Nimrod (album) - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

This is a record we've been thinking about for the past six years. We knew we wanted to change, but we didn't want to change too much too soon. The record's about vulnerability in a lot of ways—throwing yourself out there...Why the fuck not put out that fucking stupid acoustic song or that stupid surf song? This is who we are. Why hide it?

“ ” – Billie Joe Armstrong, on the album's musical diversity.

The album was recorded at Conway Studios in Los Angeles, and the band stayed at the Sunset Marquis Hotel during the sessions. Nimrod took four months to record and, Armstrong partially attributed the lengthy recording time to spending "a little to much time" playing pool and foosball during the sessions. The recording schedule, which lasted from noon to two in the morning every day, became frustrating for the group members, who began drinking heavily. Bassist Mike Dirnt recalled, "One night one of us was walking down the halls knocking on people's doors while naked." Another incident involved drummer Tre Cool throwing his hotel room television set out of his window. Armstrong noted, "There was a lot of glass. You have to live that arrogant lifestyle every now and then." To keep the band focused, Cavallo enlisted his father and manager Pat Magnarella to supervise the group.

While working on Nimrod, Green Day explained to Cavallo their desire to create a more experimental album as the band had grown tired of its traditional three chord song structure. Armstrong drew inspiration from The Clash's landmark record London Calling, and referred to Nimrod as "the record I've wanted to make since the band started." The album was intended to break the constraints of typical punk rock music. To preserve the quality of his songwriting, Armstrong began writing each song on acoustic guitar, to which the rest of the band would later add heavier instrumentation and faster tempos. Green Day recorded around 30 songs for Nimrod and picked 18 of them for the record. Dirnt explained that the recording was much more loosely structured than previous albums, and that creating songs was the focus as opposed to making a cohesive record. He observed, "We've always screwed around with different types of music during our jams, but we'd say, 'OK let's stop and get back to the album.' This time we just let them come up."

Reprise Records president Howie Klein spent a lot of time in the studio with the band during recording, and recalled that, "What I realized immediately is that they had seemed to mature in their musical direction. It wasn't just more of the same. There was so much growth in the band." The musical maturation displayed on Nimrod was partially inspired by Bikini Kill's Reject All American (1996), which encouraged Armstrong to balance "rough punk rock songs" and "delicate pretty songs". Armstrong wrote "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" in 1990 and did not show the song to his bandmates until the Dookie recording sessions in 1993. During the sessions, the song was determined to be too different from the rest of the songs on Dookie, and producer Rob Cavallo was unsure of how to structure the recording. When the time came to record Nimrod, Armstrong decided to use the song, and Cavallo suggested they add strings to the track. He sent the band to play foosball in another room while he recorded the strings, which took "like fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe a half an hour at the most." Cavallo reflected on his decision to add the strings "I knew we had done the right thing. I knew it was a hit the second I heard it."

In addition to the strings on "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", the music of Nimrod contains a variety of other instruments not featured on previous Green Day albums. "Walking Alone" features Armstrong playing the harmonica, despite the fact that he did not "know how to play it at all". "Hitchin' a Ride" opens with a Middle Eastern-inspired violin performed by Petra Haden of That Dog. The band invited Gabrial McNair and Stephen Bradley of No Doubt's horn section to play on the ska-influenced "King for a Day".