In 2012, Green Day introduced a trilogy of albums: ‘¡Uno!,’ ‘¡Dos!,’ and ‘¡Tré!’ These releases marked a change in the band’s musical direction with different themes and sound from the previous albums.
In an interview with Total Guitar after ‘¡Dos!’ came out, Billie Joe Armstrong talked about the project’s inspiration and revealed its connection to guitarist Zakk Wylde. He said:
“On ‘American Idiot,’ I started getting into more tasteful, appropriate things. But, this time, I almost wanted to play things that were deliberately not tasteful and inappropriate! So, we were just like, ‘F**k it, let’s f**kin’ tear up a f**kin’ guitar solo right now!’ I kind of wanted to make Zakk Wylde’s favorite Green Day record, you know?”
The singer spoke of the guitar solos in ‘¡Uno!’ by mentioning:
“The funny thing is, on this record, I actually play more guitar solos than I have in years. That’s kind of what came out of the room while the four of us were playing together. The more I was doing it, the more they’d encourage me to keep doing it!”
Delving into the reason why they included these parts, he added:
“I always had it in my arsenal of guitar playing, if you will. I used to use it live, but not really, and on the very early records, I did it more often. On ‘¡Dos!’ And ‘¡Tré!’ it gets even more intense. It’s more just about having fun: I wanted to be able to pull out these guitar solos on these records and just go for it.”
An incident in 2012 followed the release of ‘¡Uno!,’ though. Armstrong cut Green Day’s performance at the iHeartRadio Music Festival short and smashed his guitar on stage.
The band then revealed that the vocalist checked into rehab for drug abuse. Four years later, Armstrong admitted his addiction’s effect on the trilogy in a chat with Q:
“Those records have absolutely no direction to them. It was about being prolific for the sake of it. So we were just going and going and going.”
With more detail about his situation, the singer went on:
“The thing about someone who’s losing their mind is that they don’t know they’re losing their mind. I thought my life was completely normal. And it wasn’t. I was on drugs! And people aren’t acting rationally when they’re on drugs. So, I had to take care of myself. I had to kick that, and I did. Then we took a long break, which was totally necessary.”
Despite Armstrong’s words, the trilogy achieved commercial success in the US. ‘¡Uno!,’ ‘¡Dos!,’ and ‘¡Tré!’ debuted at number two, nine, and thirteen respectively on the Billboard 200.
Still, Green Day included only one song from the records in its hits album, ‘God’s Favorite Band,’ in 2017. You can listen to the song called ‘Oh Love’ in the video below.
