The Songwriting Process

Billy Joe Armstrong, vocalist and guitarist of pop-punk band Green Day, comments on bringing ideas to the band and writing electric guitar parts on an acoustic:

You write all the songs together in the band. Do you start songs on your own and bring them in?

Yeah, sometimes. I’ll come up with the song with the chord changes and the lyrics, and then I bring them into practice, and then we sort of restructure them together. I like to come in with a tune. I’ll just play guitar and sing it for them, and then we start to learn it. And as soon as we start to learn it, we can make changes and come up with a different structure. Move the chorus around, make the verse a little longer. That kind of thing. I definitely like to think of it as a collaboration between the three of us.

Do you always change the songs?

Well, we have a lot of songs. There have been some that I have brought in and nothing really needs to be done. Sometimes I’ll suggest a part that needs to be worked with, and we’ll try some different things. And then they’ll write their bass-lines and drum parts around it. 

…

These days do you write on electric guitar? 

No, on acoustic. I have a Silverine Harmony. But it sounds good. I just have it around the house, so I’ve written most of the songs on it. 

Do those songs then shift a lot when you bring them to the band, and play them on electric? 

No, because I always have it in the back of my head about the dynamics of electric guitar and drums and bass. Between me and [bassist] Mike and [drummer] Tre, I always have that dynamic in my head – what am I going to bring to the table that they’re going to be able to play, and which will have our certain energy. I always keep our energy and our music in mind, sort of subconsciously. But I think that’s the beauty of this. That not only can I play these songs with a band at full volume, but also that I can play them on a cheap, acoustic guitar. And it can have the same kind of impact. 

Source: Blue Railroad magazine