green Day Biography

Green Day

American rock music group reminiscent of punk, formed in 1988 in Berkeley and made up of Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass) and Tre Cool (drums).Billie Joe Armstrong (born 1972 in California) and Mike Dirnt (whose real name is Mike Pritchard, born 1972), residents of the Californian town of Rodeo, formed the band in the late 1980s.

Green Day

Billie Joe Armstrong had grown up in a family of six siblings, whose father, a trucker and jazz musician, passed away when Billie Joe was ten years; Her mother, a waitress and country fanatic, gave her a year later a guitar that she still owns and plays.For her part, Mike Pritchard was the son of a heroin addict, which led to her being adopted by a couple who, in turn, divorced when Mike was seven.At the age of fifteen, Mike rented a room in Billie Joe's house.

Tre Cool, whose real name was Frank Edwin Wright III, was born in 1972 in Germany, and grew up in Wilitis, a town north of San Francisco.Soon he created with a neighbor the group The Lookouts, which came to publish an album on his own label, Lookout Records.With this group he began to play for punk clubs in the Berkeley, California area.

Billie Joe and Mike, around 1987, formed The Sweet Children, a real antecedent of what would become Green Day, a name they adopted in 1989.The name change was due to another local band He had signed for Warner Records, and his name was similar (Sweet Baby).

The training was completed with John Kiftmeyer, better known as Al Sobrante, who was a drummer at the beginning of the training career.And, by chance in life, Lookout Records, the Tre Cool production company, became interested in the new group and released their first album, entitled 1000 Hours , in 1989.This was followed a year later the album 39/Smooth , after the edition of which Kiftmeyer decided to leave the group.Tre Cool then joined the band to take care of drums.

Continuators of first wave punk bands like The Ramones, but also influenced by the renewed rock of Queen and other groups, Green Day embarked on a National tour that took them to skate clubs and parks, cementing their reputation on the underground circuit.In 1992 came the release of his second album, Kerplunk , recorded in five days and released on Lookout Records.

As a true independent band, they did several national tours aboard a van that had previously served as a mobile library, bought and driven by Tre Cool's father, Mr.Wright.Thanks to all this, the popularity of the band grew in an unusual way, and the trio amicably left Lookout Records to sign in April 1993 for Reprise Records.

The group's next entry into a studio lasted for five weeks, during which they recorded their third album, Dookie , an album of just 39 minutes and fourteen songs.The full-length hit stores in April 1994, and in a couple of months it had sold over a million copies; that same year they performed on the Lollapalooza tour and at the Woodstock festival.

The following year, Armstrong and Cool became parents, and Dirnt got married. Dookie had an unstoppable career that only came to a halt when the number of copies sold surpassed nine million.In that year 1995 came Imsomniac , the trio's next album, which, despite not obtaining the resounding success of its predecessor, managed to sell more than a million copies in the United States.

After the tour after the album was released, the trio decided to take some time off, until in the summer of 1997 they recorded Nimrod , an album that hit stores on October 14 of that year.On this last album the group introduced some elements that enriched their compositions, such as a violin or wind instruments.

The latest recordings of the Berkeley band have been Warning (2000) , Americanidiot (2004) and the direct Bullet in a Bible (2005).For one of the songs that make up this latest album, Boulevard of broken dreams , the band received a Grammy for the best recording of the year.