four or five beers before we went on and probably had four or five beers when we played. Then I drank my body weight in alcohol after that.

It was a pretty heavy night. In Las Vegas, though, you completely lost control. As soon as I landed in Las Vegas, I was in a bad mood. To be honest, a lot of it was trying to come up with a set list. I should have thought of it like a TV show, not a concert. I got really pissed off. I went to this place where [guitarist] Jason White was having lunch and a glass of wine.

But I was already filled up with lots of drugs. I blacked out. I remember tiny things — getting to the venue, being backstage, trying to shake the buzz off. I remember seeing the minute sign clicking down — click, click, click. The next morning, I woke up. I heard 15 minutes. Adrienne seemed to think it was a half-hour. We usually play for two and a half, three hours. I should have just played a few songs and been done with it. My sister Anna was watching it [on the Internet].

She called my other sister and mother, who were there. Do you have any memory of what you did or said onstage? People will remind me a little bit. And it makes me so sick. Did you consider watching that footage, as part of your rehabilitation?

Anytime I feel like drinking, I can think about it. I would have if I was more sane. The insanity comes before the alcohol. Playing that show sober — maybe I would have enjoyed it.

Chances are I would not. There are kids out there, somewhere, who need this music and the history lessons we hope come with it. It was a pop-radio show that went terribly wrong. The consequences — including several months of canceled and postponed shows — hurt the sales of your three new records too. There was no band to promote them. It was pretty weird.

That comes before anything else, what it sells or ends up selling. I mean, give me a break! Life goes like this [ makes a deep-wave sign with his hand ]. But I love making albums. Do your sons buy albums? What intrigued Armstrong "was all this dismal insecurity and narcissism, and using social media to write his own strange manifesto," he says.

It's up to whoever reads it to judge. The album's title track, meanwhile, was sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement, after Armstrong stumbled into a rally in New York and proceeded to march with protesters. I didn't set out to go 'I'm going to write a song about this. There are immensely vulnerable tracks, too.

Still Breathing is about survival and overcoming hardship, he says, while opening track Somewhere Now touches on the struggle to find himself after rehab. Now four years sober, Armstrong received treatment for alcohol and drug addiction in after suffering a meltdown at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.

Much of it took place at home, so Armstrong "could be around my loved ones". They play London's Emirates Stadium on 1 June. But it's not going to be easy. There's also sleepless nights. This article is more than 8 years old.