Billie Joe Armstrong had really only made the phone call because he fancied a chat. Dialling the number of one Rob Cavallo, the Green Day frontman was planning on giving his longtime friend a quick ‘hello’. Maybe even suggest meeting for some Mexican food. But Rob had ideas much grander than your casual catch-up. “The first thing he says to me is, ‘Are you ready to make some rock’n’roll history again?’” Billie laughs today of this fortuitous exchange. “And I was like, ‘I thought maybe we can go out and get a burrito…’” Still, Rob’s comment hadn’t gone unheard. A producer so significant to the Green Day story that his name is attached to not one but two generation-defining records – 1994’s Dookie and 2004’s American Idiot – a “lightbulb went off”, right th...
