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IT HAS taken three years to make - Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown finally drops tomorrow. EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: GREEN DAY TALK HEROES AND FANS.

After all, what else but a 21st-century breakdown do you call the global financial crisis? Or the Taliban encroaching further into Pakistan? Or the job US President Barack Obama has ahead of him?

Forget girl troubles -- these are the things that course through Billie Joe Armstrong's mind when he sits down to write a song.

"A lot of different artists end up dealing with relationships or people in their lives, things like that," Green Day's 37-year-old singer and guitarist says.

"I don't have that luxury because my personal life is actually going pretty well.

"So it's about taking a look at the world around you and how it affects you, and taking photographs of that.

"That's where I'm getting my energy from. It forces you to say, 'How do I feel about life?' and 'How do I really feel about politics and the government?' and 'How do I feel about society?'

"And it's done in such a way you have to look really, really deeply into it."

Armstrong has, he admits, thought about messing up that happy personal life -- he's been married to wife Adrienne for almost 15 years and the couple have two sons -- to make grist for the songwriting mill.

"Every day. Every day," he says with a grin. "You're always thinking about that.

"The characters in the new record, Gloria and Christian, one is holding a torch and the other's trying to burn things down. It's like massaging and wrestling a demon at the same time."

Armstrong, along with bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool, spent the past three years alternately soothing and fighting those demons at Studio 880 in Oakland, California.

It's a functioning studio the band rent out. Some other musicians rent office space, and, on this particular day, the sound of someone editing dialogue from a film drifts down the hallway.

But it's also Green Day's home base, playpen and storage space, with a parking lot full of vintage cars and rooms full of guitars and motorbikes.

It's something of an escape pod, too, from the constant information overload Green Day sing about on American Idiot and even more so on 21st Century Breakdown, which packs a song called The Static Age.

Dirnt wanders from here to a lake in downtown Oakland when he wants to drown out the noise of modern life.

"I put my headphones on, turn off other things," he says.

Cool says of his escape tactics: "I like to break laws. Just little ones, not big ones. Like speeding, running stop signs . . ."

That would explain the damage to one of those vintage cars in the parking lot.

The drummer went to Cuba in the downtime between albums -- did that break a law? "Couple."

Armstrong, trying his darnedest to look serious, offers: "I like to drink 'til I pass out and urinate all over the floor . . .

"I'm just kidding. I don't. I don't drink," he says with a laugh.

Dirnt has a better punchline: "I don't urinate."

When American Idiot was released in September 2004, there was little in the way of rebellion in music. And, honestly, think back (and review the exchange about bodily functions above), did anyone really expect one of the first, and most eloquent, blasts of anti-George W. Bush protest to come from these three snotty punks?

But that it did, at the same time taking Green Day back to sales highs they hadn't reached since breaking out of Oakland with Dookie in 1994.

Three guys in eyeliner, Chuck Taylors and studded belts were suddenly re-educating the world about the power of music.

"At the time people were just afraid to express what they were feeling," Cool says.

"Everybody was, after 9/11, so afraid of being un-American or getting Dixie Chicked or whatever.

"We were the first band to come out with strong political statements and said exactly what we felt about the situation that our country was in, with American Idiot.

"21st Century Breakdown, down the road a few years, is like the aftermath, the end of an era, and a portrait, snapshot, of the rubble around us."

Calling 21st Century Breakdown, an epic in three parts, a "snapshot", is a little misleading. Maybe an entire gallery full of snapshots.

Queuing outside that gallery are the millions of teenagers who, though too young to have been Dookie converts, were perfectly placed to pick up on the angst and anarchy of American Idiot.

While recording 21st Century Breakdown, which they co-produced with Butch Vig, Green Day knew they had these kids' ears. Did that weigh on them like a responsibility or an opportunity?

"It's a privilege," Dirnt says. "We don't take it lightly."

Armstrong says: "That's the thing for us, you never take anything for granted, ever."

Of course, having the ears of millions of teenagers counts for little with one's own kids.

Cool, who has two children, pulls out an imaginary megaphone: "Clean your room!"

Armstrong, whose sons are 14 and 10, smiles in rueful agreement. "My family's been not listening to me for years now."

There are songs in the Green Day archives all three hope their children will never hear.

"There are some things that have been written that no one will ever, ever, ever hear," Dirnt says, to much laughter.

There are songs on 21st Century Breakdown some sensitive souls will hope they never hear twice.

Green Day are looking forward to these souls hearing those songs.

East Jesus Nowhere, for example, rips into religion, Armstrong singing, "A fire burns today, of blasphemy and genocide, the sirens of decay, will infiltrate the faith fanatics".

"It's not pointless rhetoric though," Dirnt says. "More than pointing fingers or (standing) at a podium, it's about questioning everything, questioning yourself and the judgment of those around you, and looking at things objectively."

Armstrong says: "I don't think of us as trying to offend people. It's more about practising freedom of speech, not people getting the idea that we're anti-American or something like that."

Dirnt adds: "If something we say scares anybody, maybe it's because something somebody else said scared us at some point."

It's hard to imagine the 20-year-old kids who made Kerplunk putting so much thought into topping that album as the Green Day of today put into following up American Idiot.

Though, Armstrong reckons, "those kids may have been in a bit of denial".

The release of 21st Century Breakdown comes 20 years since Green Day's first EP release.

"Good thing for us our first single came out when we were three," Dirnt says with a smile.

He's on to something there -- this trio seems as youthful as ever.

So what's the difference between the Green Day of today and that of 15-20 years ago?

"We tackle it with a lot more reckless abandon creatively than we've ever done before," Armstrong says.

"We've always wanted to make these kinds of records, but back then we didn't know how to make them. But those bands we loved the most had monumental moments that came later in life."

But did Green Day need to try this hard -- three years hard -- to follow up American Idiot?

Surely the 10-million-plus sales figures, not to mention the cultural impact of that album, assured them some kind of status -- and even a legacy.

"Ahhhh . . . to reminisce is to die, sometimes, you know? I just wanna keep moving forward," Armstrong says.

"He can't stop writing songs either," says Cool, pointing at the guitarist, "so, there's that."

Dirnt, as ever, has a thoughtful summation.

"Though we love what we do, and we have moments of being really happy with everything, I think this band is, you know, 'can't get no satisfaction' -- we're perpetually dissatisfied, whether it's with the world or home life or whatever.

"It doesn't mean we're negative, it's just, we like to attack those things.

"If there's a challenge, we have a weapon called Green Day that we can pull out on any challenge in front of us."

Green Day -- a weapon to be wielded on the fallout of the 21st-century breakdown. Dirnt likes the sound of this.

"Tre's drumsticks are like his Excalibur sword! And I have my battle axe," he says.

Cool is down with the plan.

"We're a three-headed mythical monster."

21st Century Breakdown (Warner) out tomorrow.