FMQB Productions and Reprise Records present Inside Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown, a one-hour world radio premiere special airing on stations across the country between May 4 – 15.

All week, FMQB.com will be presenting exclusive excerpts from the special, hosted by KITS (Live 105)/San Francisco’s Madden, and his conversation with Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool.

Armstrong says that 21st Century Breakdown isn't as much of a concept album as American Idiot. He says there are two recurring characters on the record, Christian and Gloria, but "I don’t really think there’s a story so to speak with this record. It could be a romantic couple, but I think it’s two sides of the record. Gloria represents someone holding on to some kind of vitality through coming of age and getting older... She’s a torchbearer in holding onto beliefs and punk rock. Where Christian is this self-destructive person that’s run by his own demons and wants to burn the whole place down… [but] it’s more symbolic than a linear story."

21st Century Breakdown is split into three acts: "Heroes and Cons," "Charlatans and Saints" and "Horseshoes and Handgrenades." Armstrong says the record was divided this way because "There’s so much material that we wanted to make it easier to get your head around…it could even be looked at as three EPs." Dirnt added, "There was no grand design to start, we just knew to be patient and the songs would start speaking to each other. 'Know Your Enemy' and the title track really set the landscape for the entire record."

As for their recent side project Foxboro Hot Tubs, Armstrong says the album was done "to just get out of our heads and go do something else. After doing some of those shows, I said, ‘Well we could do this for the rest of our lives.’" Tre Cool added, "Call it weird, call it stupid, we just like to have fun and do our own thing."

But will Green Day simply go back to straight up three-minute Pop-Punk tunes? Dirnt says maybe, and at one point the band was talking about "going to China and recording a punk record there real quick, real fast."

Come back to FMQB.com tomorrow for more from Green Day's exclusive conversation about 21st Century Breakdown.

Yesterday, the band discussed a few of the songs that make up 21st Century Breakdown. Armstrong says of lead single, "Know Your Enemy," "it’s kind of empowering yourself to question everything and declaring your own independence. Which has always been a theme with us in all our records. It’s a big, bold, strong broad stroke."

As for "East Jesus Nowhere," Dirnt describes the song as "a call against hypocrisy in religion, more than speaking out against any one in particular." Armstrong adds, "The whole point of it is to look at your own humility… A lot of people use religion to sort of become God themselves, or play God. You see it in eight years of George W. Bush, you see it in suicide bombers, you see it every day."

Previously, we looked at the massive success of 2004's American Idiot, and asked if Green Day will be able to top that record. Armstrong said, "I think every record has pressure to it. That’s the biggest challenge, how do you rise to the occasion? So there’s definitely pressure on this record to try to outdo ourselves… You just have to have a lot of patience and take a lot of time and that’s what we decided to do." He added that having "a lot of different directions to go" with the material creates a different pressure. Dirnt noted that "We had the luxury of taking more time with the record" and Armstrong added that to relieve such pressure, their mantra was to "just write good songs."