Biography

Green Day is an American rock trio formed in 1987. The band has consisted of Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass guitar, vocals), and Tré Cool (drums, percussion) for the majority of its existence.

Green Day was originally part of the punk rock scene at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California. Its early releases for independent record label Lookout! Records earned them a grassroots fanbase, some of whom felt alienated when the band signed to a major label.[2] Nevertheless, its major label debut Dookie (1994) became a breakout success and eventually sold over 10 million copies in the U.S. and 15 million worldwide. As a result, Green Day was widely credited, alongside fellow California punk bands The Offspring and Rancid, with reviving mainstream interest in and popularizing punk rock in the United States.[4][5] Green Day's three follow-up albums, Insomniac, Nimrod and Warning did not achieve the massive success ofDookie, but they were still successful, reaching double platinum, double platinum, and gold status respectively.[ Green Day's 2004 rock opera American Idiot reignited the band's popularity with a younger generation, selling five million copies in the U.S.[7] The band's eighth studio album, 21st Century Breakdown, was released on May 15, 2009.

Green Day has sold over 22 million records in the United States. They have won threeGrammy Awards; Best Alternative Album for Dookie, Best Rock Album for American Idiot, andRecord of the Year for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".

In 1987, friends Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt, 15 years old at the time, formed a band called Sweet Children. The first Sweet Children show took place on October 17, 1987, at Rod's Hickory Pit in Vallejo, California where Armstrong's mother was working.[1] In 1988, Armstrong and Dirnt began working with former Isocracy drummer, John Kiffmeyer (also known as Al Sobrante). Kiffmeyer served as both the band's drummer and business manager, handling the booking of shows and helping the band establish a fan base.

Larry Livermore, owner of Lookout! Records, saw the band play an early show and signed them to his label. In 1989 they recorded their first EP, 1,000 Hours. Before 1,000 Hours was released, the band dropped the name Sweet Children, according to Livermore this was done to avoid confusion with another local band Sweet Baby. The band adopted the name Green Day, allegedly due to their fondness of marijuana.

Lookout! would release Green Day's first LP, 39/Smooth in early 1990. Green Day would record two EPs later that year: Slappy and Sweet Children, the latter of which included some older songs they had recorded for Minneapolis indie label Skene! Records. In 1991, Lookout! Records released 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, a compilation of the 39/Smooth, Slappy, and 1,000 Hours EPs. In late 1990, shortly after the band's first nationwide tour, Sobrante left the East Bay area to attend college. The Lookouts drummer Tré Cool began filling in as a temporary replacement, and when it became clear that Sobrante did not plan to commit to the band full time, Tré Cool's position as Green Day's drummer became permanent. The band went on tour for most of 1992 and 1993, and played a stretch of shows overseas in Europe. The band's second full length album Kerplunk sold about 50,000 copies in the U.S.

Breakthrough success: 1994–1996
Kerplunk's underground success led to a wave of interest coming from major record labels, and they eventually left Lookout! on friendly terms and signed with Reprise Records after attracting the attention of producer Rob Cavallo. Signing to Reprise caused many punk rock fans to regard Green Day as sellouts. Reflecting on the period, Armstrong told Spin magazine in 1999, "I couldn't go back to the punk scene, whether we were the biggest success in the world or the biggest failure ... The only thing I could do was get on my bike and go forward." After signing with Reprise, the band went to work on recording its major label debut, Dookie.
Released in February 1994, and recorded in 3 weeks, Dookie became a commercial success, helped by extensive MTV airplay for the videos of the songs "Longview", "Basket Case", and "When I Come Around", all of which reached the number one position on theModern Rock Tracks charts. That year, Green Day embarked on a nationwide tour withqueercore band Pansy Division as its opening act. At a September 9, 1994 concert at Boston Esplanade, mayhem broke-out during the band's set (cut short to seven songs) and by the end of the rampage, 100 people were injured and 45 arrested.[15] The band also joined the lineups of both the Lollapalooza festival and Woodstock 1994, where they started an infamous mud fight. During the concert, a security guard mistook bassist Mike Dirnt for a stage-invading fan and punched out some of his teeth. Viewed by millions by pay-per-view television, the Woodstock 1994 performance further aided Green Day's growing publicity and recognition, and helped push its album to eventual diamond status. In 1995, Dookie won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album and the band was nominated for 9 MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year.

In 1995, a new single for the Angus soundtrack was released, titled "J.A.R.". The single went straight to number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song was followed by the band's new album, Insomniac, which was released in the fall of 1995. Insomniac was a much darker and heavier response by the band, compared to the poppier, more melodic Dookie. Insomniac opened to a warm critical reception, earning 4 out of 5 stars from Rolling Stone, which said "In punk, the good stuff actually unfolds and gains meaning as you listen without sacrificing any of its electric, haywire immediacy. And Green Day are as good as this stuff gets." Insomniac used a piece of art by Winston Smith entitled God Told Me to Skin You Alive for its album cover. The singles released from Insomniac were "Geek Stink Breath", "Brain Stew/Jaded", "Walking Contradiction", and "Stuck With Me". Though the album did not approach the success of Dookie, it still sold two million copies in the United States. Insomniac won the band award nominations for Favorite Artist, Favorite Hard Rock Artist, and Favorite Alternative Artist at the 1996 American Music Awards, and the video for "Walking Contradiction" got the band a Grammy nomination for Best Video, Short Form, in addition to a Best Special Effects nomination at the MTV Video Music Awards. After that, the band abruptly cancelled a European tour, citing exhaustion.

Middle era and fall in popularity: 1997–2002
After taking a break in 1996, Green Day began to work on a new album in 1997. From the outset, both the band and Cavallo agreed that the album had to be different from its previous records. The result was Nimrod, an experimental deviation from the band's standard pop-punk brand of music. The new album was released in October 1997. It provided a variety of music, from pop-punk, surf rock, and ska, to an acoustic ballad. Nimrod entered the charts at number 10. The success of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" won the band an MTV Video Award for Best Alternative Video for the song's video, which depicted people undergoing major changes in their lives while Billie Joe Armstrong strummed his acoustic guitar. The song was also used in the second "clip show" episode of Seinfeld and on two episodes of ER. The other singles released from Nimrod were "Nice Guys Finish Last", "Hitchin' a Ride" and "Redundant". The band made a guest appearance in an episode of King of the Hill entitled "The Man Who Shot Cane Skretteberg", which aired in 1997.

In 2000, Green Day released Warning, a step further in the style that they had hinted at with Nimrod. Critics' reviews of the album were varied. Allmusic gave it 4.5/5 saying "Warning may not be an innovative record per se, but it's tremendously satisfying." Rolling Stonewas more critical, giving it 3/5, and saying "Warning... invites the question: Who wants to listen to songs of faith, hope and social commentary from what used to be snot-core's biggest-selling band?" Though it produced the hit "Minority" and a smaller hit with "Warning", some observers were coming to the conclusion that the band was losing relevance, and a decline in popularity followed. While all of Green Day's past albums had reached a status of at least double platinum, Warning was only certified gold.

At the 2001 California Music Awards, Green Day won all eight awards that they were nominated for. They won the awards for Outstanding Album (Warning), Outstanding Punk Rock/Ska Album (Warning), Outstanding Group, Outstanding Male Vocalist, Outstanding Bassist, Outstanding Drummer, Outstanding Songwriter and Outstanding Artist.
The release of a Greatest Hits compilation, International Superhits!, and an assemblage of B-sides, Shenanigans, followed Warning.International Superhits and its companion collection of music videos, International Supervideos!, sold reasonably well, going platinum in the U.S.Shenanigans contained some of the band's B-sides, including "Espionage" which was featured in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
In the spring of 2002, Green Day co-headlined the Pop Disaster Tour with Blink-182. Despite the co-headlining title, Green Day would play each show before Blink-182, who at the time were experiencing more success. The tour was documented on the DVD Riding In Vans With Boys.

American Idiot and renewed success: 2003–2006
In the summer of 2003 the band went into a studio to write and record new material for a new album, tentatively titled Cigarettes and Valentines. After completing 20 tracks, the master tapes were stolen from the studio. The band chose not to try to re-create the stolen album, but instead started over. By the end of 2003, Green Day collaborated with Iggy Pop on two tracks for his album Skull Ring. On February 1, 2004 a new song, a cover of "I Fought the Law" made its debut on a commercial for iTunesduring NFL Super Bowl XXXVIII. The band underwent serious "band therapy," engaging in several long talks to work out the members' differences after accusations from Dirnt and Cool that Armstrong was "the band's Nazi" and a show-off bent on taking the limelight from the other band members.

The resulting 2004 album, American Idiot, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, the band's first ever album to top the chart, backed by the success of the album's first single, "American Idiot." The album was billed as a "punk rock opera" which follows the journey of the fictitious "Jesus of Suburbia".American Idiot won the 2005 Grammy for "Best Rock Album" and the band swept the 2005 MTV music awards, winning a total of seven of the eight awards they were nominated for, including the coveted Viewer's Choice Award.

Through 2005, the band toured in support of the album with about 150 dates — the longest tour in its career — visiting Japan, Australia, South America and the United Kingdom, where they drew a crowd of 130,000 people over a span of two days. While touring for American Idiot, they filmed and recorded the two concerts at the Milton Keynes National Bowl in England, which was voted 'The Best Show On Earth' in a Kerrang!Magazine Poll.

These recordings were released as a live CD and DVD called Bullet in a Bible on November 15, 2005. This CD/DVD featured hits from American Idiot as well as a few songs from all its previous albums, except "Kerplunk" and "1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours". The DVD featured behind-the-scenes footage of the band, and showed how the band prepared to put on the show. The final shows of its 2005 world tour were in Sydney, Australia, and Melbourne, Australia, on December 14 and 17 respectively. On January 10, 2006 the band was awarded with a People's Choice Award for favorite group.

Green Day live in Germany during the American Idiot tour.
On August 1, 2005, Green Day announced that that it had rescinded the master rights to its pre-Dookie material from Lookout! Records, citing a continuing breach of contract regarding unpaid royalties, a complaint shared with other Lookout! bands. The pre-Dookie material, which remained out of print for about a year, was reissued by the band's current label, Reprise, on January 9, 2007.

In 2006, Green Day won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" which spent 16 weeks at the number one position of Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks, a record it shared along with Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Scar Tissue" and Staind's "It's Been Awhile," (the record has been since been beaten by Foo Fighters' 2007 hit "The Pretender" which reigned at the top spot for 18 weeks).

Brandon Flowers of The Killers went on record in 2007 claiming that Green Day's politically driven concept album American Idiot displays "calculated Anti-Americanism." He explained that he has problems with the album content itself and the fact that the band's live DVD, Bullet in a Bible, was filmed in England. The taping of the concert, featured on Bullet in a Bible, shows thousands of Europeans singing along to "American Idiot." Stating that he felt Green Day's DVD is a bit of a stunt, he said, "I just thought it was really cheap. To go to a place like England or Germany and sing that song - those kids aren't taking it the same way that he meant it. And he (Billie Joe Armstrong) knew it.

Foxboro Hot Tubs and 21st Century Breakdown: 2007–present
Green Day engaged in several other smaller projects in the time following the hype of American Idiot. Green Day released a new album under the band name Foxboro Hot Tubs entitled Stop Drop and Roll!!!. In 2008, the Foxboro Hot Tubs went on a mini-tour to promote the record, hitting tiny Bay Area venues including the Stork Club in Oakland and Toot’s Tavern in Crockett, CA. One song, “Ruby Room,” even gives a shout-out to the Oakland dive bar where “the Pabst Blue Ribbon unravels.”

In an interview with Kerrang!, Armstrong revealed that 2008 would "be a fair estimate of the release date of their new untitled eighth studio album for Green Day." In an interview with Carson Daly, Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson revealed that Butch Vig would be producing Green Day's forthcoming album.[38] The span of nearly five years between American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown was the longest gap between studio albums in Green Day's career. The band had been working on new material since January 2006. By October 2007, Armstrong had 45 songs written, but the band showed no further signs of progress until October 2008, when a video of the group recording with producer Butch Vig in the studio was posted on YouTube. Two videos showing the band in the studio were posted on YouTube. In the tour section of the band's official website, the message "World Tour coming soon!" is shown. The writing and recording process, spanning three years and four recording studios, was finally finished in April 2009.

The new album, titled 21st Century Breakdown, was released worldwide on May 15, 2009. received rave reviews from the likes of Nirvana's Krist Novoselic. The album had mainly positive reception from critics, getting an average rating between 4 and 5 stars. After the release, the album hit #1 in fourteen different countries, hitting Gold or Platinum in each. 21st Century Breakdown achieved Green Day's best chart performance to date. The band started playing shows in California in April and early May. It was their first live show in about 3 years. Green Day is currently on a world tour that started in North America in July, 2009 and continuing around the world throughout the rest of 2009 and early 2010.

Band Member

Billie Joe Armstrong (born February 17, 1972) is the lead vocalist, chief songwriter and guitarist for the rock band Green Day.

Billie Joe Armstrong was born in Oakland, California and was raised in Rodeo, California, as the youngest of six children. His father, Andy Armstrong, worked as a drummer and truck driver for Safeway to support the family. He died of cancer on September 10, 1982 when Armstrong was 10. The song "Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a memorial to his father. His mother Ollie worked at Rod's Hickory Pit. Armstrong and Mike Dirnt got their first gig at Rod's Hickory Pit during their early years.

Armstrong's interest in music started at a young age. He attended Rodeo's Hillcrest Elementary School, where a teacher encouraged him to record a song titled "Look For Love" at the age of five on the Bay Area label "Fiat Records". At age 12 while attending Carquinez Middle School in Crockett, CA, he met Mike Dirnt, and they immediately bonded over their love of music. As a teenager he originally was into metal music, but got into punk after hearing the Sex Pistols song "Holidays in the Sun". Armstrong has also cited The Replacements and Hüsker Dü, both from Minneapolis, as major influences.

In 1987, Armstrong formed a band called Sweet Children with childhood friend Mike Dirnt at the age of 15. In the beginning, Dirnt and Armstrong were both on guitar, with John Kiffmeyer, also known as Al Sobrante, on drums, and Sean Hughes on bass. After a few gigs and a demo recording (later featured at the end of Green Day's Kerplunk!) Hughes left the band in 1988. At the same time Dirnt switched to bass and they became a 3-piece band. They changed their name to Green Day in April 1989. That same year they recorded the EPs 39/Smooth, 1,000 Hours, and Slappy, later combined into the LP 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, onLookout! Records. Tré Cool eventually replaced Sobrante in late 1990 when he left Green Day in order to go to college. California Punk bandRancid's lead singer Tim Armstrong asked Billie Joe to join Rancid, but he refused due to the progress with Green Day. Tré Cool made his debut on Green Day's second album, Kerplunk!. With their next album, Dookie (1994), the band broke through into the mainstream, and have remained one of the most popular rock bands of the 1990s and 2000s with over 60 million records sold worldwide.

Apart from working with Green Day and side-band Pinhead Gunpowder, Armstrong has proved himself busy in the music world, collaborating with many artists over the years. He has co-written for The Go-Go's ("Unforgiven") and former Avengers singer Penelope Houston ("The Angel and The Jerk" and "New Day"), co-written a song with Rancid ("Radio"), and sung backing vocals with Melissa Auf der Maur on Ryan Adams' "Do Miss America" (where they acted as the backing band for Iggy Pop on his Skull Ring album ("Private Hell" and "Supermarket"). Armstrong has produced an album for The Riverdales, and has also been confirmed to be part of a side project called The Network. The Network released an album called Money Money 2020. Many Green Day fans who listened to the record remarked the similarity between the two bands. Money Money 2020 was released on Adeline Records, a record label co-owned by Armstrong. He also worked with the band U2 with The Saints Are Coming. Green Day was featured in the Red Hot Chili Peppers video for Dani California.

Armstrong's first guitar was a Cherry Red Hohner acoustic, which his father bought for him. He then received his first electric guitar, a Fernandes Stratocaster copy that he named "Blue", when he was ten. His mother got "Blue" from George Cole who taught Armstrong electric guitar for ten years. Armstrong says in a 1995 MTV interview, "Basically, it wasn't like guitar lessons because I never really learned how to read music. So he just taught me how to put my hands on the thing". George Cole bought the guitar new from David Margen of the bandSantana. Cole gave Armstrong a Bill Lawrence Humbucking pickup and told him to install the pickup in the bridge position. After the pickup was destroyed at Woodstock '94, Armstrong then switched to the Duncan JB model. "Armstrong fetishized his teacher's guitar, partly because the blue instrument had a sound quality and Van Halen - worthy fluidity he couldn't get from his little red Hohner. He prized it mostly, however, because of his relationship with Cole, another father figure after the death of Andy." He toured with this guitar from the band's early days still uses it to this day. "Blue" also appears in several of their music videos starting with "Longview", "Basket Case", "Brain Stew/Jaded", and appearing most recently in "Minority".

Mike Dirnt (born Michael Ryan Pritchard; May 4, 1972) is the American bassist and backing vocalist for the American punk rock band Green Day. While at school, he would play "air-bass". While pretending to pluck the strings, he made a noise: "dirnt, dirnt, dirnt". He later adopted his stage name, "Mike Dirnt". Dirnt was born in Orlando, Florida but grew up in Rodeo, California.

Dirnt met Billie Joe Armstrong in 1982, at age ten, in the Rodeo Elementary School cafeteria, a few months before Armstrong's father died. He first founded Sweet Children with Armstrong in 1987, then Green Day with Armstrong and former Isocracy drummer Al Sobrante in 1989. Some years before, Dirnt moved in with Armstrong because his adoptive mother and stepsister moved away from Rodeo. Dirnt did not want to move away from his new-found best friend and love for music.

He used to play an old Gibson G-3 bass, but during Nimrod., Tré Cool accidentally broke it on stage trying to show fan Brendan Taylor how to spin a bass around his back. Armstrong then sent Dirnt's bass tech out to get him a new bass. It resulted in a '69 Fender Precision Bass. He later asked Fender to make him a custom P-Bass, and the result is modeled after the '51 P-Bass with a '59 Custom Shop "Hot Rod" Split-Coil Pickup, a BadAss II bridge and a thinner neck. It was released in early 2004.

Tré Cool (born Frank Edwin Wright III; December 9, 1972) is a German-born American drummer for the Punk Rock band Green Day. He replaced the band's former drummer John Kiffmeyer in 1990.

Frank Edwin Wright III was born December 9, 1972 in Frankfurt, Germany, making him the youngest member of Green Day. He lived in Willits, California with his father and his older sister, Lori.

Wright's closest neighbor was Larry Livermore, who at the time was the singer of the punk band The Lookouts. At age 11, Livermore recruited Wright to join The Lookouts and gave him the name of Tre Cool relying on both the French word très (meaning very) combined with the word cool. However, the silent "s" has been incorrectly dropped in the spelling.

When Green Day's drummer, John Kiffmeyer, left the band they recruited Cool to play drums. Cool decided to drop out of high school in his sophomore year. He was Class President for a time also. However, he passed an equivalency test and earned his GED, and began taking classes at a nearby community college. He had to drop out of college however, when the demands of Green Day's touring intensified.

Cool's father who owned a small company overhauled a used bookmobile and even served as the driver on three separate tours. "I watched them go from a bunch of kids to a group of musicians with work ethic," he later recalled. "On their first tour or two, it was more of a party than anything else. I still scratch my head and say, 'How in the hell did they make it?' They used to practice in my living room here - a lot of the songs they did on Dookie. You hear it coming together, and you don't expect people are going to go out and buy it. But when it does, you just say, 'Wow that's so cool.'"

In 1998, after Green Day won a "Moon Man" Trophy at the MTV Music Awards, Tré Cool famously scaled the Universal globe at Universal studios, but escaped with no punishment- only compliments and cheers.

Tré was once notorious for burning his drum kit, on stage, upon completion of every set on the "Warning" tour. He has a long time tradition also that if he cracks a cymbal during a concert he gives it away at the end.

Tré sings and plays guitar on the tracks "Dominated Love Slave" and "All by Myself", from Kerplunk! and Dookie, respectively. He wrote and sang the subtrack "Rock and Roll Girlfriend" from the medley "Homecoming" featured on the album American Idiot. He also sang and composed the track "DUI" ("Driving Under the Influence"), which was recorded during the Nimrod sessions, and was due to be released on Shenanigans (a compilation of B-sides), but omitted on the all versions of the album (despite being advertised for release on the Japanese version.) It was, however, released on advanced promotional issues of the album.

During a radio interview at Washington DC's alternative station DC 101, Tré sang and played the guitar to a short song titled "Like a Rat does Cheese", a song about the pleasure of fellatio. This song was acoustic.

Several live tracks also exist, usually from early dates around 1993, such as "Food Around the Corner", a song from the 1943 Elmer Fudd cartoon "An Itch in Time". Another live track "Billie Joe's Mom" was also recorded.

Tré had also recorded a version of Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain." It was posted on YouTube on August 1, 2007. His cover was mentioned in several news journals.

Green Day Discography 39/Smooth LP/Cassette 10 track (1990, Lookout! records) 1,039/Smoothed out slappy hours CD/ Cassette 19 track (1991, Lookout! records) Kerplunk LP/ CD/ Cassette 12/14 track (1992, Lookout! records) Dookie LP/ CD/ Cassette 14 track (1994, Reprise records) Insomniac LP/ CD/ Cassette 14 track (1995, Reprise records) Nimrod LP/ CD/ Cassette 18 track (1997, Reprise records) Warning LP/ CD/ Cassette 12 track (2000, Reprise records) International superhits LP/ CD/ Cassette 21 track (2001, Reprise records) American idiot LP/ CD/ Cassette 13 track (2004, Reprise records) Bullet in a bible CD+DVD/ UMD/ BLU RAY 15 track, (2005, Reprise records) 21st Century breakdown LP/ CD 18 track (2009, Reprise records)