The latest collaboration between Jesse Malin and Billie Joe Armstrong we told you about last month was released today with new details coming from a Rolling Stone interview with Jesse Malin on how the song came to be.
“’Strangers & Thieves’” started as a song I had for a fun side project with the guys in Green Day called Rodeo Queens. (Producer) Lucinda Williams heard the song and felt it really fit in with Sunset Kids. I had the music and lines for a chorus. One day, Billie Joe Armstrong was in town, and it was one of those nostalgic Sundays, where we walked around looking at all the old sites, like the A7 club, which is now Niagara, and CBGB’s, now the Varvatos store, and the old Rat Cage Records spot,” Malin tells Rolling Stone.
Rolling Stone
“A couple days later,” he continues, “Billie Joe sent me a text with the finished song. He kept a couple of the lines I had for the choruses, and wrote lyrics about the Bay Area scene through his eyes, a scene that was very parallel to my experiences in New York. Somehow, we all found each other, just being outcasts looking for real music and like-minded trouble.”