In the beginning, Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt started the band Sweet Children, which we know today as Green Day. When they were ten years old, the duo met at John Sweet High School in Crockett, California. Billie Joe was 14 when he wrote his first song. In 1987, Billie Joe and Mike found drummer John Kriftmeyer and completed the band Sweet Children. Soon after, they started playing at clubs on Gilman Street in Berkeley, CA.

  They changed their name to Green Day and recorded their first EP, 1,000 Hours, in two days when they were 17.  Mike graduated, but Billie Joe dropped out one day before to his 18th birthday. Their official album came in 1990, a mix of all the previous EPs(1000 hours, 39 Smooth, and Slappy), called "1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours". Soon after, John Kriftmeyer decided to leave the band to continue on to college, so Billie and Mike found  Gilman Street’s natural drummer, Tre Cool. Tre had already been playing in a band, The Lookouts!, since the time he was 12. Members of The Lookouts include Lawrence Livermore, the owner of Lookout! Records. In 1991, Tre Cool made his debute on Green Day's 2nd album, "Kerpunk!".

 Before they signed to a major label, the band had already on 5 tours, with their bookmobile and  rooming with friends and fans (And sometimes, in the back of mattress warehouses). The guys decided to sign onto a major label in April 1993, and soon recorded the album, "Dookie", in 1994.

"Dookie", made way for new fans of punk rock. With 14 songs and only a time of 39 minutes, “Dookie” sold out in one of the fastest times ever. Soon, Green Day were the new Rolling Stones.  "Dookie" went on to sell more than 10 million copies in the U.S., and won a Grammy in 1994 for "Best Alternative Music Performance." Yet, this made some of the punk rocks back at the Gilman Street to call them "sell-outs" and "mainstream," but this didn’t bring them down, or at least, not anymore.

   With their next albums, "Insomniac" and "Nimrod", Green Day stayed "punk" to their fans, while still proving that they had great talent. On Nimrod, the song with the greatest success was "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", and was featured the last episode of Seinfield.  After the success of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", they took a 2 year break.

   In 2000, Green Day released their album "Warning". Sadly, “Warning” didn’t get as much recognition as their other albums.

    So after 4 years Green Day released  "American Idiot" on September 21, 2004.”American Idiot” hailed as a punk opera, and the first great album of the new millennium. This album speaks out (More like rocks out) against the government and the media. "American Idiot" was the first Green Day album to debut at #1 on the Billboard Charts, and different music charts world wide. The album's first track “American Idiot”, was a complete success. However, the single, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" was a much bigger success, with several weeks on top of the charts. Green Day’s album "American Idiot" was nominated for seven Grammy awards, but took home one, "Best Rock Album".