Green Day

Green Day
File:Promo greenday pic.jpg
Background information
Origin	California, USA
Years active	1988 – present
Members	Billie Joe Armstrong Mike Dirnt Tré Cool

Green Day is a California based pop punk band, consisting of Billie Joe Armstrong (lead vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass, backing vocals), and Tré Cool (drummer, backing vocals). Since their sixth album, the band has included close friend and associate, back-up guitarist Jason White. Their success has been a major influence on other prominent pop-punk bands, such as Sum 41 and Blink-182.

"Dookie" has been certified diamond (10 million copies shipped) in the United States since its release. Their second best-selling album "American Idiot" came a decade after Dookie, in 2004. It has been certified quadruple platinum in the US and diamond world-wide and won the band a Grammy Award for "Best Rock Album". In 2005 Green Day swept the MTV Video Music Awards winning seven out of eight nominations: "Video of the Year," "Best Rock Video," "Best Group Video," "Best Direction," "Best Editing," "Best Cinematography", all of which were for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and the "Viewer's Choice Award" for "American Idiot". The band was most recently awarded an American Music Award for "Favorite Album" for "American Idiot".

History

Lookouts: the beginning (1988-1992)

At the age of 12, Tré Cool became a member of the band The Lookouts. Their album attracted some attention, and Tré began performing at an early age at the Berkeley, California punk rock all-ages venue 924 Gilman Street.

In 1988, Billie Joe Armstrong (aged 16) and Mike Dirnt (also aged 16) formed Sweet Children, with Armstrong on lead vocals and guitar, Dirnt on bass and backing vocals, and John Kiffmeyer (a.k.a. Al Sobrante) on drums. Their first show was on October 17, 1988 at Rod's Hickory Pit in Vallejo, California.

About two months later, they played a high school party with the Lookouts in a remote mountain location near Willits, California, where Tré and Kain Kong of the Lookouts lived and attended school. Only five kids showed up for the party but they left after the first song, and there was no electricity in the house and the toilet didn't work, so Sweet Children had to play using a generator and candlelight. But they played, as Lookouts singer/guitarist Larry Livermore put it, "as if they were The Beatles at Shea Stadium."

Livermore, who also ran the Berkeley independent label Lookout! Records, immediately offered them a deal, and in early 1989 they recorded their first EP, 1,000 Hours. They then decided, weeks before the EP release, to change their name to Green Day, a slang term for a day spent smoking marijuana. The band had been smokers since puberty and Billie Joe got his nickname, "Two Dollar Bill," from selling joints at that price ($2) at his high school. The song "Green Day", written by Billie Joe, is about his first experience using marijuana.

One year later, in April 1990, Green Day released their first album "39/Smooth", and that summer they set out in a van on their first national tour. Before leaving, they recorded another four-song EP called "Slappy". This release was followed by another four-song EP, "Sweet Children" including some of their old songs for the local label Skene Records. In 1991, "1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours" was released; this re-issued "39/Smooth" with all the tracks from "Slappy" and "1,000 Hours".

After this tour, at the end of the summer of 1990, Al Sobrante left the band temporarily to attend college in Arcata, California. By this time the Lookouts had become mostly inactive, and Tré Cool, now 17 and living in Berkeley, began playing with Green Day as a temporary replacement. The combination worked out so well that he soon became Green Day's permanent drummer.

In 1991, the band toured and played locally, building up a large fan following, and also wrote and recorded their second album, "Kerplunk!", released on Lookout Records in January 1992. The CD version also included the four tracks from the "Sweet Children EP". They continued to tour through 1992 and 1993, reaching nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, and Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic).

The UK leg of the tour featured a notable appearance at The Rainbow, a Wigan social club. That gig would have been a standard stop on an independent punk band's minor UK tour, were it not for one small fact: the band decided to use their set to stage their own version of the Nativity, featuring Billie Joe as all three schizophrenic Three Wise Punks, Mike as Santa Claus and a bad-taste version of the Virgin Birth featuring Tre as Mary, a roadie as Jesus and a bag of rice pudding and tomato ketchup as the Holy Placenta. This theatrical trait would become common practice for the band ten years later, only on a much larger scale.

Mainstream success with "Dookie" (1993-1995)

By 1993, Green Day had sold about 55,000 copies of "Kerplunk!", which was considered a large amount for the independent punk scene in those days, and attracted a great deal of attention from the major labels. Eventually they left Lookout on friendly terms and signed a deal with Reprise Records. They spent the greater part of the year recording their major label debut, "Dookie", which virtually was an instant sensation, helped by extensive MTV airplay for the videos "Longview", "When I Come Around", and "Basket Case".

In 1994, Green Day embarked on a nationwide tour and chose queercore band Pansy Division as their opening act and backstage fun. At the time this was regarded as quite controversial; nonetheless, the tour was a huge success. The band also joined the lineups of both the Lollapalooza Festival and Woodstock 1994. Green Day's Woodstock gig included a gigantic mud fight between the band and the audience, leading to a melee in which Dirnt lost his front teeth.

They recorded a single called "J.A.R." in 1995, and followed it up with the album "Insomniac" in the fall of 1995. It was a darker response to the poppy simplicity of "Dookie". One track, "86", was a reference to the Gilman street club refusing them entry after the release of Dookie, claiming that they had "gone too commercial". Though the album didn't approach the success of "Dookie", it still sold two million copies in the United States. After that, the band abruptly cancelled a European tour, claiming exhaustion.

"Nimrod" (1996-1998)

Following "Insomniac", Green Day was back in the studio by 1996, at work on a new album. The result was "Nimrod", an experimental deviation on the band’s classic pop-punk brand of music. This new album, released to mainly positive reviews and mixed fan response in October 1997, combined everything from peppy ska ("King for a Day") to surf instrumentals ("Last Ride In") to acoustic ballads, i.e. "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", which is one of the group’s biggest hits to date. The song was the official theme for the 1998 PGA Golf Tour, as well as being featured in the final episode of Seinfeld. It was also the top wedding song for that year, ironically, seeing as how the song was written as a bitter kiss-off to the other party after a nasty breakup.

Despite a brief and small surge in popularity thanks to "Good Riddance", their fourth #1 single, the band decided to take a two-year break after completing their Nimrod tour.

"Warning:" The commercial slump (2000-2002)

In 2000, they released "Warning:", a step further in the style that they had hinted at with "Nimrod". "Warning:" was a pure pop album peppered with punk ideals, more inspired by The Kinks than by The Buzzcocks, and needless to say, many fans were surprised and not pleased. Concurrently, critics’ reviews of the album were mixed, many of them deeming the album simply mediocre. Though it produced the #1 hit Minority and a smaller hit with "Warning", nearly everyone was coming to the conclusion that the band was losing relevance, and the decline in popularity was undeniable. While all of Green Day’s past albums had reached a status of at least double platinum, Warning: was only certified gold. The band’s future seemed to be in question by everyone, including its members themselves.

The release of a greatest-hits compilation, "International Superhits!", and the token complementary assemblage of B-sides, "Shenanigans", only fueled the theory that Green Day was on the rocks. A 2002 co-headlining tour with blink-182 on the Pop Disaster Tour helped to resurrect some of the band’s fame, and earned the group many positive concert reviews stating that they outshined blink-182 by far, but many still feared that the end of Green Day was on the horizon. The band decided to take some time off after the Pop Disaster Tour closed, to spend time with their families and, ultimately, to decide whether maintaining the band was in anybody’s best interest anymore.

"American Idiot": the commercial boom (2004-present)

File:Rolling-stone-mag Green Day.jpg

The February 2005 cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine featuring Green Day. © Rolling Stone/Time Warner.

Fighting burnout after "Warning:", the band went into the studio to write and record new material for an album. After completing 20 tracks — an impressive album according to those few who heard it — the master tapes were stolen from the studio. The band, understandably upset, chose not to try and re-create the stolen album (Billie Joe feared that it would take their fan base "back to about 50"), but instead started over with a vow to be even better than before. In addition, they underwent serious "band therapy," engaging in several long talks to work out the members' differences after accusations from Dirnt and Cool that Billie Joe was "the band's Nazi"^[1] and a show-off bent on taking the limelight from the other band members. After a restoration of band democracy, the creative floodgates opened as well, with each member trying different things every day in the studio - most notably the creation of two 9-minute tracks for the forthcoming Green Day record. The resulting 2004 album, "American Idiot", debuted at #1 on the Billboard Charts, the band's first ever album to reach #1, backed by the success of the album's first single, "American Idiot". The album was billed as a "punk rock opera", or more accurately a concept album, which follows the journey of the fictitious "Jesus of Suburbia". The album could also be described as an anti-war allegory, as it features songs blasting George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq. The story of "Jesus of Suburbia" is deliberately ambiguous, and it is possible to interpret it as the story of a young man going to serve his country overseas. Indeed, this is plausible, as this is the very narrative that features in the music video for the fourth single to be taken from American Idiot, "Wake Me Up When September Ends", which was actually written about the death of Billie Joe's father.

Another noticeable difference was the members of the band having discarded their trademark instruments. Billie Joe Armstrong changed his guitar from the Fernandes Stratocaster copy he had been playing since the age of 10 to a Gibson Les Paul Junior. Armstrong does however continue to use his Strat copy at some point in every live show. Mike Dirnt used his Gibson G-3 bass guitar for several of their albums leading up to "Nimrod", but now plays a custom Fender Precision Bass. Exact duplicates of his guitar are made by Fender, and they are called the Mike Dirnt Precision Bass. Tre Cool also severed his longtime association with Slingerland and started using Ludwig-Musser drums.

"American Idiot" also marked a major change of image. While in the past they had dyed their hair in different colors (ranging from red to green to pink and back again) and appeared in mostly variegated clothes, here they started wearing fitted black shirts with neckties and also dyed their hairs in more plain colours like white and black. Cool and Armstrong started wearing eye liner and painted their nails with black nail polish, drawing arguably unfavourable comparisons with Good Charlotte. This change most probably symbolized the musical and overall maturing of the band and its members as they reach their middle 30's.

"American Idiot" won a Grammy in 2005 for "Best Rock Album" along with 5 other Grammy nominations. The song "American Idiot" was featured in the video game Madden NFL 2005. The band, at the moment, is touring, promoting the album with many dates, continuing the theatrics of the shows from the Warning and Shenanigans tours by featuring a horn section dressed as a pink rabbit and a bumblebee, Billie Joe donning a crown and silk cape for the song "King For A Day" and drawn-out performances of certain songs like "Hitchin' a Ride" and "Minority", where Billie Joe uses the instrumental sections to make popcorn with the crowd, a staple of Green Day's blue live performances. They also perform covers of the songs "We Are the Champions" by Queen, "Shout" by The Isley Brothers (by way of Otis Day & the Knights version from "Animal House"), "Outsider" by The Ramones, and "Stand by Me" by Ben E. King.

While touring for American Idiot, they recorded from the two concerts at the Milton-Keynes National Bowl in England. These recordings were released as a live CD & DVD called Bullet in a Bible on November 15, 2005.

Future plans

According to NME, shooting of a an American Idiot: The Motion Picture movie is planned to start in 2006. In an interview with Billboard magazine Billie Joe Armstrong revealed that the group are still considering turning the punk "rock opera" into a film, in much the same spirit as the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine".

According to Billie Joe in an interview for NME, the band will "take their time" before making a follow-up to "American Idiot":"We'll probably start writing after the first of the year and then just regroup. We've gotta take our time -- this year was such a big year for us. I think it's a good time to regroup and have good substance to write about instead of hopping into something really fast."

On August 1, 2005, it was announced that Green Day had rescinded the master rights to their pre-"Dookie" material from Lookout! Records, citing breach of contract regarding unpaid royalties that had been ongoing for some time. As of October 2005, it is unknown whether a label affiliated with the band (Reprise, Armstrong's own Adeline), a reissue specialist like Rhino, or another label entirely will reissue the Lookout!-era material. As a result of Green Day reclaiming the masters from Lookout! Records, the independent label laid off two thirds of its nine-person staff and delayed its new release plans for the rest of 2005.

Recently, a video for "Jesus of Suburbia" has been completed and a live video for "St. Jimmy" has been finished.

Line-up

• Billie Joe Armstrong: Guitar, Lead Vocals (1988–)
• Mike Dirnt: Bass, Backup Vocals (1988–)
• Tré Cool: Drums, Vocals, Backup Vocals (1990–)

Backing members

• Jason White: Second Guitar, Backup Vocals (1999+)
• Jason Freese: Keyboard/Piano, Saxophone, Trombone, Backup Guitar, Accordion, Backup Vocals (2003+)
• Ronnie Blake: Trumpet, Timpani/Percussions, Backup Vocals (2003+)
• Mike Pelino (from The Enemies): Third Guitar (2003+)
• John Fisher (From a School): Talks throughout song (1950+)

Former members

• John Kiffmeyer AKA Al Sobrante: Drums (1989–1991)

Other projects

The Network

Main article: The Network

In 2003, during time Green Day spent in the studio, a New Wave band appeared on the scene, known as The Network. Three of five members of the band are thought to be Green Day. The frontman, known only as "Fink", is possibly Billie Joe Armstrong. Billie has referred to himself as Wilhelm Fink in the past, this confirmed on the Pinhead Gunpowder website bio of Billie. The bass player, known as "Van Gough", is supposedly Mike Dirnt (the link being both are vegetarians); and The Network's drummer, "The Snoo", assumed to be Tré Cool. John Roecker, director of 'Live Freaky Die Freaky', starring Green Day and other East Bay punk alumni, and Green Day's DVD Documentary "Heart Like A Hand Grenade", has spoken of various projects recorded at Studio 880, including a New Wave album and a Christmas album, during the sessions of their latest album. Studio 880 is the credited studio in The Network's Money Money 2020 album and Green Day's American Idiot. No official connection has been made between the two bands, and both bands have defended, sometimes aggressively (in a probably staged press conference where some members from both bands engaged in a heated argument then broke out in a minor conflict), the lack of connection between the two.

Charity events

Green Day performed at the Live 8 concert on July 2, 2005 in Berlin, Germany, where they played "Holiday", "American Idiot", "Minority" and a rendition of Queen's We Are The Champions.

The band also contributed a prerecorded performance to the Hurricane Katrina Benefit relief event on September 10, 2005 from their performance the prior week at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The televised portion (shown on MTV and VH1) showed the trio performing their latest single, "Wake Me Up When September Ends.". The video has been released by someone under the screename "Oktam" and can be viewed here, with tags asking viewers to donate to charity and pray for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Their final shows on their 2005 world tour will be in Sydney, Australia and Melbourne, Australia on 14 and 17 December respectively.

Discography

Main article: Green Day discography

References

• Cohen, Jonathan. 'Green Day's 'Idiot' Fueling Banner Year', Billboard (December 7 2004). Retrieved July 27 2005.
• Cohen, Jonathan. 'Green Day not ready to rest 'Idiot, Billboard (July 26 2005). Retrieved July 27 2005.
• Green Day Lyrics, Pictures, etc
• The Green Day Story (Broadcast on Radio 1 Mon 20 June 2005)
• RollingStone.com

Notes

1. ^ "Green Day — How the brats grew up, bashed Bush and conquered the world". Rolling Stone. November 24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

External links

• Official Green Day Website
• All Music Guide: Green Day