#225 - Green Day - American Idiot (2004)
MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:
BACKGROUND – GREEN DAY
Formed in the East Bay, California in 1987 and still going strong today, Green Day is one of the biggest punk rock acts in the world. Along with other punk bands in California such as The Offspring, Sublime, Bad Religion and Rancid, they have been credited with popularizing and reviving mainstream interest in punk rock in the U.S. in the 90s.
Billie Joe Armstrong was borng in Oakland in 1972, the youngest of five children. His father was a jazz musician and truck driver for the Safeway grocery chain. Armstrong developed an interest in music at an early age, recording his first song at 5 years old. His father passed away of esophageal cancer when he was 10 years old. After his father died, his mother married a man whom her children disliked, which resulted in Armstrong's further retreat into music. At the age of 10, he met Dirnt in the school cafeteria, and they immediately bonded over their love of music. He became interested in punk rock after being introduced to the genre by his brothers. His first concert ever watched was Van Halen in 1984. In 1987, Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike, 15 years old at the time, along with two students from High School, formed the band "Blood Rage", the name taken from the film of the same name and played together in a garage. A few months later, the band renamed to Sweet Children and played their first gig in 1987 in Vallejo, California.
Their debut EP 1,000 Hours came out in 1989.They eventually dropped the name Sweet Children and called themselves Green Day due to the band members' fondness for cannabis (it even inspired a song featured on their first album). The phrase "green day" was slang in the Bay Area for spending a day doing nothing but smoking marijuana. Armstrong once admitted in 2001 that he considered it to be "the worst band name in the world". For their second studio album Kerplunk they made a lineup change and added German-born drummer Tré Cool, who had been drumming since the age of 12 in a punk band, The Lookouts.By this point the band had become a 3-piece, with Durnt switching to bass guitar.
The band went on tour for most of 1992 and 1993 and played a number of shows overseas in Europe. By then, the band's second studio album Kerplunk had sold 50,000 copies in the U.S. Green Day supported another California punk band, Bad Religion, as an opening act for their tour for most of 1993. Kerplunk's underground success led to interest from major record labels and a bidding war to sign Green Day. Reflecting on this period, said in 1999, "I couldn't go back to the punk scene, whether we were the biggest success in the world or the biggest failure … The only thing I could do was get on my bike and go forward." After signing with Reprise, the band began recording its major-label debut, Dookie. On September 3, 1993, Green Day played their last show at 924 Gilman under the pseudonym Blair Hess before being banned permanently because of their major label signing
The band's 1994 release of Dookie vaulted the band to stardom and gave them mainstream success. Dookie, alongside their following albums Insomniac (1995) and Nimrod (1997) were certified double platinum. Eventually, the band started to fall in popularity with their 2000 record Warning which only reached gold. In 2004, a band presumed to be dead and soon forgotten released one of the most influential punk-rock albums of the decade, American Idiot. It won the 2005 Grammy for Best Rock Album. The band also won a total of seven out of eight awards for which the group was nominated. To top it off, in 2009, American Idiot’s follow-up 21st Century Breakdown also reached double platinum as the band prepared a Broadway Show that narrated the story of American Idiot. Billie Joe dealt with substance issues right before the the release of the album trilogy called¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! in 2012. Armstrong entered rehab and touring for 2012 and 2013 was canceled. He said in an interview that he had been trying to get sober since 1997. The album trilogy did poorly. To come back to the high status they had obtained through the years they decided to take a break. They waited until 2016 to release their album Revolution Radio, a return to form for the band. In February 2020, Green Day released their thirteenth album, Father of All Motherfuckers. Green Day's fourteenth album, Saviors, was released a few weeks ago.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015,in their first year of eligibility. Green Day have sold over 90 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling music artists. The group has been nominated for 20 Grammy awards and won five of them, with Best Alternative Album for Dookie, Best Rock Album for American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, Record of the Year for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and Best Musical Show Album for American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording. Green Day has sold roughly 90 million records worldwide making them one of the highest-selling artists of all time.
Armstrong cites the band Operation Ivy (which featured Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman, who would later contact Armstrong to fill in as a possible second guitarist for their band Rancid) as a major influence and a group that inspired him to form a band. Green Day's sound is often compared to first wave American and British punk rock bands such as the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and the Clash. Billie Joe Armstrong has mentioned that some of his biggest influences are seminal hardcore punk bands Hüsker Dü and the Replacements, and that their influence is particularly noted in the band's chord changes in songs. Southern California-based hardcore bands Social Distortion and Bad Religion have also been cited as influences. Outside of their punk influences, Green Day have also cited the Kinks, the Who, and Cheap Trick. Billy Joe describing the first times he heard punk rock: "There were these two guys who introduced me to things like D.O.A. and the Dead Kennedys. Then, in the seventh grade, there was a girl at school who would bring in records and say, 'Here, listen to this.'"
The band has been cited as an influence by a variety of artists, including Alkaline Trio, Avril Lavigne, AFI, Fall Out Boy, Blink-182, Lady Gaga, New Found Glory, Bowling for Soup and Sum 41.
ALBUM BACKGROUND – AMERICAN IDIOT
For their fifth major label studio album, Green Day decided to go deeper in their themes, aiming for a punk rock opera. The album’s story follows Jesus of Suburbia, an adolescent anti-hero that is divided between rage and love, the former expressed by his alternate personality St. Jimmy and the latter with his significant other Whatsername. Through its plot, the album expresses the disillusionment and dissent experienced by a generation that came of age during various turmoil including the Iraq War. Perhaps the last true mainstream punk album in a sea of “pop-punk”, American Idiot captures the spirit of punk – reckless youth, substance abuse, passionate but short-lived love and dissatisfaction with an increasingly hypocritical and authoritarian government.
Green Day still exists as their original lineup, with Billie Joe Armstrong (guitar and lead vocals), Tré Cool (drums), and Mike Dirnt (bass guitar), a lineup that has remained consistent since 1990. They were part of the late 1980s/early 1990s Bay Area punk scenethat emerged from the 924 Gilman Streetclub in Berkeley, California.
The band's longtime producer Rob Cavallo wasn't certain they could pull off the American Idiot album. "The truth is, when they started making American Idiot, they were each living their own separate lives, and no one was really sure how the chemistry was going to be, They all had to deal with a lot of personal stuff before they could be great again. And when they first came to me and said, 'Let's get the band back together and make the best rock record we can,' I wasn't totally sure they could do it." Once they got in the studio, Cavallo was impressed with the band's dedication to the project. He continued: "They had all made a commitment, and I was lucky enough to be there at the beginning of that commitment. I'd go up there on a Monday and leave on a Friday, and we'd be in the studio 12 hours a day writing and conceptualizing. They were so focused and so invigorated that honestly, my main role was to be their coach, telling them that I believed in them. They did the rest."
Green Day had to start the album over from scratch after the masters for around 20 songs were stolen from the studio. "We had completely finished these songs, and we were getting ready to mix them," Billie Joe Armstrong explained. "We walked out of the studio and came back the next day, and all of the masters had been stolen … but [American Idiot] was about making mistakes and fixing them." Green Day was originally recording an album called Cigarettes and Valentines, but after the masters were swiped, Green Day opted to start over from scratch and created the album we see today. The band took a three-month break before starting over. In 2016 it was confirmed they found the Master Tapes for Cigarettes and Valentines but they aren’t going to publicly release them and instead use them as a basis for future songs.
In 2010, a stage adaptation of American Idiotdebuted on Broadway. The musical was nominated for three Tony Awards: Best Musical, Best Scenic Design and Best Lighting Design, winning the latter two. The rock opera, which follows the story of three troubled youths living miserably in suburbia, debuted at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and moved to Broadway the following year.