'''Green Day''' is a musical trio from East Bay, California, consisting of Billie Joe Armstrong (guitar, lead vocals), Mike Dirnt (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Tré Cool (drums, backing vocals). Green Day is widely credited, along with fellow California bands The Offspring and Rancid, with reviving mainstream interest in and popularizing punk rock in the United States during the mid 1990s.
[DeRogatis, Jim. ''Milk It!: Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90's''. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2003. Pg. 357, ISBN 0-306-81271-1] Their success has influenced prominent pop punk bands like Sum 41 and Good Charlotte.
The band has sold over 26 million albums in the United States, and over 56.5 million
[Myers, Ben. "http://www.disinfo.com/site/displayarticle15670.html Green Day: American Idiot and the New Punk Explosion" April, 2006.] records worldwide, 59 million records if digital purchases are included
["http://www.mp3.com/news/stories/2819.html Online Data Status" mp3.com Retrieved on August 29, 2006], making Green Day the most successful punk band ever.
["http://greenday.net/kerrangbig.jpg Kerrang- Green Day: The Biggest Punk Band of All Time" Greenday.net. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.] Green Day currently has three Grammy Awards under their belt for Alternative Album for ''
Dookie'', Best Rock Album for ''
American Idiot'', and Record of the Year for their single "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". They are also second to the Red Hot Chili Peppers for most number-ones on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart with eight, and most collective weeks at number one on the Modern Rock Tracks with 39.
History
Formation and Lookout! years (1986–1992)
thumb|right|170px|A shot of lead guitarist and singer Billie Joe Armstrong with his trademark guitar "Blue" very early into the band's history.
In 1986, childhood friends Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt (both aged 14) formed the garage band, Sweet Children. The first Sweet Children show was on October 17, 1988, at Rod's Hickory Pit in Vallejo, California where Armstrong's mother was working. In 1989, John Kiffmeyer sought out Armstrong and Dirnt after his band Isocracy broke up, and together they formed Green Day. Allegedly, they chose the name after a marijuana slang reference and performed the first show as Green Day in the courtyard of Contra Costa College, a junior college in San Pablo where Kiffmeyer attended as a journalism student.
Larry Livermore, who played guitar for The Lookouts and ran the Berkeley, California independent label Lookout! Records, offered the band a record deal after having hearing the band play. The band, he said, played like "The
