I remember Green Day came down and played this South Florida club called the Plus Five. I think I was too young to go - I think I was 12 or 13. It was before Green Day were on a major label, but I loved them because they were this band who were a punk band, but they had melody.
I was a Green Day guy because the first DVD I bought was Green Day's 'Bullet In A Bible,' the live album. That really empowered me to be not just a drummer but a performer. It's a really crucial part of why I wanted to be in a band.
We don't ever want to be this political band. We're just a bunch of dudes.
Mostly by [listening to] Green Day. I listened to music a little bit before I had heard of them, but after I'd heard of them, I knew music was my calling. I listened to it all day, and I loved it so much that I wanted to be a part of it, so I worked on being in a band from there.
I wanted to be in a band that gave bang for the buck. I wanted to be in the band who didn't look like a bunch of guys who, you know, should be in a library studying for their finals.
For 'tis green, green, green, where the ruined towers are gray, And it's green, green, green, all the happy night and day; Green of leaf and green of sod, green of ivy on the wall, And the blessed Irish shamrock with the fairest green of all.
The very first concert I ever went to was a Green Day concert when I was 12 years old, at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, Ont., and I remember right after seeing them perform I started a band, and I wanted to get up in front of people and start performing. Ten years later, to be on the Green Day 'American Idiot' tour is really awesome.
I can always tell the demographic that will probably recognize me - white dudes, sort of skater-y hip hop white dudes, and working class black dudes.
Green Day is a band that you always felt had something to say, whether it was about the times or love or heartache.
I have noticed when you get a bunch of dudes in a room together, and you just have one woman or two women, the dudes will bro out. And the woman won't get heard.
We were all 16 and 17. When you're that age, you're just daydreaming all day. We had bands we loved - Green Day, Weezer, a lot of bands in the '90s - and we just wanted to have fun. We didn't overthink it too much.
It's funny, because I had no intention of being in a band because I was so shy. But I loved playing music and loved writing songs. I always thought I'd be in the background and, if I did get into a band, be a backup musician.
As a songwriter, I've always loved to tell stories. But in my band, it was always about what would make sense for a band to put out.
The reason I stopped doing the band is that I wanted to do something different... Yes had become like 'Groundhog Day' for me. I loved being in the band, but it was album-tour, album-tour, different album-different tour.
I've always been the guy that loved being scared or loved having pressure on me, because I always wanted to prove myself wrong and always wanted to prove that I could do it.
I always wanted to play music, and always loved it. I saw a band come to school, when I was in elementary school, and wanted to play drums. I started playing drums at 11, and that's where it all started.