Green Day made a "conscious effort" to make their new album "more danceable".
The ‘Basket Case’ hitmakers have moved away from their punk sound on new LP ‘Father Of All Motherf***ers’, on which they were influenced by soul and Motown artists, and they’re delighted with the results.
Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said: "I think there was a conscious effort to write songs that were more danceable for us.
"For Green Day to maintain the energy, we all brought in these new influences — Motown, soul, and Prince. Just trying to get it right. I feel really great about this record."
The singer – who is joined in the band by Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool – thinks the record is more like the 2008 album ‘Stop Drop and Roll!!!’ that they released as side project Foxboro Hot Tubs than any Green Day record.
He told The Sun newspaper: "Foxboro’s album was the first proper album that came out after ‘American Idiot’ (2004).
"We discovered something new about ourselves with that record, because we were playing with garage and soul music, which is far out of our comfort zone.
"In a way, it is like a Foxboro Hot Tubs record, but it works as Green Day."
Despite being critical of the Bush administration on ‘American Idiot’, the group felt it was "too obvious" to take inspiration from current controversial US President Donald Trump when writing their new record.
The frontman said: "It’s too obvious to make a record that’s hating on Trump or hating on what is going on in the world. It’s all about taking in the garbage and regurgitating it with what comes out emotionally.
"We have the politics, but it came from the heart. There is just too much hate right now, and no soul about what is going on in the world right now. And Trump gets a lot of airtime.
"The Republican Party are being the most dangerous political organisation in the world right now. It’s definitely part of the paranoia and nihilism that goes through the record. But I think it has veered to the rejection of it.
"You can hear me trying to steer as far away from it as possible — that is what you can hear on the record."