Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer’s ‘Hella Mega Tour’ was inspired by the ‘Monsters of Rock Tour’.
The three major rock groups are heading out on a mammoth jaunt in 2020, which includes a stop at the London Stadium on June 26, and Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has revealed he wanted to pay homage to the annual festival tour, which was an offshoot of the legendary heavy metal extravaganza Monsters of Rock, which took place at Donington Park in the East Midlands in England – now home to Download Festival – in the 80s and 90s.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio, Billie said: "It’s kind of a Green Day idea.
"And we talked about how we weren’t really wanting to do stadiums and do something that was like throwback to ‘Monsters of Rock Tour’.
There was, of course, Fall Out Boy and Weezer and now we’re stoked."
Fall Out Boy’s bassist, Pete Wentz added: "To me, I remember, in the 90s, there was this one summer, and Guns and Roses, Metallica went on the stadium tour and my parents didn’t let me go to it.
"And I feel trapped in that forever and we wanted to … You know what I mean? But you want to recreate that memory.
"Hopefully if somebody who gets to go to the tour, I think this tour represents counter-programming, I think that the world is moving in one direction in an obvious way, or whatever.
"I think that this tour represents counter programming to that and it’s awesome to take part in that and be a small part of it."
The tour will follow a new album from Green Day, which they have unveiled as ‘Father Of All…’ , and will likely drop in February.
The record sleeve features a "rainbow, bright" unicorn and is "only 26 minutes long".
The ‘American Idiot’ hitmaker teased: "Well, we recorded an album and it’s called ‘Father of All …’ its song title is also that.
"It’s got a unicorn on the cover. It’s rainbow, bright. "It’s got a horn and it’s got funny eyes.
"Yeah, we made a new record and we’re really excited, it’s only 26 minutes long, so it’s the shortest record we’ve made, I think since Dookie or Insomniac."
The LP will document and "reflect" the "crazy times we live in" with Donald Trump in charge of The White House, but Billie says whilst there is "a lot of depression" running through the songs, it’s done with a "sense of humour".
On what fans can expect from their follow-up to 2016’s ‘Radio Revolution’, he added: "There’s a lot of depression, but with a sense of humour.
"But also just kind of the way the world works right now where everything is, I think it’s just, we live in just the time of complete and total chaos – or else we’ve always been, but now it’s turned up to Trump. "So it’s just trying to reflect what’s going on.
"And it’s not really writing like political songs, but just writing stuff that, just the s*** that you see every day. [‘American Idiot’ was the] good old days.
"Remember when we just had two wars going on? It’s like, ‘Yeah.’ Anyways, yeah, we live definitely in the craziest of times right now."
Tickets for the ‘Hella Mega Tour’ go on sale on September 20 at Ticketmaster.com
Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer announce Hella Mega Tour
