Billie Joe Armstrong
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Billie Joe Armstrong (born February 17, 1972) is the lead vocalist and guitarist for punk-pop-rock band Green Day. Armstrong was the youngest of six kids and lived in Rodeo, California. His father was a truck driver who died of cancer when Armstrong was ten, his mother was a waitress.
Right before Billie's father had died from cancer, he gave his son his first guitar, which Billie Joe nicknamed "Blue". It was a Fernandes Stratocaster copy and to this day he still uses replicas of the guitar. Other instruments Billie can play include the piano, drums, harmonica and the mandolin. The first song he wrote was called "Why Do You Want Him" and was written in 1986, when he was 13. (His mom was dating someone he didn't like at the time). The song appears on Green Day's debut album on Lookout Records, 39/Smooth.
During his stay in school he was nicknamed "Two Dollar Bill", because he was supplying the school with joints for two dollars. In 1988, Billie Joe formed a band called Sweet Children with Mike Dirnt (born Mike Pritchard) and Al Sobrante (born John Kiffmeyer). They changed their name to Green Day in March, 1989, just before the release of their first EP, "1,000 Hours", on Lookout Records. The name Green Day comes from a slang expression for a day of pot smoking. In 1990 Sobrante left Green Day for college and was replaced by Tre Cool (born Frank Edwin Wright III), who appears on Green Day's second album Kerplunk.
He and his wife are co-founders and part owners of the independent label Adeline Records, and he has a side band called Pinhead Gunpowder which is on Lookout Records.
Armstrong is a registered Libertarian Party voter in California.
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He stated that he is bisexual in an interview in The Advocate, January 24, 1995. [1] (http://web.archive.org/web/20010221015040/www.advocate.com/html/stories/822/822_greenday672_3.asp)
Marriages and Children
Armstrong's long time girlfriend Adrienne Nesser joined him in California in June 1994 after she graduated from a college in Minnesota (They had met at a Green Day gig in DinkyTown Minneapolis, Minnesota). They married in July 1994 and had two children, Joseph Marciano (born March 1995) and Jakob Danger (born September 1998).
External links
- Billie Joe Info at GeekStinkBreath.net (http://www.geekstinkbreath.net/greenday/info/billiejoearmstrong/)
- Billie Joe Biography, as well as information on his stint in Common Rider (http://www.operationivy.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=22/)
- Fan Site (http://www.billie-joe.com/)
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