Billie Joe Armstrong's son. Frontman of the band 'Green Day'

Billy became interested in singing at a very early age - when he was only 5 years old. He often visited hospitals (his father was seriously ill) and sang for patients. As a child, Armstrong composed his first song, Look for Love. When he was eleven, his mother gave him the famous guitar "Blue" (blue Fender Stratocaster) - his favorite of all time.

(born February 17, 1972) - American musician, vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, best known as the leader and founder of the popular punk rock band Green day.

Billie Joe Armstrong was born on February 17, 1972 in the small town of Rodeo, California. He has five older siblings: David, Alan, Marcy, Holly and Anna. He is the youngest in the family. His father worked as a truck driver, and also moonlighted in clubs, playing jazz. Billy Jo's mother was a waitress in one of the restaurants in town. In September 1982, when the future star was only 10 years old, his father, Andy, died of esophageal cancer. Two years later, his mother remarried. Billy took this event hard, he began to hate this man. At the age of 14, Billy Joe composed his first song ("Why Do You Want Him?"), Which told about his mother and stepfather. Billy began to sing quite early, at the age of 5. He often visited hospitals and sang there for their patients. Later he had his own song "Look For Love", recorded by the local company Fiat Records. At the age of 11, his mother gave him his first electric guitar, it was the famous "Blue", which Billy plays to this day (in black and white photo).

At the age of 10, Billy Joe met Mike Durnt in a school cafe. Staying with each other for the night, they listened and performed songs of such rock giants as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Van Halen. An equally influential influence on their music was the work of the alternative band Bay Area throughout the eighties. In 1988, Billy Joe and Mike recruited drummer John Kiffmeier under the pseudonym Al Sobrant to Sweet Children and began their creative careers. Their first, but by no means last, gig took place at the Rods Hickory Pit in Vallejo. The day before his eighteenth birthday, having almost finished school, Billy dropped out and decided to devote all his time to Sweet Children. Music became his calling.

Green Day was originally part of the punk rock environment that developed around the 924 Gilman Street punk club in Berkeley. Their first albums, recorded on the independent company Lookout! Records, earned the band a huge following. As a result, the band, along with other Californian punks (The Offspring, Rancid), raised a wave of great interest in punk music not only in the United States, but around the world. Green Day became the inspiration for such famous bands as Good Charlotte, Fall Out Boy, Simple Plan, My Chemical Romance, All Time Low.

In 2011, the trio was voted the best punk band in the history of music by a survey conducted by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2015, Green Day was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The group has become one of the most popular and successful punk rock bands. At the time of 2012, more than 85 million copies of Green Day records have been sold, of which 30 in the United States.

Armstrong's first guitar was a Cherry Red Hohner acoustic guitar that his father bought him. Then, when he was eleven, he got his first electric guitar, a copy of the Fender Stratocaster, which he called "Blue." His mom got "Blue" from George Cole, who taught Billy how to play the electric guitar for 10 years. Armstrong said in a 1995 MTV interview: "Basically, these weren't guitar lessons, because I never learned to read music, he just taught me how to place my hands." Cole bought a new guitar from David Margen of Santana. Cole gave Billy a Bill Lawrence Humbucking pickup and suggested they fit into the bridge. After the pickup was disabled at Woodstock 94, Armstrong supplied Duncan JB.

“Armstrong fetishized his teacher's guitar, in part because it had a sound quality and a Van Halen smoothness that he couldn't get from his little red Hohner. He appreciated it more, however, due to his relationship with Cole, another father figured after Andy's death. He toured with this guitar from the early days of the band and continues to use it to this day.

"Blue" also appears in some of their video clips starting with "Longview", "Basket Case", "Brain Stew / Jaded", "Hitchin" a Ride ", and finally in" Minority ".

Today Armstrong primarily uses Gibson and Fender guitars. Twenty of his Gibson Les Pauls are junior models from the mid to late 1950s. His Fender Collection includes :. Stratocaster, Jazzmaster, Telecaster, Hollowbody Gretsch and its copies "Blue". He states that his favorite guitar is the 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior, which he calls "Floyd". He bought this guitar in 2000 shortly before the recording of their album "Warning". Armstrong also has his own line of Gibson Les Paul Junior guitars, modeled on Floyd's, Billy Joe's original 1956 Les Paul Junior.

He plays quite well on several other instruments. He recorded harmonica and mandolin parts, piano at 21st Century Breakdown, and played drums during concerts from time to time. Also recently, Armstrong began to master the saxophone.

In February 2018, the vocalist of one of the most successful pop-punk bands in the world (Green Day), Billie Joe Armstrong, celebrated his 46th birthday. Let's find out more about this undoubtedly outstanding musician and his path to spotlights.

Who is Billie Joe Armstrong?

The Green Day group is not so well known to Russian fans of English-speaking music. The fact is that the period of the first take-off of this project fell on the 90s, when our hungry teenagers in the same Turkish sweaters simply did not understand the protest music of punks from well-fed America. Moreover, in that pre-Internet era, only those foreign groups whose songs were heard on television and radio became popular in our country. And Green Day was not one of those. Therefore, the group became at least a little known in our country only by the middle of the first decade of the two thousandth.

The listeners especially fell in love with not only the light cheerful melodies of this group, but also their author, and also the permanent Green Day frontman - Billie Joe Armstrong (photo above). In addition to him, the group includes drummer Tre Cool and bass player Mike Dernt.

early years

Like most Americans, Billie Joe Armstrong's ancestors included representatives of many different peoples: Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Scots, Irish, Welsh, and the British themselves. Perhaps it was precisely such a multinational origin that allowed the future musician to become the owner of not only a very pleasant appearance, but also a charming voice, as well as the ability to compose excellent songs, which today continue to inspire admiration among others.

Armstrong was born in Oakland (California) in 1972. It is noteworthy that the rest of the Green Day participants were born in the same year.

Young Billy Joe's musical talent manifested itself when he was still quite a baby. The inspired parents did their best to promote the development of their son's passion for music, despite the fact that besides him there were five more children in the family.

Already at the age of five, the young talent recorded the first song in a real recording studio. Later, the baby often performed at school talent contests and charity concerts in hospitals.

At the age of 10, Billy's father died. This was a huge blow to the guy, and in order to somehow distract him, his mother gave him his first electric guitar. Since then, Billy Joe was actively involved in music and did not see himself as anyone other than a musician. His ideals were Elvis Presley and the punk rock band Ramones.

Two years later, Billy Joe's mother remarried, and this was another blow for the guy, but on the other hand, it encouraged him to write his own first song dedicated to the relationship between mother and stepfather.

At the same time, he meets Mike Dernt in the school cafeteria, and together they organize the Sweet Children group. Drummer John Kiffmeier is invited as the third participant.

In the coming years, the guys improve their skills and gradually begin to play more and more of their own compositions. In 1989 Billy renamed their group Green Day. It is believed that this name is associated with the musician's passion for marijuana.

A year later, Kiffmeier left the group, and a promising young talent, Frank Edwin Wright III, better known to the whole world under the pseudonym Tre Cool, was invited in his place. It is he who becomes that last piece of the mosaic, which helps to form the corporate identity of Green Day.

Armstrong's first successes

When Billy comes of age, he decides not to go to college, but to pursue his own music career. Together with their group, they travel around the United States and perform in nightclubs, fairs and other public events. They also record several compositions and release 2 small albums.

However, all this does not help to achieve recognition. In parallel, Billie Joe Armstrong tries to play in other bands: Pinhead Gunpowder and Rancid, but later concentrates on promoting Green Day.

In 1994, the long-awaited breakthrough comes: the third album of the Dookie group becomes a real event in the American musical environment and even brings its creators a Grammy.

In the coming years, the videos When I Come Around and Basket Case were shot for two songs from the album, and Billy and his friends became incredibly popular. In the coming years, their albums are sold out, and tickets for concerts become a real shortage.

New sound of Green Day

However, you can't always be on top, and by the end of the 90s, the popularity of Billy Joe and his music was gradually waning. Most of the new albums fall short of Dookie's popularity, and rumors of the band's imminent disbandment are slowly spreading.

However, on the 10th anniversary of the release of this fateful album, Green Day released another one - American Idiot. The themes of the songs in this edition are radically different from the early work of the group. Here is a criticism of religion, the political structure of the United States and reflections on life, their place in it. This album allows Billy Joe and his band not only to regain their former fame, but also elevates them higher than they were before.

Green Day has received numerous awards and toured the world with success. On the basis of the album, a musical of the same name is released on Broadway, and fans simply carry Billy and his colleagues in their arms.

Moreover, for the release of the video for the song American Idiot, Armstrong radically changes his image: from a multicolored punk he turns into an imp with a red tie.

In the wake of success, Billy writes many new compositions and releases one album almost every year, but gradually interest in the work of his group is falling again.

In 2012, during one of the concerts, the musician has a nervous breakdown, and he smashes his guitar live and makes a speech full of obscene language.

Despite this trick (for which he later apologized more than once), Armstrong managed to return to the stage a few months later and continue his career as a musician. Unfortunately, he has not yet achieved his former fame, but the audience still loves him, and Green Day concerts gather tens of thousands of viewers around the world.

Billy Joe today

Unlike many colleagues in the profession, Armstrong does not allow himself to rest on his laurels. In addition to working with Green Day, today he plays covers of songs from his favorite bands in The Coverups.

And this year, while Mike and Tre took a short sabbatical, Billie Joe Armstrong organized a separate project, The Longshot, with which he performs in nightclubs in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

By the way, these days the new group is giving concerts in Portland, Bellingham, Vancouver and Seattle. So if you are a fan of Armstrong's creativity and will be in the area soon, don't miss the opportunity.

Besides music, Billy is involved in other projects. In particular, he starred in the movie Ordinary World, as well as cameos in many famous projects, in particular in The Simpsons Movie.

Armstrong also has an Instagram page where he constantly communicates with fans, talking about his plans.

Personal life

Despite his non-childhood age, Billie Joe Armstrong continues to be attractive and constantly receives declarations of love from female fans and ... fans. The fact is that he has repeatedly confessed his bisexuality, therefore he is coveted for fans of both sexes.

Despite the endless attention and gossip that Armstrong sold his soul to the unclean for such a long-lasting beauty, Billy is an exemplary family man.

In 1994 he married his girlfriend Adrienne Nesser, and since then they have been inseparable, and next year they are preparing to celebrate a silver wedding.

Billy calls the love of his life only his wife, whom he affectionately calls "80" (because of the consonance of eighty and the short form of the name Adrienne - "Adie"). He often takes her with him on tour and dedicates songs to her.

By the way, in 2013, when Green Day toured the Russian Federation for the only time, Billy took not only Adrienne with him, but also their two sons, Joey and Jacob.

As for his friendships, he is very close with Mike and Tre, and even baptized the latter's children. In addition, Billy is very friendly with his wife's relatives, as well as with his sister Anna and mom.

Billie Joe Armstrong turned out to be such an exemplary family man, who in his youth often went naked on stage in order to draw attention to his performance.

Billy Joe and plagiarism

The topic of plagiarism in music is very slippery. And it's not that there are only seven notes. Just creating their own compositions, some musicians are often "inspired" by other people's works, and sometimes they do it both deliberately and accidentally.

In the case of Armstrong's work, he more than once became a victim of "theft", but at the same time he himself partially "borrowed" other people's ideas.

In particular, the melody of his song When I Come Around was "borrowed" by Spleen while writing the "English-Russian Dictionary". It is also identical to the DDT melody in the song "Born in the USSR".

As for the last example, everything is complicated here, since Shevchuk's work was first performed in August 1991, and the earliest appearance of Armstrong's creation on the air dates back to a year later. However, according to eyewitnesses, the melody was written much earlier, but after Tre Cool's arrival at Green Day, which happened in 1990. Which brings us back to the fact that both songs were written somewhere in 1991 with minimal difference. Whether it was plagiarism on the part of Shevchuk or Armstrong towards each other (and both musicians are known for their love for this business) or whether they independently "borrowed" this melody from someone else is unknown. Although, maybe we will find out the truth one day. In the meantime, the permanent leader of DDT is trying to sue Gazmanov on the issue of plagiarizing the very idea of \u200b\u200bthe song "Born in the USSR". And Billy Joe himself, apparently, does not even suspect that the melody of his first hit is identical to Shevchuk's creation and may well be recognized as plagiarism.

As for other borrowings of Armstrong, he "borrowed" riffs or whole pieces of melodies from Ramones (Blitzkrieg Bop), Depeche Mode (Personal Jesus), The Clash and others. It is worth noting that Billy has much more of his own ideas in his work than borrowed ones.

Interesting facts

• Billie Joe Armstrong's height is 1.7 cm. Apparently the musician considers himself short, so he often wears sneakers on a high platform. But maybe it's just part of the image. After all, the same Tre Cool is 2 cm below him.
• Billy's fortune is currently approximately $ 55 million. All this despite the fact that the musician earned it from scratch.
• Among Armstrong's favorite musicians is Kurt Cobain. They never met, however, as the latter died before Green Day became famous. About which Billy has repeatedly expressed regret. But he was lucky enough to meet one of the Ramones - Joey Ramon, and the initiative came from the latter.
• The musician has often appeared on many television shows. So on the Internet there is a story about the appearance of Billie Joe Armstrong in "Evening Urgant". But this is not the case. In fact, he was on the air of the project "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", the format of which was copied by the aforementioned program of Russian television. So, if you see somewhere on the Internet or press the news about the appearance of Billie Joe Armstrong in "Evening Urgant" - do not believe it.
• The songs of this artist sounded in such famous tapes as "Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2" (The Forgotten), "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (21 guns), "Rebel" (Brain stew) and others.
• The most famous song of Billy Joe at the moment is considered to be Boulevard of Broken Dreams, which is loved even by those who are not familiar with the work of Green Day in general and Billy in particular. The most popular video for his music is considered to be shot for the song 21 guns. But Armstrong made the most money from Basket Case. By the way, this song is loved by Avril Lavigne, and the singer performed it in some of her concerts. At the same time, the most popular of Billy's songs, which are covered by other performers, is Good Riddance. She is in the repertoire of Glen Campbell and Taylor Swift.
• The world famous Finnish band Nightwish borrowed from Armstrong part of the melody from the hit Minority and made it the basis of the chorus in their song Over The Hills And Far Away. Here is such a cycle of melodies in nature.

Billie Joe Armstrong was born on February 17, 1972 in the small town of Rodeo, California. He was the youngest of six children in the family. His father worked as a truck driver, and also moonlighted in clubs, playing jazz. Billy Jo's mother was a waitress in one of the restaurants in town. In September 1982, when the future star was only 10 years old, his father, Andy, died of stomach cancer. Two years later, his mother remarried. Billy took this event hard, he began to hate this man.

Billy began to sing quite early, at the age of 5. He often visited hospitals and sang there for their patients. Later he had his own song "Look For Love", recorded by the local company Fiat Records. At the age of 11, his mother gave him his first electric guitar, it was the famous "Blue", which Billy plays to this day.

At the age of 10, Billy Joe met Mike Dirnt at a school cafe. Staying with each other overnight, they listened and sang songs from rock giants such as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Van Halen. An equally influential influence on their music was the work of the alternative band Bay Area throughout the eighties. At the age of 14, Billy Joe composed his first song ("Why Do You Want Him?"), Which told about his mother and stepfather. In 1987, Billie Joe and Mike recruited drummer John Kriftmeyer under the pseudonym Al Sobrante to Sweet Children and began their creative careers. Their first, but by no means last, gig took place at the Rods Hickory Pit in Vallejo. The day before his eighteenth birthday, having almost finished school, Billy dropped out and decided to devote all his time to Sweet Children. Music became his calling.

In 1990, their drummer Al Sobrant left the band, and Billy and Mike were faced with the question of a new candidate. The best option was Gilman Street drummer Tre Cool. Then the group changed its name to what is now known to the whole world - Green Day. But then everything was just beginning. The guys made their first tour of the country together with their father Tre, who drove them in his old mobile home.

In Miniapolis, Billy met his girlfriend Adrienne Nesser, who later became his wife on July 2, 1994. The day before the wedding ceremony, it turned out that Adriana was pregnant. In March 1995, Billy Joe had a son, who was named Joseph Marcicano; in September 1998, his wife gave him a second boy, Jacob Danger. Today, Billie Joe Armstrong's family lives in Berkeley, California.

In addition to Green Day, he performed in bands such as Pinhead Gunpowder (where he still plays), Blatz, Rancid (played 1 show and co-wrote the song "Radio"), The Lookouts, Goodbye Harry, Corrupted Morals.

His main role in the group is playing the guitar and, of course, vocals. Billy also owns a harmonica, mandolin, piano, and knows how to play a drum kit.