Rudd2D2, Palmer the Hutt, the Greewoks, the Wookieleaks party – these aren’t the candidates Green Day‘s bass player and band co-founder Mike Dirnt are looking for. The veteran punk rocker has weighed in on the Australian election, telling the Sydney Morning Herald that the protocol droid C-3PO, mainstay of the Star Wars universe, would be his candidate of choice. “I would be into marking [the ballot paper with] your favourite Star Wars character – even if it’s not a good guy,” Dirnt said. “You know [C-3PO] is pretty diplomatic, he speaks 600 languages, he doesn’t like violence, he’s got the look – he’s all gold and shit, y’know.”
In a promotional interview, following on from the band’s announcement as headliners of Soundwave 2014, Dirnt summed up the election pretty succinctly, saying “Right now you’re probably voting for the lesser of two evils, or more…. which is kinda fucked. Maybe you need to use The Force.”
Green Day has never been shy of expressing their political views. Their 2004 blockbuster album American Idiot was a thinly veiled attack at the Bush administration, his policies and “redneck agenda” , and while their subsequent albums 21st Century Breakdown (2009) and the triple-release of Uno, Dos and Tre (2012) were less politicised, the band continues to be outspoken and controversy-courting.
Dirnt went on to talk about rebuilding Green Day after frontman Billie Joe Armstrong‘s famous sweary, middle-fingery, guitar-smashy “I’m not fucking Justin Bieber, you motherfuckers” meltdown at the iHeartRadio festival last year after the band’s set was cut short to make way for Usher. Armstrong later apologised, and subsequently checked himself into rehab for alcohol and prescription medication addiction issues.
“[I thought] this is f—ing horrible and I don’t like watching my friend go down this road . . . and how can I support my friend right now, how can I be there for my friend and get us through this night,” Dirnt says. “The path to getting through that night was not only six months in the making but it’s going to be the rest of our lives and that is fine with me because it’s worth it.”
While C-3PO would make a fine PM, the polls show it’s almost certain that we’ll see Creepio take the top job on Saturday.
Via smh.cm.au
