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Green Day has been really famous for quite a long time, but there are still details about how the band became famous in the first place that aren’t widely known. The same can be said about some of the individual members of the band.
For example, the singer of the band recently renounced his citizenship in the United States, which has given fans one small look inside Billie Joe Armstrong’s life outside of the band.
Also, there are other things people who are not in the band have done that have made Green Day fans a bit unhappy. One of those things is an ongoing joke that those who love the band think is heartless. Additionally, there are some very interesting details about how the band became as famous as it is today.
10/10 Mike Dirnt Got His Surname From Something He Did In High School
There are a lot of performers out there who do not go by the names that they were given when they were born, and it turns out that the bassist for Green Day is one of those people.
His original last name is Pritchard, but he goes by Mike Dirnt these days. Dirnt is a sound he made in high school while trying to play air-bass.
9/10 Only One Band Member Of Green Day Kept His Real Surname
It seems that Mike Dirnt is not the only member of Green Day who decided to go by a different last name, since many of the other band members have done the same thing.
However, there is one member of Green Day who has chosen to go by his original name, and that is Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer.
8/10 Mike Dirnt Was Once Mistaken For A Fan
Many bands have some pretty interesting stories about things that they experienced during a performance, and that includes Green Day.
In fact, one thing that happened to them during a performance involved some violence. Bouncers who were there thought he was a fan who decided to get on the stage, and they even knocked out a few of his teeth.
7/10 Green Day Originally Had A Different Name
While it might be hard for fans of some bands to imagine them having a different name when they started out, there are a lot of bands that changed their name before they got famous. One of those bands is Green Day.
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Long before they became famous, they went by the name Sweet Children. Sometimes it takes a bit for bands to find a name that fits them.
6/10 Green Day Once Had A Different Drummer
Lots of bands go through many changes before they become well-known, and that is the case for Green Day. Many of the members started going by different surnames, the name of the band changed, and their original drummer, Al Sobrante, left the band. All of those changes helped the band become what it is today. Additionally, their current drummer is Tre Cool.
5/10 Billie Joe Armstrong’s Mother Got Them Their First Gig
While the members of Green Day made their band very successful themselves, they also have someone else to thank for their success, and that person is one of their mothers.
The band made their debut in front of some friends at a place called Rod’s Hickory Pit, and Billie Joe Armstrong’s mother is the one who helped them get that gig since she worked there.
4/10 Writing Songs Has Helped This Green Day Member Deal With Mental Health Issues
Writing can be a really helpful tool when a person is struggling mentally and emotionally, which is why it helps some people deal with mental health problems.
Additionally, one person who wrote when they were struggling in such a way was Billie Joe Armstrong. In a documentary, the star claimed that writing songs helped him deal with things like panic attacks and anxiety.
3/10 Green Day Faced Some Backlash When They Got Famous
Becoming famous is something that a lot of people want, but that does not mean that it does not cause problems sometimes. In Green Day’s case, they began to receive some backlash when they started to become really popular.
That is because some of the other bands that were popular at the time had begun to struggle a bit while Green Day was becoming more well-known.
2/10 Green Day Had An Identity Crisis
In the past, the members of Green Day experienced a bit of an identity crisis. The band’s album Dookie helped the punk music genre become a bit more mainstream, and some people considered them to be sell-outs because of that, which is something that the band had to deal with after that album became the huge success that it is.
1/10 Why Green Day Believed They Were Different From Other Grunge Rock Bands
At one point, Green Day considered themselves very different from other bands that were a part of the same musical genre as they are.
Billie Joe Armstrong claimed that those other bands seemed to be very introverted, which is quite different from the image that Green Day puts out there.