Green Day Artist Biography

Greenday consists of Mike Dirnt (bass) and Billie Joe Armstrong (guitar, vocals) who were childhood friends from California and formed their first band Sweet Children, when they were 14 years old. By 1989, the group had added drummer Al Sobrante and changed its name to Green Day. That year, the band independently released its first EP, 1,000 Hours, which was well received in the California hardcore punk scene. Soon, the group had signed a contract with a local independent label, Lookout. Later that year Green Day released their first album, 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hour. Shortly after its release, the band replaced Sobrante with Tre Cool (born Frank Edwin Wright, III); Cool became the band's permanent drummer.

In 1992 the band released its second album Kerplunk. Leading up to this, Greenday had a cult following but the underground success of Kerplunk led to a wave of interest from major record labels; the band eventually decided to sign with Reprise. The album Dookie, Green Day's label debut, was released in the spring of 1994.

With support from MTV for the initial single on this album, "Longview,", Dookie became a major hit. The album continued to gain momentum throughout the summer, with the second single, "Basket Case," spending five weeks on the top of the American modern rock charts. At the end of the summer, the band stole the show at Woodstock '94, which also helped the sales of Dookie increase.

Dookie eventually sold eight million in America and over ten million copies internationally. It also won the 1994 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Green Day quickly followed Dookie with Insomniac in the autumn of 1995; earlier that year, they had hit number one again on the modern rock charts with J.A.R., their contribution to the soundtrack of the film Angus.
Insomniac achieved success initially, entering the U.S. charts at number two, and selling over two million copies by the spring of 1996, yet none of its singles, including the radio favourite Brain Stew/Jaded were as popular as those from Dookie. It was at this time that Green Day abruptly cancelled a European tour, due to exhaustion. Following the cancellation, the band spent the rest of the year resting and writing new material, releasing Nimrod in late 1997. It was another three years before their long-awaited follow-up, Warning, was released. A 'best of' album shortly followed proceeded by the album Shenanigans.

In September last year the band released the album American Idiot. This went on to win Best Rock Album at the 2005 Grammies in February. The album makes a serious political statement and famously attacks Bush, with the single of the same name making a powerful comment on the American media and government and how heavily the US are influenced, even controlled by this. The band's singer Billy Joe Armstrong remains furious that Bush got in for a second term and blames Kerry for failing to provide a decent opposition He says “The Democrat candidate didn't even say what he wanted to do, he just had a go a Bush. This is the thing about middle of the road politics - the election before this one, it was all about how both of the candidates f**ked their wives - that's what won the election."
The single Boulevard of Broken dreams is off this album and is currently number 2 in the US charts whilst Holiday from the same album is number 11 in the UK.

Latest Singles:

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Holiday

Latest Album:

American Idiot- Grammy Winner for Best Rock Albumn

Green Day have been announced as headliners at this year's Oxegen festival.
Also appearing at Oxegen this year are Audioslave, The Streets, Prodigy, Keane, The Beautiful South, Razorlight , Ian Brown, James Brown and Erick Morillo.