It's been a long journey for Green Day. The last four years have been filled with their fair share of difficulties: frontman Billie Joe Armstrong requiring a trip to rehab to fix a 20-year battle with addiction, lead guitarist Jason White battling tonsil cancer, and bassist Mike Dirnt having his wife, Brittney Cade, deal with her own bout of breast cancer.

But now, after some much-needed time off over the last four years, Green Day are back with a strong message. Their newest single, "Bang Bang", was released on August 11th. It is a fast-paced and hard-hitting song the delves into the mindset of a mass shooter.

According to Armstrong, the song's focus on mass shooters was drawn from the shootings at UC Santa Barbara committed by Elliot Rodger in 2014. Armstrong says, "[Rodger] was suffering from his own insecurity and mental illness. The song's written in the first person, where I tried to put myself in his place"

The song's written in the first person, where I tried to put myself in his place." When looking through the lyrics of "Bang Bang", one can certainly see where Green Day's frontman has accomplished this perspective.

One lyric reads that the narrator of the song wants to "be a celebrity martyr/The leading man in my own private drama" and "the hero of the hour".

When the song launches another segment of lyrics, it states, "Bang bang/Gimmie fame/Shoot me up to entertain/I am a semi-automatic lonely boy/You're dead/I'm well-fed/Broadcasting from inside my room and playing with my toys".

These lyrics really touch on the unsettling makeup of a mass shooter's mind, tapping into their need for the crimes they commit to be noticed by the world. That can be noted in the Elliot Rodger shooting, as he left behind a horribly disturbing series of videos that created his manifesto.

The recent nature of current events in the United States and the world gave Green Day a great deal of material to work with. In 2016 several mass shootings occurred: Pulse Night Club in Florida, the apartment complex in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the firestorm on police officers in Dallas, to name a few.

"Bang Bang" starts an important conversation on the mental health of those who perpetrate these crimes. Their mindset is clearly twisted and they believe some value in the atrocities they are committing.

Armstrong adopting their thinking in the song really showcases the instability of a mass shooter's mind, and prompts some thinking on how the U.S. as a society can combat this problem.

"Bang Bang" has proved itself to be highly political in nature, and the rest of the album it comes from, titled "Revolution Radio", promises the same thing. It will be released on October 7th, 2016, on Reprise Records.