On the morning of March 28, 1998, ahead of the second date on the Australian leg of their Nimrod world tour, Green Day were booked to appear for an interview on popular Saturday morning kids TV show Recovery, filmed in front of a live audience in Melbourne. For hosts Dylan Lewis and Jane Gazzo it would be a morning to remember, and not necessarily for the right reasons.
"Our next guests are driving our audience mad with anticipation," said Gazzo, barely audible over the squeals of excited fans as Green Day wandered into Ripponlea studios ahead of their allotted time on the broadcast. "Settle down! Settle down! Settle down!".
"This is crazy," she continued, looking out of shot at the band. "Go away! You're not on yet!"
"They're driving us mad," she told viewers at home.
From the moment Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool walked on set for their interview to a barrage of screams it was obvious that things were only going to get more out-of-hand.
"Shut up!" Dylan Lewis told the crowd. "You want to hear them speak!"
Clearly in high spirits having performed at Melbourne's Festival Hall the previous evening. the three Californian musicians did little to becalm their fans, with livewire drummer Cool in a particularly exuberant mood. Truth be told, the interview wasn't exactly revelatory or remarkable in any way, but from the moment that the host quickly shut down the trio's offer to recite the lyrics to new song Platypus - sample line "It's time to quit 'cause you ain't worth the shit under my shoes, or the piss on the ground" - things started to slide out of control.
"That can't happen," said Lewis in mock-indignation. "It's all over. Oh well, it's been good having Recovery on air. That's very punk of you. It's good to get a little bit punk though on kids TV in the morning."
"Can we play on the equipment?" Arsmstrong asks the host.
"No"
"You guys wanna hear a song?" Armstrong asks the audience.
"No", Lewis insists, but he's audibly outvoted.
With that, the three musicians abort the interview, then hijack the house band's equipment, and kick them off-stage in order to smash through Nimrod album track Grouch.
Given that 60 seconds earlier Lewis had explicitly asked the band not to swear for fear of the programme being pulled off the air, you can only imagine his panic levels. rising as Armstrong sang the words "shitty", "fuck", "shit", "bitch" and "fuck" once more in verse one.
"Live punk stuff!" Lewis mutters as the trio finish their impromptu performance, before having his attempt to read out the dates of the remaining shows by Tre Cool bouncing back into frame to shriek "You just got knocked the fuck out!"
Lovely stuff.
Watch the chaos unfold below:
And here's Jane Gazzo recalling the experience recently, explaining how the trio's "effing and blinding" got her and Lewis into a world of trouble with their bosses.
