As Green Day gear up for their live return to the stage March 10 in Pomona, CA, bassist Mike Dirnt spoke with Rolling Stone about frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s meltdown in Las Vegas last fall that led to a stint in rehab.
“When Billie showed up, it was, ‘You're not right. What's going on?’,” explains Dirnt, about the his concerns prior to taking the stage at the iHeartRadio festival. “I kept an eye on things, and it just went progressively downhill. Me and Billie – we don't play like 12-year-olds anymore. But at one point, I was like, ‘Let's goof around.’ Somehow, we ended up wrestling backstage. I thought, ‘If I can just get some of this out of him . . . ‘ But with the mood depressants and alcohol, it doesn't end up in a jovial party.”
Dirnt spoke about what it was like watching Armstrong lose it on stage.
“You know, truth be told, I agreed with what he said, outside of mentioning anybody else. I know that's not Billie,” he says. “But the bigger side of it – I actually agreed with the rant. But I was watching my friend and going, ‘You're out of your mind.’”
In a new cover story feature on Armstrong and his recovery, the singer explained that Dirnt read him the riot act after the Vegas incident, before he went to rehab.
“For me, it started off as concern for my friend,” says Mike. “Then it turned to anger. Then it came full circle to ‘I'm angry for what you're doing to you. Whatever the heck is going on, that's not you, and it's gone so far down. You're doing it alone, and you're not letting us in.’ Sometimes you have a friend or loved one that needs you to shake them. They don't see a path out.”
As far as returning to the road in support of their album trilogy ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!, Dirnt says he is “cautiously optimistic – anxious as well. I'm excited that everything is going to take off again. I just want to make sure we get one foot in front of the other and do it right."
Read the full session with Green Day's Mike Dirnt at Rolling Stone here...and watch the band's complete Las Vegas concert (including Armstrong's meltdown) below.
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