Billie Joe Armstrong is more than happy to identify as a bisexual icon.
"I like it. I think it's f---ing cool that someone calls me a bisexual icon. I've seen that before. I'm like, 'Fuck, yeah!'" Armstrong, 51, tells PEOPLE.
The Green day frontman — whose band just released their 14th studio album, Saviors — first came out as bisexual in a 1995 interview with The Advocate, and he's heartened to see how conversations about sexuality have evolved in the nearly three decades since.
"Being a Gen X-er, I feel like there was a seed that got planted where it was the era in the '90s that we came up, where men were discovering more of being with other men and being more bisexual, and coming out with that, whether it was someone like Kurt Cobain or what I was saying," Armstrong says. "It's way more complex now, as far as sexuality. You're like, 'Wow, we've really come a long way.' Even though it's still kind of looked at as being taboo, I think people now are a lot more brave than they've ever been. I think people are way more open now."
Armstrong has been married to his wife, Adrienne, 54, for 29 years, and they share two sons, Joey, 28, and Jakob, 25. Because of his marriage and family life, some online have questioned whether he actually is bisexual or just an LGBTQ ally.
"Sexuality is always so much more than what the standard, nuclear-family type of way of looking at things," he says. "But I have been married — there's this other side of me that's very conventional when it comes to my 30-year marriage to my wife. But I just look at sexuality: It's not one way or the other. And if anybody ever tries to say that, I don't think they're really being honest with themselves."
Green Day's new song "Bobby Sox" — which the band performed Thursday night at a SiriusXM concert at Irving Plaza in New York City — was initially inspired by Armstrong's nights on the couch watching The Office with his wife, but it evolved into something of a queer anthem.
In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Armstrong voiced his support for the transgender community.
"I just think they’re f---ing close-minded," he said of transphobic people. "It’s like people are afraid of their children. Why would you be afraid? Why don’t you let your kid just be the kid that they are?"
