BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG
Billie Joe is Green Day's lead guitarist, lead singer, and primary lyricist.
Billie Joe was born on 17th February 1972, the youngest of six children. He was born in Rodeo, California, which is in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father, Andy, was a truck driver for Safeway and a part time jazz musician, and his mother, Ollie, was a waitress.
Billie Joe has been singing since he was 5 years old, and he when he was young he would visit hospitals and sing for the patients to cheer them up. He then managed to record his first song, "Look For Love", at a local record company called 'Fiat Records'. (A copy of the record is currently for sale for US$1589)
When Billie was 10, his father died of cancer of the oesophagus, which eventually spread throughout his body. Billie Joe wrote a few songs about this, the best known being 'Wake Me Up When September Ends'.
A year later, he bought his first guitar, a Fernandes Stratocaster, which he named 'Blue'. He still occasionally uses Blue from time to time, but it is of great sentimental value so he doesn't use it all that often. He also has several replicas of it.
A year later Billie Joe's mother married a man who Billie and his siblings hated. Billie wrote a few songs about her marriage, including, the first song he ever wrote, 'Why Do You Want Him?'.
Billie was 10 years old when he met Mike Dirnt (bass player & back-up singer) in the school canteen, in 1982. They played music by Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Van Halen. They were also very into their local music scene. When they were 15, Billie, Mike and a boy called John, who was the drummer, formed their own band, calling themselves "Sweet Children". They played their first show at Billie's mother's work.
In 1990, John left the band. Billie and Mike knew who they wanted as a replacement and that was Tre Cool, who at that time was playing with the "Lookouts". They then renamed the band "Green Day". The band travelled all over the States in an old bookmobile that Tre's dad drove. They had little money and tended to stay in fans' houses.
When they were in Minneapolis in 1990, Billie Joe first met Adrienne Nesser, his future wife. They were married in a 5-minute ceremony in July 1994. A day later, Adrienne found out she was pregnant and their first child, Joseph Marcicano Armstrong, was born in March 1995. Three years later, Jakob Danger was born in September 1998.
