Billie Joe Armstrong, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, and Mike Dirnt, the bassist and backup vocalist, founded Green Day in the East Bay of California in 1987. The band has been a power three for the majority of their career with drummer Tré Cool, who took over for John Kiffmeyer in 1990 before the band’s second studio album, Kerplunk, was recorded (1991). Jason White, a touring guitarist who joined the group as a full-time member in 2012, started touring again in 2016. When Green Day first adopted their current moniker in 1989, they went by the name Sweet Children and were a member of the Bay Area punk movement that originated at the 924 Gilman Street club in Berkeley, California, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Early releases by the group were on the independent record label Lookout! Records. Their major-label debut, Dookie, which was published by Reprise Records in 1994, was an instant hit and eventually sold more than 10 million copies in the United States. Green Day, along with fellow Californian punk bands Bad Religion, the Offspring, Rancid, NOFX, Pennywise, and Social Distortion, is recognized for having popularized punk rock in the United States. Many musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Fall Out Boy, Blink-182, Lady Gaga, Wavves, Fidlar, Tegan and Sara, the Menzingers, Bowling for Soup, and Sum 41, have credited the band as an inspiration.
