Billie Joe Armstrong admits his titles for the Green Day album trilogy were initially a "joke."

The "Basket Case" hitmakers are to release three records, Uno!, Dos! and Tre! and he settled on the titles - Spanish for one and two, while the third is named after drummer Tre Cool, but is close to tres, which is Spanish for three - after his wife convinced him it was a good idea.

"Putting out even a double-record, let alone a triple-record, it didn't seem like it would work for us in this day and age. We wanted all of it to come out because we were proud of it, and then I was thinking in terms of volumes - one, two and three. I was in my kitchen and thought, 'What if we called them Uno!, Dos! and Tre! just as a joke?' And I told my wife about it and she said, 'Actually that's kind of a brilliant idea.' Then I brought it to the guys and asked them what they thought. They let it sink in and said, 'Yeah.' Put my photo on the first one, Mike on the second one and Tre on the third."

Billie Joe admits he has no idea if fans "want" a trilogy, but thinks they will like the way they tell a story: "I'm not going to conform to some consumer need. I believe people want to hear this kind of music, that people want to hear records that have a story. Or maybe they don't. I have no idea. I want to write killer songs, but I want them threaded together and to speak to each other within an album, which in this case is basically inside three albums."