Alanis Morissette on Billie Joe Armstrong: 'He's Braver Than I Am'

Alanis Morissette has taken to performing Green Day's "Basket Case" this week in tribute to the band's frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, who sought treatment for substance abuse a day after his weekend meltdown at the iHeartRadio Music Festival.
Morissette, who debuted the song on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on Tuesday and played it again last night in Pomona, Calif. on her Havoc and Bright Lights tour, told Billboard that she hopes Armstrong gets the assistance that he needs. "We're all figuring it out," she said. "So let's just support the fragile artist."
"I've always been an advocate and supporter of artists and Billie Joe to me -- he deserves to be bowed down to," she said. "He's been in this industry for a long time and so for him to experience the consequence of a system that kind of set it up for him to fail is a travesty to me."
Morissette said she wouldn't have been able to pull off the kind of rant that Armstrong did. "I think he's braver than I am," she said. "Also women being upset are deemed hysterical. Men being upset are deemed valiant. It's a little more dangerous for a woman to flip out in that way."
Morissette said that she doesn't know how long she plans to keep "Basket Case" in the set, revealing that she handles each show individually. "We learned it like 11 minutes before we went on [Kimmel]. It was super spontaneous," she noted.
Over the next few months Morissette and her band are scheduled to tour North America and Europe. "Then maybe some Asia, what I called the self indulgent tour which includes the places I've wanted to go like Russia," she joked.