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Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong has shared a new cover as part of his new No Fun Mondays series of quarantine sessions – you can listen to it below.
Armstrong’s latest cover is a take on Kim Wilde’s ‘Kids In America’ – and he dedicated it to Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt on his birthday.
It follows on from earlier covers he’s done of Starjets’ ‘War Stories’, The Avengers’ ‘Corpus Christi’, The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’, Tommy James and the Shondells’ track ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ and Johnny Thunders’ ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’.
“This week’s No Fun Mondays is dedicated to the one, the only, Mike Dirnt. Happy birthday!” Armstrong said in the song’s caption. “Play this one loud just for him: We’re The Kids In America, originally by Kim Wilde and then recorded later by The Muffs.”
Listen to the Green Day frontman’s new cover below:
Last month, Armstrong covered ‘That Thing You Do!’ in tribute to musician Adam Schlesinger, who wrote the song for the 1996 movie of the same name. Schlesinger passed away in April from complications related to the coronavirus.
Aside from learning new covers, Armstrong has also been using his extra downtime to work on upcoming Green Day material. In a recent interview with Kerrang!, the frontman revealed he’d been “writing a lot of music” during the lockdown.
“I had all these melodies in my head, so I wrote, like, six songs since all of this has been going on,” he said. “I don’t know when I can get together with Mike [Dirnt, bass] and Tré [Cool, drums], but I told them to make sure that they’re quarantined for now, and then I hope down the road we can get back in the studio with [‘Father Of All…’ producer] Butch Walker.”
Armstrong added that he’s also been spending his time indoors watching The Office as well as “going through all of my punk and rock’n’roll documentaries, trying to read a little bit here and there, and hanging out with my dogs.”
“I feel pretty lost in all of this,” he added. “I think a lot of people are trying to do the right thing and be with their families and friends as much as they can.”
The jaunt, which has already seen its opening leg in Asia axed due, was due to hit the UK, Europe and US this summer before heading to Australia and New Zealand in November.
But Armstrong’s band have now decided to put a number of European dates on hold. No official new dates have been announced but they said they will return in summer 2021.
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