The band Green Day thought gave punk a bad name: “They trivialise what we do”
Many rock fans still speak about punk with a certain reverence. Even though the genre may have started to bring down any of the revered sides of the genre, artists like The Clash and the Sex Pistols are still applauded for breaking down the walls of pretension and opening doors for people who couldn’t play massive solos to become stars. Although Green Day may have been proud to sport their punk credentials in their early days, they saw Blink-182 as everything wrong with pop punk.
When looking at both bands, it feels like Green Day calling Blink-182 out for not being punk is one of the ultimate instances of the pot calling the kettle black. Compared to most of their contemporaries in the world of pop-punk, though, the trio behind songs like ‘Basket Case’ and ‘Welcome to Paradise’ knew what the hell they were talking about.
Before the group got started making radio-friendly rock and roll, they had paid their dues in their local scene by playing at the acclaimed venue, 924 Gilman Street. Although they would be banned from playing there once they signed to a major label, the venue would be home to some of the biggest names in the Northern California punk scene, featuring performances by The Offspring and Operation Ivy, the latter of which would eventually be folded into Rancid.
Whereas Green Day had known the rough parts of the punk underground, Blink-182 had gotten together thanks to Tom DeLonge working alongside Mark Hoppus after meeting through school friends. Since Hoppus’ sister knew DeLonge wanted to put a band together, the pair eventually began writing songs with original drummer Scott Raynor before becoming larger than life in the late 1990s with Travis Barker behind the kit.
Even though Green Day had their fair share of catchy pop tracks, Blink was never afraid to wear those kinds of projects on their sleeves. Outside of the incredible chops from Barker, many of DeLonge’s and Hoppus’ pieces practically sounded like nursery rhymes with loud guitars, with DeLonge even admitting that songs like ‘Dumpweed’ were almost too catchy in that respect.
As Blink-182 were first breaking into the mainstream, though, Green Day had long since left pop-punk behind, trading it in for acoustic-based music on the album Warning. Although the outfit would eventually go out with Blink in the early 2000s on the Pop Disaster tour, bassist Mike Dirnt recalled how little the band thought of their San Diego counterparts at the time.
When talking about Blink’s success off of tracks like ‘What’s My Age Again’, Dirnt recalled, “I was really happy for them, but now I find it a little irritating. I think they trivialise what we do and punk rock in general. It’s like throwing shit in the face of someone who had substance at one point.”
Even Billie Joe Armstrong thought that the group were wearing their influences a bit too close to their chest, later claiming that they sounded closer to what NOFX had been doing a few years earlier. While Blink would carry on as one of the dominant forces in 2000s rock, Green Day were about to resurrect themselves as gods of the genre.
In the age when bands like Simple Plan were rising to prominence, American Idiot blew everything out of the water, featuring Armstrong’s strongest songs draped in a concept around the terrors of the Bush political regime. Blink-182 may have been able to make crowds move, but Armstrong was looking for the kind of music that moved something in his audience’s heart rather than generating another pop single.
