Linda Perry, songwriter, producer, and frontwoman of 4 Non Blondes, took aim at Green Day in a recent interview over what she said was the band backing out of an agreement for her to produce their follow up to 2004’s American Idiot because she’s a woman and had produced pop singers.
“That was fucked-up,” Perry told NME in an interview published May 23rd. “All because (Green Day frontman) Billie Joe’s a little pussy and got all this backlash from his fans and didn’t like it.”
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In the interview, Perry recalled being contacted by Billie Joe Armstrong while Green Day was figuring out their next move following a successful run with the Grammy-winning American Idiot. The band asked her to produce their next record after she had an extended conversation with Armstrong, Perry said.
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Armstrong “was having his own meltdown, and I think life was getting to him,” Perry said. “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.”
Perry claimed she cleared six-months of work from her calendar to produce Green Day. She said she had a plan for the recording sessions. The members of Green Day had been recording their parts for albums separately, according to the interview, and Perry suggested the band track their instruments together as a live band.
The collaboration came to a halt after Courtney Love, a friend of Perry’s, talked about the 4 Non Blondes’ member producing Green Day, the interview revealed.
“Then Courtney blabbed her mouth that I was producing,” Perry told NME. “Suddenly (Green Day) started getting backlash from their fans, upset they were ‘bringing in Linda Perry who produced Pink and Christina Aguilera.’ And then those guys just stopped calling me. I would reach out to figure out what was going on. Nobody called. I lost six months of scheduled work.”
Perry described getting over the rejections and moving on, but said, “It was harsh and rude to do that. Just call me and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to go a different way. I’m not digging this backlash we’re getting.’ Just balls up, man. Not returning my calls was such a pussy move, and I lost a lot of respect for Billie Joe.”
Perry believes she was dropped as Green Day’s producer “because I was a woman, and I’d written pop songs.”
She said, “I was disappointed in those guys, and then I was mad at Courtney because if she would have just shut up, we would have made the record, and it would have come out, and it would have spoken for itself. I had a vision and knew I was going to kill that record.”
Around 2007, Green Day’s management denied Perry was set to produce American Idiot’s follow up, stating Rob Cavallo, the band’s long-time producer, would be at their side. Butch Vig ended up producing the next record, 21st Century Breakdown from 2009.
Perry recently released Let It Die Here, her first solo album in 25 years, with a documentary. She’ll be on tour supporting the Indigo Girls this fall and has a handful of dates with 4 Non Blondes in June and late September. Tickets for the Indigo Girls tour can be found here and the 4 Non Blondes dates here (get tickets here).
Pinhead Gunpowder, Armstrong’s other band with Green Day touring guitarist Jason White, recently announced a fall tour.
