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Billie Joe Armstrong opens up on recovery

We remember Billie Joe Armstrong’s iHeartRadio meltdown last fall pretty clearly, but the Green Day frontman only has a faint recollection of what happened.
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(CNN) — We remember Billie Joe Armstrong’s iHeartRadio meltdown last fall pretty clearly, but the Green Day frontman only has a faint recollection of what happened.

“I remember tiny things,” Armstrong tells Rolling Stone in its new issue, which chronicles the musician’s years of substance abuse and recent rehabilitation efforts.

Last September, Armstrong gave an expletive-filled rant on stage during Green Day’s performance at the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas. His outburst was prompted by a signal for Green Day to end their set earlier than expected.

Green Day rescheduled their February 1 iWireless concert, postponing the show to March 29.

“You’re kidding me,” Armstrong said at the time when he saw the band had just a minute left to wrap it up. “I’m not … Justin Bieber … Let me show you what one minute … means.”

The next morning, after Armstrong smashed his guitar on stage and stormed off, the singer says he woke up and asked his wife how bad it was.

“She said, ‘it’s bad,'” Armstrong tells Rolling Stone. “I called my manager. He said, ‘You’re getting on a plane, going back to Oakland and going into rehab immediately.'”

Armstrong did exactly that, causing Green Day to cancel the rest of its North American tour dates as he sought treatment.

“I couldn’t predict where I was going to end up at the end of the night,” Armstrong tells Rolling Stone of his struggles with alcohol and prescription drugs. “I’d wake up in a strange house on a couch. I wouldn’t remember how. It was a complete blackout.”

Armstrong’s full interview with Rolling Stone will be available on newsstands Friday.

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