Green Day Continue Their Bizarre Comeback With ‘Fire, Ready, Aim’

Hey, so, real talk… are Green Day okay?

Obviously they’re secure from a commercial standpoint — they’re still arena-fillers in their own right, and most of 2020 is going to see them on a world-conquering co-headliner with Weezer and Fall Out Boy.

If you’ve been following the campaign for the upcoming 13th Green Day album, however, you’ll have seen a band seemingly coming off the hinges. For starters, the album is literally titled Father Of All Motherfuckers, so there’s that. The cover is a cartoon unicorn that looks like it’s an off-cut from Homestar Runner. If that wasn’t enough, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong posted an inexplicable, expletive-laden rant about the album to the band’s Instagram.

“Rock has lost its balls,” he wrote. “We’re gonna teabag all these mother fuckers. The baddest rock band on the planet that gives a shit.” Sure, why not.

We were then treated to the album’s title track, which — in a matter truly befitting of “the baddest rock band on the planet” — features glam guitars and Armstrong attempting a falsetto while draped in a gold suit.

Now, the second track from the album has been put forward, and the big-talking promises of the aforementioned Instagram manifesto really seems to just be more hot air. ‘Fire, Ready, Aim’ is not only in the exact same key as ‘Father of All Motherfuckers,’ but it’s almost the same tempo too. Green Day have done plenty of stuff that feels removed from their 90s heyday and even their 2000s comeback, but what they’ve been putting forward from this new album so far is borderline unrecognisable.

Conspiracy theories among fans are already rampant, suggesting that this new album is being put together as some sort of ‘troll’ in order to get out of their record contract. Realistically, it’s more likely that Billie Joe and co. are going through some sort of midlife crisis here — but if this whole affair is a Joaquin Phoenix-esque performance art piece, bring it on.

Listen to ‘Fire, Ready, Aim’ and watch the new NHL ice hockey commercial it soundtracks below.