Elf jaar nadat het zevende album American Idiot uitkwam, kondigt Green Day hun nieuwe documentaire “Heart Like A Hand Grenade” aan.  De band werd hiervoor negen maanden lang gevolgd tijdens de opname van dit album. De docu wordt op 15 oktober uitgebracht.

Regisseur John Roecker zei het volgende over “Heart Like A Hand Grenade”:

“I discovered Punk Rock in 1977 when I was watching a television show with Dick Clark and he had a segment about Punk Rock and he was basically making fun of it. They had a few seconds of the Sex Pistols and I was hooked. Finally music I could relate to that was not about living in the Hotel California. It was music that was about real life and real people. The Punk Rock scene in Los Angeles made anything achievable. You could do whatever you wanted. Make music art and films. The impossible was now possible. I immersed myself into the Punk Rock lifestyle. Saw The Germs, X, Black Flag, Circle Jerks and countless others. Went to Midnight Screenings of films like David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” and John Water’s “Pink Flamingos”. It was an art revolution that was happening and I could not of been happier. Then as soon as it started it was gone. The music scene had changed to Heavy Metal hair bands and sacred palaces such as the Whisky a go-go were now bombarded with men in spandex and lipstick just singing songs about getting laid. Years later I left Los Angeles and went up North and a remarkable thing happened.

I went to a small club called The Berkeley Square. There I saw for the first time the band Green Day. When I saw them I knew the revolution had returned. Later I had met Billie Joe Armstrong the lead singer of Green Day and a friendship began. We would speak on the phone exchanging thoughts and ideas and he was going to be in my film “Live Freaky Die Freaky” a very controversial film about the Manson murders done in stop motion animation, and he was going to embark on a new musical journey. I told him he should document the recording of the album and he said they had tried and it never worked. I suggested that he set up tripods around the studio and just have cameras run so it would not be too invasive of the process of the recording (I was hoping he would get my hint!). Then I got a phone call on a Friday night and he said he and the band will be in Los Angeles on Monday and why don’t I be the tripod. Thus began my Nine months with Green Day.”

De volledige verklaring van Roecker kun je op de website van Green Day lezen.