Green Day Issue 79

AT !" welcome to jingletown Green Day’s ‘clubhouse’ in Oakland, CA has been a secret warehouse hideaway for the band for some time now. But a new (second-hand) SSL console recently changed all that and now the place is a full-blown studio. Text: Andy Stewart Walking in o! the street through the razor inner sanctum of Green Day’s world, replete and how you play your instrument that matters wire fence into a car park that seems big with motorbikes, sur%oards, more instruments most. And they’re so on top of all that stu!. &ey enough to host go-cart races – which I later and amps than you can poke a fretboard at, and can play a song in the studio and just nail it, just discover it occasionally does – you might be three studios (at least two with their own control like they do every night when they’re on tour. But forgiven for thinking the industrial premises room). If you’re a Green Day fan this is Mecca. they’re also equally as comfortable cutting tracks you’ve just entered manufactures car parts or One room in particular is "lled to the ra$ers individually. Either way, they’re still gonna knock poker machines or something. Either that or it’s a with literally hundreds of guitars and drums – it’s every song out of the park. drug cartel that’s none too keen on visitors. You’d an impressive sight, and immediately my mind certainly never pick it as the home base of one of is drawn to how complicated the decision must TRACKING GREEN DAY the world’s biggest rock bands. be about which amp to use with which guitar AS: What’s a typical Green Day recording session and for which overdub. &e options must be like for you in terms of tracking. How do songs Just over the back fence is a frenetic eight-lane paralysing at times for Chris and the band. I had kick o!? freeway and all around you in nearby businesses, to ask… semi-trailers back into giant warehouses, with CD: Usually the guys have already worked on a little regard for people in cars. It’s not exactly Chris Dugan: Actually, not really. Billie [Joe demo at home, so most of the time they’ll come tranquil. But hey, this is Oakland, the industrial Armstrong] sits and listens to guitar amps for in with an idea already developed, show it to sister city of San Francisco. If a car comes hours on end and he basically knows all his each other, jam it out, play it, and then, if it’s crashing through the back fence I wouldn’t be instruments back to front. He has this crazy ear. something that they want to proceed with, we’ll st surprised. It’s the same with the other guys in the band. Tré have a crack at it. On the last record [21 Century [Cool] sits and tunes his drums like a madman. Breakdown] it was kind of a mix of both, whereas Right up the back of the warehouse is the "rst He knows what heads to use and always wants on the previous record [the smash hit American clue that all is not as it seems behind these his drums to sound awesome. He’s fastidious… Idiot] we were essentially living in the studio for impenetrable tilt-slab walls. Painted on the and a very heavy hitter. &e same goes for Mike a while and at one point or another everything modest doorway is a gra#ti-styled mural of the [Dirnt]. Nothing gets past these guys in terms of got miked up: the B3, the pianos… everything. guys from Green Day – with all three members their sound. When we get going in the studio all &at way it was easy to record anything, anytime. pictured sitting down like they’ve just stepped the sounds are already dialled up; I don’t have to &at’s the best thing about having your own space out of the warehouse for morning smoko. worry about any of that stu! really... it all comes too, of course: we can just set the whole show up Buzzing the door prompts a quick response. from the band. Everyone knows their gig – you and leave it. Suddenly the band breaks up – or at least the don’t really have to say anything to them. As an AS: Are things fairly set-and-forget once they’re mural does. Billie Joe and Tré Cool disappear engineer it’s hard to make sure everything sounds set up or are you constantly moving things behind the opening door and Mike Dirnt is le$ good sometimes – especially instruments – so around and changing things? on his lonesome wondering what happened. having fantastic players and great instruments to CD: It depends. &ese guys have a di!erent Standing next to him in real life is Chris Dugan, mic up makes my life just so much easier. the band’s engineer. approach to each instrument, depending on Andy Stewart: Would you say the band and their the song. Having said that, for the most part “Come in man,” Chris motions politely. “I’m just raw instruments are essentially ‘the Green Day it’s guitar, bass and drums so we’ll generally cut in the control room doing some editing.” sound’? those "rst, starting with the drums. While we’re With that I enter the Jingletown ‘clubhouse’, the CD: Absolutely, it’s what you bring to the table doing that, Billie’s always laying down a scratch guitar track. When the drums are "nished we AT !" usually remove everything, then typically go back Breakdown record I double-miked the toms, and knock out guitars. which was certainly di#erent to what I’d done before. It was an experiment really, just to see AS: Does the band ever track whole takes how it sounded. Turned out I absolutely loved it. together? I’ll probably continue to run with that idea for a CD: Yeah, we do. Although, we’re now getting while. into the habit of going back and getting right into AS: Keeping the bottom skins on I assume? recreating unique sounds at that point anyway. So o!en the original guitar performances aren’t used. CD: Yep, Tré’s a big double-head kind of guy, so A!er we listen back Billie will o!en say, “Hey you they were all miked much like you would a snare know what? I think I might use the other amp for drum. You just %ip the phase. "e di#erence that.” So yeah, even when the band tracks as one, in the double-miked sound was particularly most of the time we still re-cut Billie’s part again noticeable on the %oor tom. It was just huge anyway. sounding, almost too big – so much more sustain, particularly when the drum was in tune. Actually, AS: You never run several amps together so you in reality, it was a bit of a problem because the have choices later? note was o!en too long for the speed of the song. CD: No, we’ve never really done that. But that’s "e %oor tom was just going boooooom and by not to say we won’t in the future! "e guys have the time the sub $nally calmed down it was like, this little side project band called "e Foxboro “Wow, that’s a lot of low end!” No need to EQ-in Hot Tubs and on that record we did everything extra bottom-end that’s for sure. completely live in the studio. "at was really cool AS: I guess it’s the same sort of mentality as two and spontaneous. "e guys basically wrote the mics on a guitar amp, where you can pretty much songs right there and then and tracked them live, EQ the amp with just fader positions… which was a blast. CD: Exactly, and that’s how we do the guitars too. AS: "ey’re all obviously great players. I can’t If there’s no reason to use EQ, I don’t. On guitars, imagine that they couldn’t just get in there and I’ll always put an SM57 up. It’s my standard nail most things pretty easily. reference mic, like NS-10s in speaker land. I just CD: "ey can and they do. "ey absolutely do. put it on and go, ‘Oh okay, if I put a [AKG] 414 or a [Sennheiser MD] 421 on this I won’t have to CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, (BANG!) touch a thing!’ I typically do that with the snare AS: Can we talk a bit more about your typical drum too just to get going. recording process for a Green Day song, assuming there’s such a thing? For instance, do ROOM TO MOVE they usually start with click tracks etc? AS: Does Tré’s drum kit get miked to hell in CD: Yeah, I mean if it’s a song they know the terms of room mics? tempo of, we’ll usually setup a click… feel it, li! CD: Certainly on this last record I kind of went it up or down a few notches and get it right. A overboard because we had the space. We were at lot of stu# on the recent record [21st Century Ocean Way in LA. It was my $rst time working Breakdown] was played to a click track, but not there so I sel$shly put up more room mics than right the way through ’cause the tempo o!en I $gured we’d ever need.

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