Following the release of their new track “Bang Bang” Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt has expressed his concern over the effects of violent video games in a new interview. The band is slated to release new album Revolution Radio on October 7, and have doubts that the violent world we live in is having no effect on the current generation of children.
“My kids are going to grow up seeing things that I never saw, like Mixed Martial Arts,” Dirnt said to Kerrang!, via NME. “When that first came out, people were like ‘Oh f**k, that’s f***king violent.’ And now they play it on TV in restaurants. I’m supposed to eat and watch this sh*t wherever I go? Nothing makes me hungrier than watching two guys in weenie bikinis kicking the shit out of each other.”
He further said “Video games are different now too. You’re actually in there shooting and killing people. And that’s got to take a toll, but I don’t have the solutions.”
During the interview, front man Billie Joe Armstrong also gave his thoughts on Donald Trump, who he believes to be more of a threat than George W. Bush, the president who inspired their famous album American Idiot.
“Bush was an idiot, but Trump is absolutely crazy,” Armstrong said. “That guy won’t listen to people when he makes decisions. You can see it already. He just says whatever he thinks is right that second. It’s self-serving rhetoric. And it’s scary.”
In the same interview Armstrong also compared Trump to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, describing how his followers are poor, working-class people who don’t know any better. He described Trump as having “preyed on their anger,” in order to garner support.
New album Revolution Radio will contain 12 tracks and according to the band is mostly based on current events in the U.S., including mass murders and general social unrest.
