Out Now: Take a Trip Through the Musical Mind of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong with ‘No Fun Mondays’ Quarantine Covers Album

To know Billie Joe Armstrong, front man of East Bay punk icons Green Day is to know one thing: He’s very much the product of his inspiration.

That’s been abundant throughout his career with Green Day, the band lovingly paying homage to its heroes for decades. And, for much of 2020, Armstrong spent his time holed up in COVID-19 quarantine (and seeing his band’s Hella Mega Tour with Weezer and Fall Out Boy pushed to Summer 2021) by recording a series of covers from throughout music history — and today, No Fun Mondays has been released as an album of those recordings.

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Some, like John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth,” “Manic Monday” by the Bangles and “I Think We’re Alone Now” (by Tommy James & the Shondells and, later, a big hit for Tiffany) are classic hits, while lesser-known gems like “War Stories” by Starjets skew a bit more in “deep cut” territory.

“That Thing You Do!,” meanwhile, is a loving tribute to the late Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, who died in early April after a fight with the coronavirus.

Said Billie Joe Armstrong of the No Fun Mondays project:

“While we’ve all been in quarantine I’ve been reflecting on the things that matter the most in my life. Family, friends and of course music. I figure if we have to spend this time in isolation at least we can be alone together.”

The end result is an inspired batch of covers bursting with Armstrong’s signature musical spirit (which, again, doesn’t reside solely in the “punk” genre), and No Fun Mondays is well worth a listen for fans of his catalog.

The track listing:

Listen below, via Spotify: