From left: Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool
Green Day Biographies
BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG
Billie Joe is Green Day's lead guitarist, lead singer, and primary lyricist.
Billie Joe was born on 17th February 1972, the youngest of six children. He was born in Rodeo, California, which is in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father, Andy, was a truck driver for Safeway and a part time jazz musician, and his mother, Ollie, was a waitress.
Billie Joe has been singing since he was 5 years old, and he when he was young he would visit hospitals and sing for the patients to cheer them up.
He then managed to record his first song, "Look For Love", at a local record company called 'Fiat Records'.
(A copy of the record is currently for sale for US$1589)
When Billie was 10, his father died of cancer of the oesophagus, which eventually spread throughout his body. Billie Joe wrote a few songs about this, the best known being 'Wake Me Up When September Ends'.
A year later, he bought his first guitar, a Fernandes Stratocaster, which he named 'Blue'. He still occasionally uses Blue from time to time, but it is of great sentimental value so he doesn't use it all that often. He also has several replicas of it.
A year later Billie Joe's mother married a man who Billie and his siblings hated. Billie wrote a few songs about her marriage, including, the first song he ever wrote, 'Why Do You Want Him?'.
Billie was 10 years old when he met Mike Dirnt (bass player & back-up singer) in the school canteen, in 1982. They played music by Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Van Halen. They were also very into their local music scene. When they were 15, Billie, Mike and a boy called John, who was the drummer, formed their own band, calling themselves "Sweet Children". They played their first show at Billie's mother's work.
In 1990, John left the band. Billie and Mike knew who they wanted as a replacement and that was Tre Cool, who at that time was playing with the "Lookouts". They then renamed the band "Green Day". The band travelled all over the States in an old bookmobile that Tre's dad drove. They had little money and tended to stay in fans' houses.
When they were in Minneapolis in 1990, Billie Joe first met Adrienne Nesser, his future wife. They were married in a 5-minute ceremony in July 1994. A day later, Adrienne found out she was pregnant and their first child, Joseph Marcicano Armstrong, was born in March 1995. Three years later, Jakob Danger was born in September 1998.
From left: Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool
MIKE DIRNT
Mike is Green Day's bass player and backup vocalist.
Mike was born Michael Ryan Pritchard on May 4th, 1972, in Berkeley, California. Because his mother was a heroin addict, she gave him up for adoption. His adoptive parents were a Native American mother and a Caucasian father. When he was seven years old his adoptive parents divorced. For a while he lived with his father but conflict sent him back to his mother, where he lived on the borderline of poverty. He had one stepsister who left home at the age of 13.
About his home life, Mike has said, "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 sudden he's my stepdad. We didn't get along for years. Later on, when I hit high school, my mom moved away from us, and me and my stepdad 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."
Mike left home when he was 15 and lived out of a truck. Later on he rented a room in Billie's house and later he lived in a punk-squatter building.
Mike supported himself by working as a cook and he continued to go to school.
Mike's mother refused to sign one of his mandatory-attendance forms so he almost didn't graduate from high school.
"I took my mom aside," Mike said. "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 stuff me up. Don't play mom once a year. It doesn't cut it.'" [Editor's note: Expletives have been removed]. Mike eventually graduated from high school and even went on to do a year's worth of community college.
Billie and Mike then moved into a squat in Oakland. This living space was the inspiration for the song "Welcome to Paradise".
In 1996 Mike married his long-time girlfriend, Anastasia, and in April 1997 they had a daughter, Estella Desirée. The two have since separated but they remain very good friends. Mike remarried in 2004 but his second wife left fairly soon after the marriage because Mike was spending so much time recording American Idiot.
TRÉ COOL
Tré is Green Day's drummer and backup vocalist.
Tré was born on December 9th, 1972 in Frankfurt, Germany, where his dad was stationed. His birth name was Frank Edwin Wright III. He grew up primarily in the small town of Willits, California with his father and two older siblings.
Tré's neighbour was the Lookout! Records owner Lawrence Livermore, who recruited Tré to his punk outfit "The Lookouts". It was Livermore who came up with the name Tré Cool.
Tré decided to drop out of high school in year 10 (his "sophomore" year in the US). Later he passed a high school equivalency test and earned his GED. He even began taking classes at a nearby community college.
Once Green Day had finished its first tour around the U.S., John decided to leave Green Day. Billie and Mike then asked Tré to join the band.
Tré's father owned a small trucking company and he lent the band a used Bookmobile for their early tours; a few times he even came along to drive it.
In January 1995 Tré had a daughter called Ramona and soon afterwards he married his long-time girlfriend Lisea Lyons. They later divorced and in May 2002 he married a woman named Claudia. Tré and Claudia have a child, named Frankito, born in 2001. Although they are now divorced they still live together (with Frankito).
References
Green Day Authority (http://www.greendayauthority.com) and others referenced on External Links.
Myers, Ben. Green Day: american idiots and the new punk explosion. The Disinformation Company Ltd., New York, 2006.
Small, Doug. Omnibus Press presents the story of Green Day. Omnibus Press, Sydney, 2005.