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In 1988 Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt formed the band Sweet Children. Billie Joe was on lead vocals and guitar, Dirnt on bass and backup vocals and John Kiffmeyer (Al Sobrante) on Drums. The band Sweet Children eventually met a band called The Lookouts featuring Tre Cool. In 1989, after hearing some songs from Sweet Children Lookout Records offered them a deal. They recorded their first EP and weeks before it's release they changed their name to Green Day. They made a few more EPs and then went on tour. After the tour Al Sobrante left the group to attend college. Faced with having no drummer they brought Tre Cool in from The Lookouts. In 1991 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours was released gathered most of the EPs released. Kerplunk! was also released in 1991 containing the EP Sweet Children. It sold 55,000 copies which was a large amount for an independent record label at the time.
Green Day left Lookout Records on friendly terms and signed a deal with Reprise Records. They spent a lot of time on their next release Dookie. The CD was almost an instant success due to the extensive air play of music videos for some of the songs by MTV. Their next release Insomniac was not as successful as Dookie but still sold 2 million copies. After the release the group canceled a European Tour and claimed exhaustion. Green Day started working on a new album in 1996. The result was Nimrod. The song Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) brought a small burst of popularity to the group but they decided to take a two-year break after completing their Nimrod tour.
In 2000, Green Day released Warning which was a change of style from Dookie and Insomniac. All of Green Day's albums had reached a status of at least double platinum Warning: was only certified Gold. With the release of International Superhits a collection of their best songs and the release of Shenanigans only seemed to support the theory that Green Day's popularity was starting to decline.
Trying to fight burnout the group went to the studio to work out differences and start to record new material. After working out their differences the band started to record new material. After completing 20 tracks the master tapes were stolen from the studio. Facing a feared if they tried to recreate the tapes their fan base would be very low. The group decide to start over again and the result was American Idiot. The CD also featured two 9 minute tracks Jesus of Suburbia and Homecoming. American Idiot won a Grammy in 2005 for Best Rock Album as well as being nominated for 5 other awards. While touring for American Idiot Green Day recorded a live performance at the Milton-Keynes National Bowl in England. The recording was released as a CD & DVD called Bullet in a Bible on November 15, 2005.
Billie Joe Armstrong-Guitar, Lead Vocals
Mike Dirnt-Bass, Back-up Vocals
Tre Cool-Drums, Vocals, Backup Vocals
Jason White-Second Guitar, Backup Vocals
Jason Freese-Keyboard/Piano, Saxophone, Trombone, Backup Guitar, Accordion, Backup Vocals
Ronnie Blake-Trumpet, Timpani/Percussions, Backup Vocals
Mike Pelino-Third Guitar
All infromation used from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Day
Copyright Bryan Talbot 2006 Last Updated January 11, 2006 SHS Web Page Construction & Design Class