Green Day (Green day - in American slang means a day of “fooling around”

spent smoking marijuana) is an American punk band. Consists of four members:

Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass guitar, backing vocals), Tre
Cool (drums) and (since the announcement of the album ¡Uno!) Jason White
(guitar).
Green Day were originally part of the punk rock scene that developed
around the punk club 924 Gilman Street (Berkeley). Their first albums, recorded
on the independent label Lookout! Records earned the group a strong following.
As a result, the group, along with other Californian punks (The Offspring,
Rancid), raised a wave of enormous interest in punk music not only in the USA,
but throughout the world.
Green Day is part of the California punk rock scene. Childhood friends Billie
Joe Armstrong (guitar, vocals) and Mike Dirnt (bass, real name Michael
Pritchard) formed their first band, Sweet Children, in Rodeo, California, when
they were 14 years old. In 1989, drummer Al Sobrante (real name John Alan
Kiffmeyer) was invited to join the group, and they changed their name to Green
Day (in honor of one of their songs). That same year, the band independently
released their first EP, 1,000 Hours, which was well received in punk rock circles.
The group later signed a contract with independent local label Lookout! Records.
The same year, Green Day released their first album, 39/Smooth. Some time
after the album's release, the band changed drummer to Tre Cool (real name
Frank Edwin Wright III). He becomes a permanent member of the group.
In 1992, Green Day released their second album, Kerplunk. Kerplunk's
success attracted the attention of major labels and the band eventually signed a
contract with Reprise. The debut on this label was the album Dookie, released in
the spring of 1994. Thanks to MTV's support for the song "Longview", Dookie
becomes a hit album. Green Day continued to make inroads in the summer of
that year with the song "Basket Case," which topped the American charts for five
weeks. In late summer the band performs at Woodstock '94. After this, Dookie
sales increase. Later, the single “When I Come Around” conquers the American
charts. By 1995, Dookie had sold more than 5 million copies in the United States
and about 11 million worldwide. Dookie won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best
Alternative Music Performance.
The Insomniac album was released in 1995, and the song "JAR" from the
Angus soundtrack conquered the rock charts that summer. Insomniac's sales did
well, selling nearly two million copies by the spring of 1996, but none of the
singles, including "Brain Stew/Jaded," became as popular as those from Dookie.
In the spring of 1996, Green Day suddenly canceled their European tour, and the
group spent the whole year resting and preparing material for a new album. The
result of this was, according to many, the best album of the group - Nimrod.
Nimrod was well received by critics and fans. It sold 80,000 copies in its first
week of release and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard charts. The first single
from the album was "Hitchin' a Ride". It peaked at number five on the charts and
was in heavy rotation on MTV and MuchMusic. The next single did not rise above
second place, but became one of Green Day's most famous songs - "Time of
Your Life (Good Riddance)", where Billie Joe plays acoustic guitar and sings.
Nimrod sold 2 million copies and became Green Day's worst-selling major
label collaboration ever.
After about two years of quiet, Green Day returned to the stage in 1999 to
play at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit Concert, their first acoustic
performance. The group begins recording a new album - Warning. They decide
to fire the new producer, Scott Leath, and produce the album themselves, doing
so for the first time since Kerpplunk. After recording the album, the band became
the headliner of the 2000 Vans Warped Tour and gained many new fans.
Warning was released in the fall of 2000. Four weeks later, the first single
from this album (“Minority”) conquers Billboard's Modern Rock chart. None of
Green Day's songs have conquered the charts so quickly.
In 2001, the group released a compilation of their old songs plus two new
ones: “Maria” and “Poprocks & Coke”, which they decided to call International
Superhits! In the spring of 2002, Green Day embarked on a joint tour with
Blink-182, the Pop Disaster Tour.
In the summer of 2002, a collection of songs from Shenanigans singles and
rare recordings was released.
The next album became a turning point. So the band entered the studio to
write and record material for a new album, believing it would be called Cigarettes
and Valentines. After completing 20 tracks - an impressive comparison of the
album to Nimrod and Warning - they were stolen from the studio. The group,
understandably upset, didn't want to try to freshen up the stolen album and
instead started with a vow that they would do even better than before. The band
also spent a long time trying to resolve some of the differences that arose
following Dirnt and Cool's accusations that Armstrong was a "band Nazi" and
prone to posturing to detract attention from other band members. With
democracy restored within the group, the creative floodgates were opened so
that everyone had something new to offer—most notably in the creation of two
9-minute tracks for Green Day's upcoming album. Billy Joe also stated that he
was initially afraid of the "calloused" guitar solo playing, but eventually came
around ("I'm going to play the fucking thing...") and played on this album
whenever necessary. The final album, American Idiot, debuted at No. 1 on the
Billboard charts (a true record for the band) and was bolstered by the success of
the album's first single of the same name. The album was billed as a "punk rock
opera", or more accurately a "concept album", which follows the journey of a
fictitious "Jesus of Suburbia".
Over the course of the album, "Jesus" becomes addicted to drugs, doing
them, calling himself "St. Jimmy"; falls in love with a girl named “Whatsername”
(which literally translates to “whatever-name”); learns to live and grows as a
person. In the penultimate song of the album (“Homecoming”), when it says that
St. Jimmy commits suicide, the verses imply that Jimmy may be an image of
Jesus (Version: "Jimmy died today, he blew his brains out into the bay, in the
state of mind, it's my own private suicide"). Another example from the song
"Letterbomb" almost proves this (Version: "You're not the Jesus of Suburbia, the
St. Jimmy is a figument of, your father's rage and your mother's love"). The
album could also be described as an anti-war allegory against the policies of
George W. Bush and against the invasion of Iraq. However, the song "Wake Me
Up When September Ends" turns away from the main theme of the opera and
tells the story of Billie Joe's father, who died when he, Armstrong, was 10 years
old. Another significant turn in the life of the group was that members of the
group rejected their brand of instruments. Billie Joe Armstrong replaced the
Fender Stratocaster Copy guitar he played starting at age 10 with a Gibson Les
Paul Junior. Armstrong, however, continues to use his copy of the Strat at every
live show.
 Mike Dirnt used his Gibson G-3 bass on several albums, such as Nimrod,
but now plays a Fender Precision Bass. Exact duplicates of his guitar are made
by Fender, and they are called the Mike Dirnt Precision Bass. Tre Cool has also
long been associated with Slingerland, which he used back in the Nimrod years,
but has now started using Ludwig-Musser drums. American Idiot also marks a
change in image. While in the past they dyed their hair various colors (ranging
from red to green to pink and back again) and appeared in a variety of clothes,
they now began wearing black shirts with skinny ties and dyeing their hair simpler
colors like platinum and black. Tre and Billy Joe also started using eyeliner.
Throughout the tour, Billy Joe wore several heart-shaped hand grenade pins on
his guitar strap. “American Idiot” won a Grammy in 2005 in the category “Best
Rock Album” and was nominated for 5 others. The song "American Idiot" was
featured in the video game Madden NFL 2005, and "Holiday" was featured in the
game Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, which also features Billie Joe
Armstrong. The band toured throughout 2005 to promote and promote the album.
This tour continued some of the theatricality of the Warning and Shenanigans
shows.
They also performed covers of Queen's "We Are the Champions," The Isley
Brothers' "Shout," The Ramones' "Outsider" and Ben E. King's "Stand by Me."
The highlight of the show was the selection of three fans from the crowd to get on
stage and perform a cover version of Operation Ivy's "Knowledge" using the
band's instruments. At the end of the song, the person who played in Armstrong's
place might be holding his guitar (or a replica of Armstrong's childhood guitar,
"Blue"), and the person who played Tre's drums, or in some cases Mike's bass,
dives off the track into the crowd. While on tour for American Idiot, they recorded
two shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl, in England. These recordings
were released as a live CD & DVD entitled "Bullet in a Bible" on November 15,
2005. The final shows of their 2005 trip around the world were in Sydney and
Melbourne, Australia on December 14 and 17 respectively. On January 10, 2006,
Green Day was awarded the People's Choice Award for Favorite Group. Also in
2005, Australia's Triple J's Hottest 100 listed "Jesus of Suburbia" as the longest
song on the chart (No. 61), clocking in at 9 minutes 8 seconds. Green Day won
two Kids Choice Awards Blimps in 2006 (Favorite Music Group and Favorite
Song (Wake Me Up When September Ends)).
At the beginning of 2007, the cult Irish rock band U2 recorded a duet with
punk rockers Green Day. It is noteworthy that the last time the Irish sang a duet
with Paul McCartney was two years ago.
On May 15, 2009, Green Day released 21st Century Breakdown, their
eighth studio album. The album immediately topped the national charts in more
than 20 countries, and many of the songs on this album (such as “Know Your
Enemy”, “21 Guns”) became super hits. The album's circulation as of July 10 was
1.7 million copies.
There are two main characters in the album. The main one is Gloria, who
strives to hold on to her faith, tries to receive vital energy and emit light. Her
opponent is Christian, who becomes a victim of his own demons. And instead of
moving on, he tries to commit suicide.
The political side of the album lies in the various things that Americans have
experienced over the past 5 years, such as natural disasters or various crises.
We want to give meaning to what we watch on TV or see on the Internet. In other
words, to what destroys us. The main message is the search for meaning in
these hopeless times and general chaos.
Two singles from the new album were released - “Know Your Enemy” and
“21 Guns”. It is worth noting that the “21 Guns” video won in three MTV Video
Music Awards categories - “Best Direction”, “Best Cinematography” and “Best
Rock Video”.
“The most exciting thing about 21st Century Breakdown is the realization
that Green Day didn't have to force themselves to write these songs. They do not
try to compete with anyone, but only express their own thoughts. Any song is like
a single whole, and each one adds new pieces of meaning to the overall theme.
And, I must say, the musicians did a real job worthy of the title of world rock stars.
Green Day became the only punk band that survived the difficult years for rock
culture in the 90s, picked up the fallen banner and now proudly carries it forward.
Their new album is fresh and impressive. I'm sure many will be shocked.
Pleasantly shocked..." - review of "21st Century Breakdown", Rolling Stone
magazine.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, 21 Century Breakdown won Best
Rock Album of the Year.
On June 8, 2010, the game Green Day: Rock Band was released.
On March 19, 2010, Billie Joe Armstrong in an interview with Kerrang!
announced the start of recording the band's 9th studio album. Although the
musicians have not yet released their ninth album, information about it has
already appeared on the Internet.
Green Day have already performed several new songs on stage -
Cigarettes and Valentine, Stay the Night, Dreamcatcher, Olivia.
At the end of December, the release of the live album “Awesome as Fuck”
was announced. The album was recorded during the European and North
American tours and includes a CD and DVD (17 and 16 songs respectively).
Release date: March 22, 2011.
On February 14, 2012, Armstrong tweeted that Green Day had officially
begun recording a new album. In April, the band announced that they were
planning to release three albums between September 2012 and January 2013;
they will be called ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! and together they will form an ambitious
trilogy.
On June 28, a preview image of the three album covers appeared on the
official Facebook page.
On July 16, the first single from the album ¡Uno!, "Oh Love", was released.
Rolling Stone magazine rated the new song 4 stars (out of 5). On August 13, the
second single from ¡Uno!, "Kill The DJ", was released. On August 16, the video
for the first single from the album ¡Uno!, “Oh Love,” was released. On September
6, the third single from ¡Uno!, "Let Yourself Go", was released. On September 25,
the album ¡Uno! was released. On November 13, the album ¡Dos! was released.
The album ¡Tré! was released on December 11th.
On January 22, 2013, the band announced that ¡Cuatro!, a documentary
about the making of ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!, will be presented on January 26 in
Aspen, Colorado at the XVII Winter Extreme Games and will be released on DVD
on April 9, 2013.
On February 24, 2014, the band announced the release of a new album
entitled Demolicious.
On October 7, 2016, the band's twelfth studio album, Revolution Radio, was
released.