Green Day: 'New album is back to basics'

Green Day's frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has said that their new album will go "back to the basics".

The band, who released 21st Century Breakdown last year, recently revealed that they are already working on songs for the next LP.

Armstrong has since admitted that they tried to record material using old equipment from when the group first started.

"It's just been songwriting right now. Instead of doing it later on, we decided to start doing stuff now... It's all back to the basics again. Just getting in a room together and start jamming," he said.

"We set up all of our old gear, which was like an experiment. We set up all of our equipment from 1992, and we sat in a room. We got in, and I was like, 'Come on, guys, we're getting back in!' and I [start playing] and go, 'This sounds like sh*t'. Everything sounded so bad."

He added: "Me and [drummer] Tre [Cool] were looking at Billie going, 'Really, you've got to pull out that POS amp?' I mean, it really sounded like crap.

"It's still really early. We've got to start translating the songs and explaining the songs, and the next step will be arguing about the songs."

Green Day's American Idiot musical premiered in the US last week.