Green Day Blame Flu, Dehydration for Billie Joe Armstrong’s Hospitalization

Green Day‘s Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt have offered up some details about the hospitalization of Billie Joe Armstrong that forced the band to cancel a concert Sunday (Sept. 2) in Bologna, Italy. It turns out that local reports suggesting that the frontman was suffering from gastric problems were pretty much on the money.

“Billie came down with heavy, heavy dehydration; it was like severe dehydration, influenza, and it was just a really, really bad situation,” bassist Dirnt tells MTV.com backstage at rehearsals for the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards. “He woke up in the morning and it was bad. Let’s put it this way, if you’re in your hotel room and you’re vomiting profusely, it’s not fun. So what are you gonna do? It’s hard to sing while you’re puking.”

It is hard to sing while puking, so Green Day plan on returning to Bologna sometime in the near future when he’s no longer doing so to make up the rare cancellation. ”We’re going to make our way back to Bologna and play that show ASAP,” promises Dirnt. “We don’t miss many shows; we’ve maybe missed five shows out of our entire career and we pride ourselves on that, but we’re human.”

In the meantime, Dirnt says Armstrong is relying on a steady diet of ”push-ups, prayers and vitamins” to recover as Green Day gear up to hit the stage of the MTV VMAs tonight (Sept. 6) — and the band has some interesting things in store for the event. ”We’re ready to rock, we’re gonna be here, we’re gonna have a good time,” Dirnt says. “We’re going to drink chicken blood.”

“And angel piss,” adds drummer Cool.

What, are they trying to give us some of our own gastric issues?