GREEN DAY'S BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG SONGS OF MY LIFE

THE ROCK STAR REVISITS HIS CATALOG AND GETS CANDID ABOUT FAMILY, GRIEF AND MENTAL HEALTH 

- JEFF NELSON

Green Day has been rocking on for more than three decades, but frontman Billie Joe Armstrong recently wondered if he’d gone soft. For the first time, the punk revivalist wrote a song dedicated to his sons Joey, 28, and Jakob, 25. “I was like, ‘How do I sum this up without getting too sappy?’” Armstrong, 51, says of the new track “Father to a Son,” which appears on Green Day’s 14th studio album, Saviors (out Jan. 19).

The band—rounded out by bassist Mike Dirnt, 51, and drummer Tré Cool, 51—broke through in the ’90s with playful ponderings on growing pains and has long made noise with sneering protest anthems. But Green Day’s music has always been packed with heart, soul and a powerful punch of vulnerability. Their new record is no different. Armstrong still tackles politics, but he also gets personal, writing about his struggles with mental health and substance abuse as well as his nearly 30-year marriage to his wife, Adrienne, 54. “We started out as kids—now here we are spending our middle age together. We’ve been through so much in our life, and we’ve always been able to come out stronger,” says Armstrong, whose new song “Bobby Sox” was inspired by nights on the couch watching The Office with his wife. “I’ll take all of the good and the bad; I wouldn’t change a thing.”