

Billie Joe Armstrong was brought into this world on February 17, 1972,
the youngest of six children. His father, Andy, was a part time jazz
musician and a truck driver for Safeway, while his mother was a waitress
at a local resturant named Rod's Hickory Pit. Billie started singing
when he was just 5 years old. He would go around to hospitals and sing
to the patients to make them feel better.
Then he got to record his first song, "Look for Love" at a local
recording company named Fiat Records. Billie got his first electric
guitar, the infamous "Blue" (a Fernandes Stratocaster), when he was 11.
His mother bought the guitar from his first guitar teacher. Billie
still uses Blue to this day and has several replicas of it. At the age
of 10, Billie's father died of cancer of the esophagus which spread
throughout his body. His mother continued to work at Rod's Hickory Pit
in Vallejo, California, to support herself and her six kids. Billie
Joe and Mike later worked there as busboys. Two years after the death
of his father, his mother remarried.
Billie
was 10 when he met Mike Dirnt in the school cafeteria in 1982. During
sleepovers at each other's houses, they played songs by old heavy metal
warhorses such as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard, and Van Halen. Other
influences would be the "thrash and drang" of the Bay Area's alternative
music culture percolating throughout the eighties. Clubs such as
Mabuhay Gardens and Berkeley's 924 Gilman Street regularly showcased
local groups like the Dead Kennedys and Buck Naked. He wrote his first
song, "Why Do You Want Him", a song about his mother and his step
father, when he was 14. At the age of 15, Billie, Mike, and a drummer
named John Kiffmeyer formed a punk band and named
themselves Sweet Children. Their first gig was actually at Rod's
Hickory Pit. One day before his 18th birthday, and halfway through his
senior year, Billie dropped out of high school (Pinole Valley High
School) to devote all his time to Sweet Children. He knew what he
wanted to do - play music, and school was just getting in the way. At
this point, Billie had the nickname "Two Dollar Bill", referring to the
price of the joints he sold.
In 1990, Kiffmeyer left the band to attend college. Billie and Mike
were faced with the task of finding a new drummer. They knew the perfect
fit, Tre Cool, a Gilman Street veteran, who was then playing in the
Lookouts!. Later, Sweet Children was renamed Green Day. Before they
knew it, they were traveling all over the country in an old bookmobile
with Tre's dad at the wheel. They did all this with little money and
staying at fans' houses. It was in Minneapolis in 1990 that Billie
first laid eyes on his future wife, a girl named Adrienne Nesser. They
dated for some time and then were married on July 2, 1994, a 5 minute
ceremony. The day after their wedding, Adrienne found out she was
pregnant. Their son, Joseph Marciano Armstrong, was born in March 1995.
Three years later on September 12, 1998, another boy, Jakob Danger was
added to the Armstrong family. Today, Billie, Adrienne, Joseph, and
Jakob reside in Berkeley, California.(Biography source: http://www.greendayauthority.com)
0 Komentar
Anda bebas berkomentar selama tidak mengandung unsur SARA dan PORNOGRAFI. Selamat berbagi pendapat dan berdiskusi di kolom komentar ini.
EmojiOrang baik berkomentar dengan baik.
Jadilah komentator yang baik.