Green Day Releases Explosive New Single “Bang Bang”

On Thursday, rock band Green Day made their triumphant return with the new single “Bang Bang.” The group dropped the explosive track to kick off their forthcoming album Revolution Radio, due out October 7.

“Bang Bang” is the first new music from Green Day since “Xmas Time of Year” in December, but is the first single from the band since releasing a trio of albums in 2012 titled ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!

Lead singer Billie Armstrong sat down with Rolling Stone to talk about the new album. He recalled, “The first song where I was like, ‘OK, I’m onto something’ was ‘Bang Bang.’ And then the first track of the record, “Somewhere Now.” I started doing demos and I showed them to Mike and Tre. That’s the test. And they absolutely loved it.”

The upcoming album is Armstrong and the band’s outlook on the chaotic state of America in 2016. The subject matter on the album addresses issues such as police brutality and other relevant social issues that deeply impacted the songwriting process. According to the interview, the new single “Bang Bang” was written from the perspective of a mass shooter.

Armstrong stated: “It’s about the culture of mass shooting that happens in America mixed with narcissistic social media. There’s this sort of rage happening, but it’s also now being filmed and we all have ourselves under surveillance. To me, that is so twisted. To get into the brain of someone like that was freaky. It freaked me out. After I wrote it, all I wanted to do was get that out of my brain because it just freaked me out.”

Revolution Radio is the first album that the band has produced themselves since their album titled Warning, which was released back in 2000.

When asked what Armstrong hopes people get out of the album, he stated, “S***, man, I don’t know! I just hope they love it. I hope that they sing along while we’re singing with them.”

Do you look forward to listening to Green Day’s new album Revolution Radio due on October 7?