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Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong Says ‘Dilemma’ Tackles Substance Use, Mental Health With Zero Filter: ‘There’s No Metaphor’
“For me, alcohol gets in the way of everything, from my relationship with my family to just trying to get a good night’s sleep,” the 51-year-old rocker said.
On the group’s latest single, the punk bossa nova “Dilemma,” Armstrong tackles his alcohol addiction and trip to rehab in such clear-eyed lyrics as, “I was sober, now I’m drunk again/ I’m in trouble and in love again/ I don’t want to be a dead man walking… Welcome to my nightmare/ Where dreams go to disappear/ Sit around in rehab/ Feeling like a lab rat.” Armstrong went to rehab in 2012 in the wake of a bizarre onstage meltdown at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas during which he ranted about the group’s time being cut and smashed his guitar. He most famously did so on their 1994 major label debut, Dookie on the hit “Basket Case,” in which the singer chronicled his crippling anxiety attacks, as well as on “Geek Stink Breath” from their 1995 follow-up, Insomniac, in which he detailed the harsh effects of methamphetamine use on his body.
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