SHARING THE LOVE? Green Day, Courtney (inset, left), Perry (inset, right)

She may be clean and sober, but Courtney Love still inspires great gossip. The producer of the forthcoming Green Day album is none other than Linda Perry—former 4 Non Blondes singer/songwriter, Love's songwriting partner, and producer on Love's new album Nobody's Daughter—according to sources close to the band. Perry has also cranked out mega-hits for Gwen Stefani, Pink, and Christina Aguilera.

Hiring Perry would be a major departure for the NorCal punk threesome, which has worked with producer Rob Cavallo since he signed the band to Reprise Records and produced four of its records—from 1994's Dookie to 2004's quadruple platinum rock opera American Idiot (including the Cavallo-produced Grammy winning song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams").

As the rumor goes, though, Green Day frontman Billy Joe Armstrong was blown away by Perry's work on Love's new release. A spokesperson for Green Day says the band is in the studio writing the record and hasn't settled on a producer, stopping just short of flatly denying the possibility of a Perry-produced Green Day record but dismissing claims that it's a done deal. "As far as I know Linda is not producing their new record," the spokesperson tells Radar.

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