Green Day Biography
Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt are the actual founders of the band Sweet Children, which we know today as Green Day. When they were ten years old (1982), the duo met in the cafeteria of John Sweet High School in Crockett, California. During sleepovers at each other's houses, they played songs by old heavy metal warhorses such as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard, and Van Halen. Other influences would be the "thrash and drang" of the Bay Area's alternative music culture percolating throughout the eighties. Clubs such as Mabuhay Gardens and Berkeley's 924 Gilman Street regularly showcased local groups like the Dead Kennedys and Buck Naked. Billie Joe was 14 when he wrote his first song, "Why Do You Want Him?", a song about his mother and stepfather. In 1987, Billie Joe and Mike recruited drummer John Kriftmeyer (aka Al Sobrante) and formed the band Sweet Children. They played their first official gig at Rod's Hickory Pit in Vallejo, CA. Soon, they started playing at clubs on the infamous Gilman Street in Berkeley, CA.
As Green Day, they recorded their first EP, 1,000 Hours, in two days when they were 17 and seniors in high school. Soon, Mike graduated, however Billie Joe dropped out one day prior to his 18th birthday. They followed up the 1,000 Hours EP with numerous pressings of the "Sweet Children" EP, and also the "Slappy" EP. Their official debut album came in 1990, a combination of all the previous EP, and named "1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours". The album was released by local indie label Lookout! Records. Soon after, John Kriftmeyer decided to leave the band to pursue college, so Billie and Mike recruited Gilman Street veteran, Tre Cool. Tre had been playing in the band, The Lookouts!, since he was 12. Members of The Lookouts include Lawrence Livermore, the owner of Lookout! Records. In 1991, Tre debuted on Green Day's second album, "Kerplunk!".
Green Day built its following the old-fashioned way-they earned it. Before they even hooked up with a major label, the band had already completed five national tours, driving their renovated bookmobile (with Tre's father at the wheel) coast to coast and crashing on friends' and fan's floors. After capturing the attention of producer Rob Cavallo of Reprise Records, faced with a hard choice, the guys decided to sign onto a major label in April 1993, and soon started recorded the album that would through them into stardom, 1994's "Dookie".
Pandemonium struck when their Reprise debut, "Dookie", was released and Green Day introduced an ever-expanding audience to the energy and insanity of punk rock. With the 14 loud'n'fast tunes of "Dookie" clocking in at only 39 minutes, 1993 suddenly sounded more like 1977. Soon, Green Day's songs about picking scabs, pyromania and masturbation had become unofficial national anthems. Green Day was singing about its own distinct form of malcontent, but it seemed there was a world of followers who felt their pain and wanted to laugh-and mosh-along with it. Immaturity was cool again. "Dookie" went on to sell more than 10 million copies in the U.S. alone, and Green Day won a Grammy in 1994 for "Best Alternative Music Performance." Of course, this led some of the gang back on Gilman Street to cry "sell-out" and "mainstream," but one listen to Green Day and you'd know this wasn't some watered-down white-bread punk designed to impress your parents.
On their next few albums, "Insomniac" and "Nimrod", Green Day has managed to stay true to the punk attitude while proving they're not just one-trick ponies or even three-chord monkeys. On Nimrod, note the surf-style instrumental,"Last Ride In," and the string section of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", which was featured prominently on an episode of ER and the final installment of Seinfield. By this time, the members were starting families, and it was becoming apparent that they were maturing as individuals and as a band. They wanted to take some time off to be with their families and enjoy life. So after the success of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" , Green Day took a two year break.
In 2000, Green Day hit the music scene once again with their album "Warning:". The album is a different sound for the band, a more mellow punk if you will. Unfortunately, the album wasn't very well accepted by critics and fans alike. The biggest hit from the album was the song "Minority".
So after another four years with a few tours and a couple of compilation albums (International Superhits! in 2001 and Shenanigans in 2002), but no new material from Green Day, fans were hit with the September 2004 released of "american idiot", an album which lashes out against the American government and the media. "american idiot" was the first Green Day ever to debut at #1 on the Billboard Charts, and other music charts around the world. The album's title track, was an instant success. The follow up single, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" experienced a much greater success. "American Idiot" was nominated for seven Grammy awards, and took home one, "Best Rock Album". The release and success of this album proved that Green Day are indeed the biggest rock band in the world. (Also, an American Idiot MOVIE is on the way!)
So do you have the time to listen to me whine? We still answer with a resounding "yes".
Some parts of this biography was written by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, while other parts were written by GDA Webmaster, Courtney Smith. (And, copied by me, of course. ^_^)
Credit given to 
for the biography.
Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong was brought into the world on February 17, 1972, the youngest of six children. His father, Andy, was a part time jazz musician and a truck driver for Safeway, while his mother was a waitress at a local restaurant named Rod's Hickory Pit. Billie started singing when he was just 5 years old. He would go around to hospitals and sing to the patients to make them feel better. Then he got to record his first song, "Look for Love" at a local recording company named Fiat Records. Billie got his first electric guitar, the infamous "Blue" (a Fernandes Stratocaster), when he was 11. Billie still uses Blue to this day and has several replicas of it. At the age of 10, Billie's father died of cancer to the esophagus which spread throughout his body. His mother continued to work at Rod's Hickory Pit (a barbecue joint owned by Richard and Alice Cotton) in Vallejo, California, to support herself and her six kids. Billie Joe and Mike later worked there as busboys. Two years after the death of his father, his mother remarried to a man that Billie and his siblings detested.
Billie was 10 when he met Mike Dirnt in the school cafeteria in 1982. During sleepovers at each others houses, they played songs by old heavy metal warhorses such as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard, and Van Halen. Other influences would be the "thrash and drang" of the Bay Area's alternative music culture percolating throughout the eighties. Clubs such as Mabuhay Gardens and Berkeley's 924 Gilman Street regularly showcased local groups like the Dead Kennedys and Buck Naked. He wrote his first song, "Why Do You Want Him", a song about his mother and his step father, when he was 14. At the age of 15, Billie, Mike, and a drummer named John formed a punk band and named themselves Sweet Children. Their first gig was actually at Rod's Hickory Pit. One day before his 18th birthday, and halfway through his senior year of high school, Billie dropped out of high school (Pinole Valley High School) to devote all his time to Sweet Children. He knew what he wanted to do -- play music, and school was just getting in the way. At this point, Billie had the nickname "Two Dollar Bill", referring to the price of the joints he sold.
In 1990, John left the band to attend college. Billie and Mike were faced with the task of finding a new drummer. They knew the perfect fit, Tre Cool, a Gilman Street veteran, who was then playing in the Lookouts. Later, Sweet Children was renamed Green Day. Before they knew it, they were traveling all over the country in an old bookmobile with Tre's dad at the wheel. They did all this with little money and staying at fan's houses. It was in Minneapolis in 1990 when Billie first laid eyes on his future wife, a girl named Adrienne Nesser. They dated awhile and then were married on July 2, 1994, a 5 minute ceremony. The day after their wedding, Adrienne found out she was pregnant. Their son, Joseph Marcicano Armstrong, was born in March of 1995. Three years later on September 12, 1998, another boy, Jakob Danger was added to the Armstrong family. Today, Billie, Adrienne, Joseph, and Jakob reside in Berkeley, California.
The Cottons sold Rod's Hickory Pit in 1988. It eventually became a Korean karaoke joint and was torn down last year to make way for a strip mall.
Information for this biography provided by The San Francisco Magazine.
(And, once again, copied by me. ^_^) Credit given to
Mike Dirnt
Michael Ryan Pritchard, now known as Mike Dirnt, was born on May 4, 1972. Mike's mother was a heroin addict. He was given up for adoption when he was a baby, to a Native American mother and a white father. When he was 7, his adoptive parents got a divorce. Mike lived with his father for awhile, but confrontations sent him back to his mother. He lived there on the borderline of poverty, while his sister left home at the age of 13. "There were all sorts of things happening," says Mike. "When I was in fourth or fifth grade, my mom stayed out all night, came home the next day with a guy, and he moved in. I'd never met the guy before, and all of a sudden he's my step-dad. We didn't get along for years. Later on, when I hit high school, my mom moved away from us, and me and my step-dad got real close. He instilled a lot in me. The one thing my family did give me is blue-collar morals. But then he died when I was 17."
By that point, Mike had already moved out, leaving home when he was 15 to live out of his truck. He then rented a room in Billie's house, and later he lived in a punk squatter building. Billie and Mike began living for their weekends at the Gilman Street Project. Mike still continued to go to school, play in Sweet Children (which later became Green Day of course), and live on his own. He supported himself by working as a cook. Mike almost didn't graduate from high school, because his mother refused to sign one of his mandatory-attendance forms.
"I took my mom aside," Mike says. "I said, 'This is how it is. You have so much stuff going on in your life, so if once every semester you ask me if I've done my homework and jump all over my case, that's not right. Have I failed yet? No. And I'm going to graduate if you stay off my back. The one time in your life you chose to have morals, and it's going to mess me up. Don't play mom once a year. It doesn't cut it.'" In the end, Mike did graduate from high school, and he even took more than a year's worth of courses at a community college. Then Billie and Mike moved into a squat in Oakland, California (the inspiration for "Welcome to Paradise").
Mike married his long time girlfriend Anastasia in 1996 and their daughter, Estella-Desiree was born in April 1997. Mike loves his daughter very much, and his nickname for her is "Hero". Today, Mike and Anastasia are separated, but still remain very good friends. He recently was remarried in 2004, however his wife left him because he spending too much time in the studio recording American Idiot. Mike is currently dating, and he resides in Oakland, California. He also owns a café/restaurant named Rudy's Can't Fail Café, after a song by the Clash. The café is located in Emeryville, CA.
A lot of information for this biography came from the January 26, 1995 issue of Rolling Stone. (And copied by me.)
Tre Cool
Frank Edwin Wright III was born December 9, 1972 in Frankfurt, Germany, making him the youngest member of Green Day. He lived in the Mendocino mountains, California with his dad and his 2 older siblings. His dad, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, decided the move the family there to insulate them upon his return to the United States. Tre's closest neighbor was none other than Lookout! Records owner Lawrence Livermore, who also owned the punk band the Lookouts. At age 12, Livermore recruited Tre to join The Lookouts, and that's when Livermore gave him the name of Tre Cool (which means Very Cool in French). After Green Day's first tour around the country (following the release of 39/Smooth), John Kriftmeyer decided to leave Green Day. Looking no farther than Gilman Street, Billie Joe and Mike recruited Tre, who was already a 5 year veteran of the Gilman Street scene.
Tre decided to drop out of high school his sophomore year. However, he did pass an equivalency test and earned his GED, and he even 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. Tre's father, who owns a small trucking 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," says Tre's father, Frank Wright. "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 heck 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.'"(Rolling Stone, January 26, 1995)
Tre had a daughter named Ramona in January of 1995, then he married his long time girlfriend Lisea Lyons in March. Him and Lisea are divorced now, but Tre remarried in May of 2000, to Claudia. Claudia and him have a son named Frankito, which means "Little Frank". Tre and Claudia divorced in 2003, but they still live together with Frankito in Oakland, California. Recently, Tre has been linked to Donna C., drummer of The Donnas, however they are no longer together.
Entire Bio credit given to The Green Day Authority.
Jason White
Thanks to them for the bio.
Adrienne Nesser/Armstrong
John Kiffmeyer "Al Sobrante"
Jason Freese
Ron Blake
Mike Pelino