We said, hey, what’s up with this Linda Perry/Billie Joe Armstrong feud?
The 4 Non Blondes frontwoman confirms in an interview with NME that Green Day had approached her to produce the follow-up to their massive 2004 album, American Idiot.
“I had a full calendar and cancelled six months of work to do it,” Perry says. “I met with Billie Joe and we talked for three hours, and he said: ‘I watched the documentary of you talking about Courtney [Love] and you’re so interesting and I was intrigued.'”
“He was having his own meltdown, and I think life was getting to him,” Perry adds of Armstrong. “Like every artist, I think he had got to a point where you feel like I have nothing to say and need help – there’s a therapy aspect to producing too.”
However, when word that she was producing a Green Day album got out, Perry says the band was met with backlash over her past projects working with pop acts like Pink and Christina Aguilera. Instead, the next Green Day record, 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown, was produced by Butch Vig.
“Then those guys just stopped calling me,” Perry says. “I would reach out to figure out what was going on. Nobody called. I lost six months of scheduled work. That was f*****-up – all because Billie Joe’s a little p**** and got all this backlash from his fans and didn’t like it.”
She adds, “Not returning my calls was such a p**** move, and I lost a lot of respect for Billie Joe.”
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