How Green Day Pulled From Their Touring Memories For New Coming-Of-Age Classic Nimrods

Previously titled New Years Rev, Nimrods follows a fledgling band named Analog Dog who are fooled into believing they're meant to open for Green Day at a New Year's concert. What follows is a madcap dash to the finish line, as the young members (played by Mason Thames, Kyle Coffman, and Ryan Foust) traverse the country with the goal of playing before their idols.

While the plot is fictionalized, writer-director Lee Kirk plucked various elements from the early touring stories told by Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool. The ensuing nostalgic adventure thus contains many moments diehard fans will recognize from the band's youth while also providing an entertaining, zany ride for any viewer — with the added bonus of a Green Day concert filmed for the movie.

ScreenRant's Ash Crossan sat down with Armstrong, Cool, and Dirnt for an interview about Nimrods, during which the band members explained why they never planned to make a biopic while pointing out a few moments that came straight out of their lives. The trio also shared musical highlights from not only this movie, but other soundtracks that have used Green Day needle drops.

How Green Day Combined Their Memories With Lee Kirk’s Imagination For Nimrods

ScreenRant: Was there ever a conversation of, "Do we want to do a biopic, or do we want to do this movie that's just inspired by our lives with these kids that are inspired by us?"

Billie Joe Armstrong: No, we never wanted to do a biopic. It's kind of old hat at this point, and we're not old enough. [Laughs]

Tré Cool: Weird Al kind of nailed that. Weird Al's movie was amazing.

Billie Joe Armstrong: One of my favorite rock and roll movies is Rock 'n' Roll High School. [Similarly], we're in Nimrods, but it's a different story about what's going on. We did take most of our own story from touring in the past, and we put it into the band Analog Dogs. That was the band coming to open up for us.

ScreenRant: In the credits, there's a lot of footage of you guys from back in the day, and some of it looks straight out of what we saw in the movie. What was the moment in the movie you were like, "Oh, this literally happened to us?"

Mike Dirnt: I think [writer-director Lee Kirk] would ask for color from when we were kids and stories and things like that, and a lot of that stuff is just directly taken from our lives. There are a lot of Easter eggs in it and everything.

As we were watching it, it's unique to the film in the sense that you're watching the kids in the film, who are amazing. We know, and some of our fans will know, but it's not [necessary] to have to know that to watch the film.

We're just revisiting some of the [memories] in a different way. Seeing certain things acted out is pretty wild. Seeing Gravy the puppet acted out is just different. It was the actor Gravy, not the puppet Gravy. And you're like, "Oh wow, the actor Gravy's really good."

ScreenRant: There are some unreleased live performances in the film, plus a new song. Talk to me about that experience, and what the fans can expect from the soundtrack.

Billie Joe Armstrong: We played basically a real live concert at the Palladium in Hollywood with our real fans. It was great. It was so fun. We got to pretend it was New Year's Eve, and it wasn't, so we got to have two New Year's Eve parties.

Lee went into some deep cuts also. Just all of a sudden in one scene when the car's driving down the highway, the song "Haushinka" came on, and I was like, "Whoa. That's a pretty deep cut." Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Tré Cool: Also on the soundtrack, we have The Paradox, Ultra Q, Mason Thames, and [Billie Joe's] son, Jacob, on there.

Billie Joe Armstrong: Yeah. My son wrote the songs for Analog Dogs. A great live performance from The Paradox. And McKenna Grace is there.

The Band Members Reveal Their Favorite Green Day Songs & Needle Drops

ScreenRant: Speaking of soundtracks, there are quite a few movies where there is a Green Day needle drop. I'm curious if you have a favorite one.

Tré Cool: I was watching the movie Bugonia, and I had no idea that our song was in it. In a very gnarly scene, "Basket Case" is playing, and I'm like, "Whoa, this is a trip." Most recently, that was the experience I had.

Mike Dirnt: Honestly, right now I'm kind of hung up on one scene in Nimrods, where "Walking Contradiction" comes on. It's just an epic little sleight of hand on that one.

Billie Joe Armstrong: Deadpool Wolverine was really nice. At the end, when they put in "Good Riddance," that was really cool.

ScreenRant: Do you have a Mount Rushmore of Green Day songs?

Mike Dirnt: I think everybody has their own Mount Rushmore.

Billie Joe Armstrong: Sometimes I go back to this one song, and I don't know why it sticks out for me all the time, "409 in your Coffee Maker." I never say that once in the entire song, by the way. That's just what we called it.

Gosh, I love "Coming Clean", "Scattered", "Jesus of Suburbia"... "Forever Now" is one of my favorite songs.

Tré Cool: They're all my favorite children.

Mike Dirnt: It's tough because I feel like there are multiple songs that hit highs throughout our career, and on different emotions. It could be that one day, you're needing a different song than the other one.

Tré Cool: You know what, Mike? When that happens, you should just tune into Sirius XM Channel 314: Idiot Nation. You could really wet your Green Day whistle there!

Mike Dirnt: When you don't really know what you need, get it all.