Green Day side project Pinhead Gunpowder announce new album, share first song in 16 years
Green Day side project Pinhead Gunpowder are returning with their first new music for 16 years.
The band is comprised of Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, touring guitarist Jason White, along with Bill Schneider on bass and Aaron Cometbus on drums and lyrics. They have been active since the early ’90s, but in that time have only released one official studio album, their 1997 debut ‘Goodbye Ellston Avenue’.
The band had been teasing a comeback by sharing a reel yesterday (September 5) of including a photo of the four of them, teasing some news would drop on September 5, 6am PDT. They also shared the logo for Oakland label 1-2-3-4 Go! Records and captioned the post: “Here goes the neighbourhood…”
Now, they have confirmed a new album, ‘Unt’, is coming on October 18. The announcement has coincided with them sharing the title track, its first new song in 16 years.
Check it out – and the album tracklist – below:
Tracklist:
1. ‘Unt’
2. ‘Difficult But Not Impossible’
3. ‘Scum Of The Earth’
4. ‘Oh My’
5. ‘Nothing Ever Happens’
6. ‘Draw It In’
7. ‘Shine’
8. ‘¡Hola Canada!’
9. ‘Here Goes The Neighbourhood’
10. ‘Mumbles’
11. ‘Green’
12. ‘Chowchilla’
13. ‘Trash TV’
14. ‘Song For Myself’
“Pinhead Gunpowder started writing songs in 1990 and made our first 7” the following spring,” the band said in a statement. “But since 2010, we’ve been playing just for ourselves, something bands forget to do. Rather than ‘writing for the new album’ or rehearsing to get ready for tour, we went back to the basement every year. We lived in the house we’d built, remembering how we’d made the music for each other in the first place. We played all over the world — well, at least Oakland, Singapore and New York — but only for each other. We worked on the reissues of our back catalog, too, and found ourselves fonder of each other and more family-like than ever.
“A new record was only a matter of time, but between the members’ other bands, projects, and families that was hard to find. When we finally did, we were all surprised. We think it’s our best yet — our catchiest, most collaborative, and most poignant.”
Members of Green Day have started numerous side projects over the years – the whole band are also involved in the garage rock offshoot Foxboro Hot Tubs, along with new wave group The Network.
Meanwhile, bassist Mike Dirnt and Armstrong also started The Coverups together alongside other Green Day touring members, where they normally perform special shows to sing various cover songs.
Armstrong has also formed another garage rock band called The Longshot, who released their debut album ‘Love Is For Losers’ in 2018.
In other news, a Green Day concert in Detroit was temporarily halted by an unauthorised drone. The pop-punkers are currently embarking on their ‘Saviors’ stadium tour with Nothing But Thieves, The Hives, Donots, The Interrupters and Maid Of Ace as various support acts, where they are touring the release of their latest album ‘Saviors‘.
NME hailed the record as Green Day’s “best work since ‘American Idiot’ in a four-star review: “There’s also some serendipity in the band hitting the road to celebrate 30 years of ‘Dookie’ and 20 years of ‘American Idiot’ later this summer. Not only does ‘Saviors’ spiritually bridge the gap between the two, but it uses the palette of the best of the band to tell us something else.
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Emma Wilkes
NME
