Green Day don’t like people using TikTok to discover new music.
The ‘American Dream Is Killing Me’ rockers – which include Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt – find it “lazy” when social media users rely on their previously-visited topics to be introduced to new artists because they think it means they are missing out on a broad spectrum.
Mike told The Sun newspaper: “Social media is great for kids but if you’re finding your music via algorithms then that’s just lazy.
“I like to organically find new things. All I can say is just clear your search history to find new [stuff].”
Billie Joe added: “I was told that ‘Brain Stew’ was a sudden popular thing on TikTok with a lot of hip-hop kids dancing to it. And that’s cool.
“But I don’t have the patience to use it. It’s just like, eurgh. It’s cool for other people but we’re old- school man.”
And the trio worry such algorithms are fuelling the rise of misinformation online.
Billie Joe said: “With all the algorithms that people live on, there’s so much false information, and there’s people diagnosing themselves with Asperger’s off TikTok. That’s absurd to me.”
Despite the group’s often political lyrics, the 51-year-old frontman isn’t interested in venting his opinions on social media.
He said: “My opinions are always in my songs. I don’t like to Tweet or Instagram about politics, because you’re contributing to insane people who are just arguing and taking sides. So I write about it in my songs.
“It’s funny as on New Year’s Eve, we played ‘American Idiot’ [on ‘Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ show] and we changed ‘redneck agenda’ to MAGA agenda’
“Well, I woke up the next morning to people saying, ‘Blah blah I can’t believe he said it’ or ‘It’s so awesome’ which was crazy.
“And then it’s on Fox News and Elon Musk and Tom Morello are saying things about it.