Other than Green Day, we haven't had a lot of protest music over the past few decades.
'Jesus of Suburbia' is such a dynamic song from start to finish; it's nine minutes of craziness and hectic-ness and emotion... It's one of those songs where I know that for the next couple of days, I don't have to go to the gym, because I got my workout running around the stage and thrashing to Green Day.
I've always been a rocker. Like ever since I was really young. I had a crush on the Green Day guys. That's always been what I was like and been my interest.
I always wanted to be in a band with a bunch of dudes who loved Green Day and all that.
I was a Green Day guy because the first DVD I bought was Green Day's 'Bullet In A Bible,' the live album. That really empowered me to be not just a drummer but a performer. It's a really crucial part of why I wanted to be in a band.
We were all 16 and 17. When you're that age, you're just daydreaming all day. We had bands we loved - Green Day, Weezer, a lot of bands in the '90s - and we just wanted to have fun. We didn't overthink it too much.
I grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.
When we started, our style of music wasn't on MTV. It wasn't cool, and it wasn't popular. The only bands who were even kind of similar were Blink-182 and Green Day. But we don't sound like those bands, even if people throw us in that category now.
I remember Green Day came down and played this South Florida club called the Plus Five. I think I was too young to go - I think I was 12 or 13. It was before Green Day were on a major label, but I loved them because they were this band who were a punk band, but they had melody.
Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day always says we were influences on him, because he does melodic but distorted, like what we were doing. The Ramones were doing it. We were doing it. The Buzzcocks, all those bands.
