This article from the East Bay Express is not new. It’s from 2001, but I only just came across it recently, and it put a smile on my face. It’s about Metal Mike Saunders, singer of the punk band the Angry Samoans, who is apparently a huge fan of Green Day and is proud to announce it to the world.
First off, you have to know about the Angry Samoans. They’ve been playing since 1978 (Metal Mike is 56), and they have a reputation for being silly and eccentric, and charmingly stupid in the best punk rock tradition. But they’re also very smart, and I think their music is pretty great, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
I have to admit being a Green Day fan is sometimes embarrassing to own up to, especially being a fan who actually has uh, a website about them and is 44 years old… But hey, Metal Mike is even older than me, and he’s in an actual hardcore band, in a scene that tends to look on Green Day as mushy or too-popular for its underground tastes. But he’s happy to embrace them. As the article says, “One of the greatest things about Mike is that he is completely and totally free of music snobbery.”
‘They are the greatest band of the last thirty years,’ he says. He owns every 7, import, B-side, and alternative take the Berkeley boys have ever put out. ‘They are the greatest band since 1967; the best band since the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Beach Boys.’ To say that Mike has an almost autistic knowledge of the band is to put it lightly; he knows who owns the ’second best collection of early Green Day photos,’ what records they listened to when they were twelve, and what videos they show their kids now (Beatles cartoons, a gift from Mike himself).
Plus he actually got to play with them in the early days… Sigh! I don’t know if Metal Mike is Green Day’s number one fan. Some of you reading this may well qualify for that title. I don’t believe in ranking fans — I think we’re all one big gooey fandom — but the article is saying it jokingly anyway. Read it all here. I think it’s cute and funny, and you may see some of yourself in Mike.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Angry Samoans, here’s a couple of sample songs. These are both from 1982.
Angry Samoans - Time Has Come Today
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