Billie Joe Armstrong was born February 17, 1972 to Ollie and Andy Armstrong
plus five older brothers and sisters. He was born in a small Californian town called Rodeo. Ollie,
Billie's mom, was a waitress at a resturant called Rod's Hickory Pit, and Andy, Billie's dad, was a truck driver and a part-time
jazz drummer. Billie recorded his first song at age five called look for love on Fiat Records, a local lable, (Billie's father played drums on the record.)When Billie Joe was ten years old, his father died of lung cancer, prior to this, Andy had given Billie his first guitar (a Fernandez Stratocaster) that Billie named 'Blue'(Age ten is also the age that he met Micheal Ryan Prichard in a school cafeteria. He is now known as Mike Dirnt.)At fourteen, Billie wrote his first song, and shortly after formed the band Sweet Children with Mike and John Kriffmeyer. Billie Joe attended
Pinole Valley High School, where he earned the nickname Two- Dollar Bill because he sold joints for only two dollars there. Billie Joe dropped out of High School the day before his 18th birthday to devote all of his time to his music. Sweet Childern later changed their name to Green Day after gaining local fame and signing a deal with the local label, Lookout Records owned by Larry Livermore. A string of EP's followed. (All of these EP's can be found combined on the album 1039 Smoothed Out/ Slappy Hours.)John then dropped out of the band and another drummer (
Tré Cool) joined. Green Day's next record was entitled
Kurplunk. Kerplunk was widely noticed and Green Day started to get attention from bigger record labels. In 1993/ 94 Green Day signed to Reprise and made Dookie. On July 2nd 1994, Billie married
Adrienne Nesser, a student from Minnesota. Their ceremony lasted a total of five minutes and consisted of vows they wrote from all different religious influences. They spent thier honeymoon at the
Clairmont Hotel not far away from their home. The day after their wedding Adrienne discovered she was pregnant, and
Jakob Danger Armstrong was born in March 1995. In 1995, Insomniac, Green Day's fourth album was released. Throughout the next two years Green Day took a break to fouus on their families. Nimrod, Green Day's fifth full length album followed in 1997.
Billie Joe's second son, Joseph
Marciano was born September 12, 1998. In 2000 Green Day released Warning, a mostly acoustic album. In the period of 2000-2004 Green Day almost broke up as a band. Luckily for us, they
satyed together. Then in 2001, Green Day released a greatest hits compilation, as it turned out, they had greater hits to come. In 2003, Shenanigans, an album made up of Green Day b-sides was released. Then in 2004, American Idiot was released and Green Day were at the top of the charts again for the second time in yen years. As with Dookie, with American Idiot, Green Day attracted lots of new and diffrernt types of fans. This was considered repulsive to some of the bands old fans, and Green Day was accused of selling out again.
Full Billie joe Armstrong/ Green Day Discography
- Look For Love
- 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours
- Kerplunk
- Dookie
- Insomniac
- Nimrod
- Warning
- International Super Hits
- Shenanigans
- American Idiot
-
Bullet in a Bible ( A concert film)
-
Rancid's Lets Go (Billie Co- Wrote the song Radio.)
- The Go Go's God Bless The Go Go's (Billie Joe Produced)
- Live Freaky Die Freaky (Billie Joe is the voice of Charles Manson and he recorded the song
mechanical man for the film.)
- Green Day also appears on many music compilations.