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| By this time (2000), many fans from the Dookie era were
growing up and changing musical interests since punk / pop-punk was no longer the trend. The band was losing some of its
fans’ and went down (sort of) to play smaller tours such as the Vans Warped Tour in 2000 (not that there’s anything
wrong with Warped Tour) : P They were headliners for the tour. Even though Warped doesn’t have ‘headliners,’
Green Day were the most popular band there. |
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| On Warped Tour, Green Day played with bands like NOFX. Jason
White also started touring with Green Day, by then, as a second guitarist for live shows for a better sound. Right after
the tour, Green Day released their new album, Warning. Many critics found the album worse than their others; sure, it debuted
at number four on the charts but it dropped quickly. It only got up to gold (unlike their other platinum records). The music
wasn’t exactly the same as a lot of what the new bands played; The Strokes and Good Charlotte were the new popular bands.
The band was also having a hard time with their relationships. Billie and Adrienne weren’t getting along the best
and Tre divorced Claudia. Mike was engaged for a while (I don’t know to whom) but she left him in the middle of engagement. |
| The band got several singles off of Warning. Their most popular
off the album was Minority. Three other hits were Warning, Waiting and Macy’s Day Parade. There was also a B-Side
/ rare Green Day song album made (Shenanigans) consisting of fourteen tracks and has sold up to 200,000 albums (as of 2006).
Another album, International Superhits was released around the same time with all of the Green Day hit songs; it also had
two new songs, Maria and Poprocks and Coke. |
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| After the Pop Disaster Tour with Blink-182 ended, Green Day ‘disappeared’
for a while. A band many Green Day fans have heard of called The Network came out right when Green Day ‘disappeared’
to record their album Money Money 20/20 in 2003. The leader of this band was Fink, Van Gough was their “Belgian Bassist.”
The Snoo was a former wrestler from Mexico was on drums. Captain Underpants from Olympia played they keytar. And Z, a hitch
hiker from Iceland was on keyboards. Their music is a new wave style and is more comical than Green Day’s music. Many
people feel that The Network is just another band Green Day formed but let me tell you this - The Network are NOT Green Day
: P Ha. Well, it’s your opinion on the whole Network thing! |
| Back to GREEN DAY *ahem.* The band went back to recording in
summer of 2003. They had a whole album completed and finished called ‘Cigarettes and Valentines.’ Unfortunately,
the master tapes for the new record went missing and the band had to start over. Not even the band knows what happened to
them (we don’t think so). Apparently, the album had a punk sound and was more ‘hard-hitting’ than Warning;
but it probably wouldn’t have sold as many albums as the prevailing American Idiot that would be released in fall 2004. |
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| After Billie turned thirty, there was this rough period for the
band. They’d just lost their record, Billie was thinking about going solo, etc. So, to relieve all this pressure and
‘figure things out,’ Billie Joe went on a solo trip to New York. He was getting frustrated with his writers
block and he needed more inspiration to create this new album; and to figure out if he wanted to do it solo or not. He felt
as if he was pulling the band along and felt like he held all the weight in the band (probably not true but I can see where
those feelings are coming from). Living in New York for a while, Billie Joe rented an apartment. He came up with several
ideas for the songs on American Idiot; the trip helped him come around and go back to the band. |
| American Idiot was to be a rock - opera (something Green Day
considered doing as far back as 1997). In July 2004, the song American Idiot was first let out to the public (on radio) and
many people were eager to hear the ‘new’ Green Day. They released the long-waited for album in September, 2004.
It was great timing, considering the 2004 election (Bush vs. Kerry) and the songs American Idiot and Holiday were both extremely
political, however, they did go along and follow the story line of the album (remember it is a rock opera). |
| The story of American Idiot goes: There’s this boy, Jesus,
he’s just another confused teen who is sick of all those ‘damned politicians.’ So, he leaves this horrible,
suburb life to go out into the ‘real world’ and hopefully have a better life. It’s all great, until he
realizes he’s alone in the city - who even gives a damn about the kid? He sees he’s not the only kid out there
in the city feeling this way. Finally, he meets this cool guy, Saint Jimmy, who gets him on the drugs and he’s just
this punk guy that everyone seems to know and love (well the teens and young punks love him). After getting into some kind
of punk scene, Jesus meets a girl, ah, whatsername?! Well, that doesn’t matter. This girl is the most beautiful thing
to him - she’s a rebel, all right. So, they date until there’s a rocky period between them. It’s the end
of summer, Jesus is alone now; it seems his friends are gone and Jimmy is fucking dead. So, he goes home; back to the suburbs.
What’s so bad about that? He finds himself often reminiscing his life in the city and he finds his regrets useless
and so, Jesus moves on with his life. |
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| That sums up the story of the American Idiot plot-line. The
record was a HUGE success. The band had fun taking turns in writing some of the songs such as Jesus of Suburbia and Homecoming.
American Idiot was their comeback record that everyone had been waiting for and no one had ever expected it. They had five
singles off the album : American Idiot, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Holiday, Wake Me Up When September Ends and Jesus of Suburbia.
Samuel Bayer was their new music video director and he definitely had a different style, which helped their success. They
won quite a few awards for two years straight (2004 - 2006). Green Day also got to play a massive show in London at the Milton
Keynes Bowel in June, 2005. Over 130,000 fans arrived for the show and it was turned into a Green Day documentary called
Bullet in a Bible that went in theaters on November 1, 2005 and then was released for sale later that month. |
| Their stage image changed drastically. They no longer dressed
like the teenaged punks they used to be. They dressed their age; suits, ties and all that sort of attire. However, still
rock stars, they wore eyeliner to bring out some kind of attitude. Bands like My Chemical Romance and Jimmy Eat World were
the opening acts for Green Days’ shows. Now days (2007), more bands are dressing like that, but they’re only following
that trend Green Day recently started. |
| After all the American Idiot tours, Green Day, once again, took
a well deserved break. Not too long ago in September, 2006, Green Day hooked up with U2 to re-record The Saints Are Coming
(previously recorded by The Skids in October 1978) after Bono had pulled Billie Joe aside at the Grammy’s in 2005 to
figure out how to collaborate to make this song. The song was going to be a charity for the people who died in Hurricane
Katrina in 2005. |
| After hanging out with U2, Green Day turned more environmental
and charitable. They’ve recently joined NRDC which is a site that is trying to promote global warming awareness, lessen
habitat destruction and pollution. Also recently, in late May, 2007, Green Day finished their cover song of John Lennons’
Working Class Hero song. Green Day has always admired Lennons songs as children; even though he wasn’t considered punk
and the song wasn’t like any of their music. They first premiered it on American Idols finale in 2007. |
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| As of now, Green Day’s new record will come out sometime
in 2008. Who knows whether it’ll be a success or not? All I can say now is that we’ll just have to wait another
year. |
| I'd like to credit the book 'Nobody Likes You' by Marc Spitz
and 'The Story of Green Day' by Doug Small. I should also credit Green Day Authority for the photos and some of the information.
I put the whole band bio into my own words; no plagarism here! |
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