Smash! by Ian Winwood

Author:Ian Winwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2018-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

A curious aspect of overwhelming success is that its recipients are sometimes the last to notice it. For bands, the slow process of receiving royalty payments means that it takes time to recognize the wealth created by their name. In terms of insulation, few bubbles are quite as bombproof as the one provided by being on tour. This was particularly true in the days before mobile phones and instant online communication. In 1994, the majority of people wishing to contact a band would do so by writing a letter to a fan club or a record company. As people across continents began to hum the band’s songs, Green Day themselves were at first cocooned from the speed at which their world was changing.

In the summer of 1994, Rob Cavallo met the band at an airport on the American East Coast. Dookie had not yet slipped its leash, but it was obvious to the producer that the record was on its way to being sold in enormous quantities. The band had been in Europe, and then on tour in the United States and Canada. They had been appearing in clubs and playing daytime slots at festivals that had been booked for them months before. The producer sat with the three musicians in his rental car and observed “that while they kind of knew [what was happening] they didn’t really know.” He laid out the events that were unfolding in bald terms.

“I said, ‘Okay, guys, I just want you to know that we did it,’” he says. “‘You guys are a big band. You guys are stars now.’ And when I told them this, their eyeballs were popping out of their fucking heads. But they were cool about it, too. They were, like, ‘Really?’ They weren’t sure how to take it. They were being very humble and kind of circumspect about the whole thing. ‘What do you mean? Are you sure?’ I’m, like, ‘You guys have fucking made it. You have solidified your place in the rock world already and we’re estimating that you’re going to sell at least five million records.’ It was crazy. Anyway, finally they hooped and hollered a little bit, but really they were very cool about it all. They were, like, ‘Cool, we made it.’ And then we went out and had hotdogs or something.”

Green Day were about to lay claim to the always fleeting title of the “biggest band in the world.” Despite this, their sense of understatement was so convincing that even in the face of an all-conquering album, the group were able to maintain the sense that in ways that mattered they were still the underdogs. A little over two years earlier the heavyweight music press had gone into spasms hurling both praise and abuse at representatives of the “alternative generation.” Inevitably, Nirvana were heralded, while others, most notably Pearl Jam—and how ludicrous that now seems—were lambasted. But by 1994, the press appeared to lack the energy to do much more than fondly ruffle Green Day’s hair.

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