Onstage & Iconic

“We were staying in Copenhagen and this guy comes up to us after the show and he's like, 'Come over to my house and you can meet my roommate, Sleepy.' So we were like, 'OK, we'll go meet Sleepy.' So we go over to his house and get in our sleeping bags and get ready to crash out. And then all of a sudden, he rolls in this formaldehyde tank with a human head inside of it. And he's like, 'This is my friend, Sleepy.'”

“When we play our last song, we don’t want to scream at the crowd. We want to feel a sense of unity with them.”

“Back in the day, I think it was on the Kerplunk Tour, we had a show booked in New Jersey. I remember arriving there and there were 1,100 people there, even though we’d never played New Jersey before. I was really surprised. That’s how we did it – we just toured a lot. People always ask us, ‘How did you make it?’ But we just spread the word little by little. We toured a lot, and toured a lot, and toured some more. We loved playing, so that gave us a positive attitude towards our work.”

“If there's one thing I can't understand, it's this habit of constantly taking videos and photos with cell phones everywhere. You're on stage and you only see phones. I always say, ‘Go on, take a few pictures and then put the damn thing away and let's finally dance and have fun.’ I mean – that's what we're here for!”

“Playing songs for people sends energy to the crowd. And then they send it right back to you, and it's a blast.”

“I think I’ll always have that teenage awkwardness – the most awkward guy in a crowded room of people. I’m pretty socially inept.”

“I get into Instagram, and the next thing I know, someone will say, it’s all about Snapchat now! It’s like, oh God, leave me in the Stone Age — I got one foot in the Stone Age and the millennium right now.”

“Our crowds can expect to get laid.”

“My mom sent me a hate letter after Woodstock. She said that I was disrespectful and indecent and that if my father was alive, he would be ashamed of me. She couldn’t believe that I pulled my pants down and got in a fight onstage. She even talked shit about my wife, Adrienne, and how she’s supposed to be my loving wife, but she’s never even come over and visited. It was pretty brutal.”

“I don’t wanna shart onstage. You get a little older, these things happen more frequently…”

“I saw somebody say the other day, ‘They played a couple of covers when they should have squeezed in some more of their old catalog, but I guess it’s OK since they did 33 songs.’ Fuck you. Who plays 33 songs? Not to mention, some of those songs are seven and nine minutes long. Come on, man.”

“There are times when Billie Joe calls Bush an asshole from the stage, and we see a guy throw us the finger - but then they’ll change it into a fist and start pumping the air.”

“That place and that culture saved my life. It was like a gathering of outcasts and freaks. It wasn’t about people moshing in a pit and taking their shirt off.”

“Your speedo is my democracy.”

“We’ll probably end up being like the movie Weekend At Bernie’s. If I’m dead you guys can just drag me and prop me up onstage.”

“If me and Mike Dirnt are in the same room, it's not quite right if he's not on stage with me.”

“Stop throwing shit or I'll jump in there and beat your ass.”

“[Our 'Waiting' video] was totally a failure. [MTV] doesn't show any videos anymore. If we had a booty video - if we had, like, McG, with girls shaking their ass in the video -- it would probably get played. Actually, I am just really bitter right now.”

“Are you Canadian? Oh, okay, 'cause you're sure as hell acting like one right now.”

“The band is like a marriage. We get onstage and fuck each other!”