Billie Joe Armstrong. A photo. Biography and personal life. Full Name: Billie Joe Armstrong New Sound of Green Day

Billie Joe Armstrong was born on February 17, 1972 in the small town of Rodeo, California. He was the youngest of six children in the family. His father worked as a truck driver and also worked in clubs playing jazz. Billy Joe's mother was a waitress in one of the city's restaurants. In September 1982, when the future star was only 10 years old, his father, Andy, died of stomach cancer. Two years later, his mother remarried. Billy took this event hard, he began to hate this man.

Billy started singing quite early, at the age of 5. He often visited hospitals and sang there to their patients. Somewhat later, he had his own song "Look For Love", recorded by the local company Fiat Records. At the age of 11, his mother gave him his first electric guitar, it was the famous "Blue", which Billy plays to this day.

At the age of 10, Billy Joe met Mike Dirnt at a school cafe. Staying with each other for the night, they listened to and performed the songs of such rock giants as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Van Halen. Their music was equally influenced by the work of the Bay Area alternative band during the eighties. At 14, Billy Joe wrote his first song ("Why Do You Want Him?"), which was about his mother and stepfather. In 1987, Billy Joe and Mike recruited drummer John Kriftmeyer under the pseudonym Al Sobrante to Sweet Children and began their creative career. Their first, but by no means their last, performance was at the Rods Hickory Pit in Vallejo. The day before his eighteenth birthday, having almost finished school, Billy dropped out and decided to devote all his time to Sweet Children. Music became his vocation.

In 1990, their drummer Al Sobrant left the group, and Billy and Mike were faced with the question of a new candidate. The best option was Gilman Street drummer Tre Cool. Then the group changed its name to the one that is now known to the whole world - Green Day. But then everything was just beginning. The guys made their first tour of the country with their father Tre, who drove them on his old motor home.

In Miniapolis, Billy met a girl, Adrienne Nesser, who later became his wife on July 2, 1994. The day before the wedding ceremony, it turned out that Adriana was pregnant. In March 1995, Billy Joe had a son, who was named Joseph Marciano (Joseph Marcicano), in September 1998, his wife gave him a second boy - Jacob Danger. Today, Billy Joe Armstrong's family lives in Berkeley, California.

In addition to Green Day, he performed in bands such as Pinhead Gunpowder (where he still plays), Blatz, Rancid (played 1 concert and co-wrote the song "Radio"), The Lookouts, Goodbye Harry, Corrupted Morals.

His main role in the group is playing the guitar and, of course, vocals. Billy also owns a harmonica, mandolin, piano, and can play the drum kit.

Full Name: Billie Joe Armstrong Date of Birth: February 17, 1972 Hometown: Rodeo, suburb of Berkeley, California, USA Eye Color: Hazel Natural Hair Color: Dark Brown Height: 170 cm (5" 7) Married: Adrienne Nesser since July 2, 1994 Children: Joseph Marciano (born March 1995 and Jakob Danger) born September 1998 Family: Father Billy Andy died of cancer when Billy was 10 years old (September 1982) Billy's mother, Ollie, raised him alone He also has 5 siblings: David, Allan, Marcy, Holly and Anna (David, Allen, Marcy, Holly, and Anna) Car: BMW Instruments: Guitar, harmonica, mandolin, drums, piano, recently started to learn saxophone Record company: Billy Joe and Adrianne co-owners of the campaign Adeline Records Other Bands: Billy still plays with Pinhead Gunpowder, The Influents, Corrupted Morals, Rancid, the Lookouts, Goodbye Harry, and Blatz. What do we know about Billie Joe Armstrong? Well, we know that he is the frontman, lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Green Day. We know that at 44 this bright green-eyed brunette looks ... What? You didn't know he was 44? Didn't they know that he was a green-eyed brunette?! DO YOU DONT KNOW WHO BILLY JOE ARMSTRONG IS??!! Hmm, well, what can I tell you: you are a loser. And Billy Joe would say that there is nothing wrong with being a loser, because it depends on how good you are at it. Yes, generosity is one of his main qualities, but we are already climbing into high matters. Apparently, enlightenment should start with something simpler. OK, let's do that. And so, Billie Joe Armstrong is certainly an unusual personality. Start at least from the date of his birth - February 17, 1972. What is special here? Yes, it would seem, nothing, but only February 17 in America is a rather exotic holiday: National Garbage Day. Hence, of course, the irresistible craving for punk culture from childhood. However, we deviate from the topic. This Great Event took place in the industrial town of Rodeo, a suburb of Berkeley, California, in a family of truly blue blood - the head of the family, Andrew Armstrong (for everyone and everything - just Andy), earned a living as a simple profession as a truck driver, his wife, Ollie, worked as a waitress. Everything would be fine, but now Billy was born as the sixth, the youngest, child in the family. And it makes no sense to say that the Armstrongs always had a certain tension with finances. But, nevertheless, Billy's childhood was quite happy, at least until the age of ten. And not a little one thing contributed to this, which accompanies him almost from birth - this, of course, is music. I must say that the upbringing disposed - both parents were ardent fans of jazz and country music. I must say, each of the members of the Armstrong family owned some kind of musical instrument, and sometimes more than one. So what, one wonders, could a child start doing in such a society, moreover, possessing a truly sweet, melodious angelic voice? Naturally, to go to hospitals and hospitals, raising the mood of sick old men and old women with their simple songs. Yes, Billy Joe had a special nobility as a child. And talent. This boy, more like a pretty girl, recorded his first song when he was barely five years old. And it doesn't matter that it happened in a tiny studio owned by Flink Records, the main thing is that it was a real record. They even interviewed a child prodigy, just like an adult. Closer to the tenth birthday of his son Andy Armstrong, realizing that the boy has extraordinary musical abilities, he gave him a mega-gift - a guitar. Yes, yes, the very same, dear and familiar to us to the smallest detail - the sky-blue Fernandes Stratocaster, which we know under the affectionate nickname Blue. True, it was not possible to enjoy the gift of Billy Joe to the fullest. His father passed away on September 15, 1982, three months after he first heard his diagnosis of cancer. Billy could not cope with this pain - the blow was too strong for him then. And who knows how he would have survived this if not for one event that occurred two months before the terrible tragedy. Yes, I mean that very significant meeting in the school cafeteria. Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Ryan Pritchard. Sounds! It's been years now, and it still sounds. And God forbid there will be as many more. Damn, we're digressing from the topic again... In general, thanks in large part to Mike, Billy finally plunges headlong into music. They go to his house together and play his guitar, imitating rock stars such as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Van Halen. But it was in his free time, and there was a catastrophically little of it - Billy could not calmly watch how a mother pulls out children alone. So I worked part-time as best I could - either as an assistant in a cafe, or washing a car, or something else. This is already later, at the age of 15, Billy received his famous nickname Two Dollar Bill. Why Two Dollar? Yes, he sold shoals. Two dollars a piece. And so he earned for the benefit of the family hearth, and besides, there was also a group formed, but after all, the group needs to rehearse somewhere, rehearse on something, perform ... And what about the school? But who needs it, this school? Billy himself will later say that “school is practice, practice creates an ideal, but no one is perfect, so why practice?”. So our trainee flew out of his educational institution with a bang exactly one day before his eighteenth birthday. Not that he was very upset - apart from music, he was no longer interested in anything. And then just continuous stresses - the release of the first album, the departure of the drummer from the group, the appearance of Tre ... and love. Not the first, but the one - the only one at first sight. Adrienne Nesser (Adrienne Nesser) appeared in the life of Billy Joe suddenly. Suddenly. He just saw this girl with beautiful thick black hair. Accidentally snatched her out of the crowd at the stage during a performance in Minneapolis. I saw - and something skipped a beat inside. And after the concert, this same girl approached him - to him personally - and asked where they could buy their album. This is where our Billy Joe disappeared with the ends. Yes, they started dating - 18-year-old Billy and Adrienne, who by that time had already turned 21. At first, their communication was limited only to the phone, but frequent tours allowed meetings. Mike and Tre only grinned at Billy's requests to come to Minnesota as part of the tour - they knew very well why the frontman really needed the Gopher State. It was at one of these rare meetings that the first kiss occurred, after which Billy Joe wrote the song 2,000 Light Years Away in a fit of inspiration. This song was later included in the group's second album - Kerplunk!. But in 1993, Billy and Edie part ways. There was no quarrel, even, in principle, there was no agreement on this from both sides. Just too many problems, just another exhausting tour, just not enough time and each other. Adrienne began dating another guy, Billy also did not suffer alone (remember Janelle Hessig). But then the time of severe depression and the struggle for survival in the world of punks was replaced by a new, bright one. The Dookie album was released, immediately lifting three simple guys literally to the top of the world. Feeling himself on the crest of a wave of success, forgetting about the times when he had to puzzle over where to get money for lunch, Billy realized that he was missing something. Someone. And he could tell exactly who. Many people say that punks are narrow-minded people and they don’t even have an approximate concept of romance. Well, then either that's a false statement, or Billie Joe Armstrong just never really was a punk. For he acted like the most hopeless romantic: he called Minnesota and said only a few words, like: "Come to California and marry me." And Adrienne, still the same hopeless romantic, agreed. The wedding ceremony took place on July 2, 1994, in the backyard of Billy Joe's home in Berkeley. It lasted five minutes, and since the couple did not belong (and still does not belong) to any religion, the ceremony itself consisted of elements of three religions at once - Protestant, Catholic and Jewish. The next day, Adrienne discovered that she was pregnant, and the couple spent their Honeymoon at a hotel across the street from their home. Yes, this is the beginning of family life. Eight months later (March 15, 1995), their first child, Joseph Marciano Armstrong, was born. The baby had a violent temper and stubbornly kept the 23-year-old dad from falling asleep at night with his cries. As a result, in fact, the album Insomniac was born, the key composition of which is the song Brain Stew. At some point, the music for Billy faded into the background. The youngest in the Armstrong family, Jacob Danger, was born. It happened on September 12, 1998 - a year after the release of the Nimrod album. In 2000, the next album, Warning, was released. And in 2001 thunder struck - Billy Joe was arrested for DUI, in our opinion - drunk driving. He was sentenced by the court to corrective labor. As far as I know, it was some kind of clerical work and they took place on East 12th Street in Oakland. Billy learned his lesson, and he had no further problems with the law. By the way, this incident inspired Tre to write the song DUI, which was supposed to be included in the Shenanigans album, but, alas, it did not work out. At the moment, Billy and his family live in his modest comfortable villa in Berkeley. Engaged in charitable activities along with the rest of the group, recording a new album and raising sons. Everything is modest, sweet and lyrical - not at all like it should be for an inveterate punk brought up on the streets. But Billie Joe Armstrong, as already mentioned, is certainly an unusual person ...

1) Billy Joe he reads a large number of books, therefore, he can often be seen on tour with some literature, he gives preference to King, Tolkien, they also say that he occasionally reads esoteric literature. By the way, in the literary field, Armstrong was not very lucky when trying to write a biography of Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong spent two years on this occupation, however, then abandoned this work

2) In addition to participating in green day he could also be the guitarist of the band Rancid, however, due to being busy with his own project, this idea had to be abandoned

3) Billie Joe Armstrong he loves very much and the first record he bought with his own hand is precisely the album of the king of rock and roll

4) Armstrong, is also a multi-instrumentalist, in addition to good vocal skills and the ability to play the guitar, this guy can give out a twenty-minute solo on drums, piano, and apparently also on the balalaika, at least after a concert in Moscow he was presented with this particular three-stringed instrument;

5) Joe Armstrong during his high school career, he sold two-bucks joints, for which he received the same name

Billy Joe is acting weird

6) By the way, the name for green day he came up with when he was intoxicated.

7) The most popular album is the album Dookie, literally translated as poop, released in 1994, the vast majority of the songs on this album talk about what problems with your stomach can happen on tour with a rock band, as well as how to masturbate properly.

8) This album was released immediately after death, Courtney Love said that green day Kurt would love

9) Billie Joe Armstrong, also, is a fan of Kurt, if that

10) Armstrong's father died of cancer when he was 10 years old, Bill dedicated the song "wake me up when september end" to him

11) In younger years Billy Joe wore a nose ring, but it had to be removed, alas, the ring clung to the electric guitar

12) Billy has three older sisters and two brothers;

13) Billie Joe Armstrong has three signature Gibson guitars. The first is semi-acoustic Billie Joe Armstrong ES-137,second Gibson BillieJoeArmstrong Signature Les Paul Junior Electric with one sound, the third semi-acoustic Billie Joe Armstrong J-180. Remarkably, semi-acoustics can be bought for 3,300 bucks

14) Sing Billy Joe started at the age of five

15) They met Mike Dern at school, after which they decided to form their first rock band;

16) Songwriting inspiration for Nimrod's album Billy Joe Armstrong came during the night howls of his first son;

17) What is remarkable, Billy Joe vegetarian

18) In 2013, on the stage of one of the festivals, Armstrong began to speak harshly about Justin Bieber, after which he broke the guitar

19) The album "American Idiot" was staged theater on Broadway;

20) It is worth adding that Billy Joe has his own character in the animated series The Simpsons

21) Armstrong was somehow arrested for driving not quite sober, in general, they took away his license for a year, after that he rode around the city on a children's bike, but later his wife began to carry him

It is difficult to call the American punk rock guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong a philosopher, but some of his statements are deep and accurate. How do you like that? Making mistakes is better than doing nothing. And on this, many will agree with him.

Billy is the sixth and youngest child in the family. His date of birth is Oakland, (USA), February 17, 1972. The creative zest was originally laid in the violent temperament of a child born under the sign of Aquarius. Billy loved his father. The latter worked as a truck driver, but fell ill with cancer early. Frequent chemotherapy tied his father to the hospital, where little Billy ran almost every day. To cheer up the patient, the baby sang. The first song he wrote was called Look for Love (“Look for love”), and the first guitar (a blue Fender Stratocaster) was presented to him by his mother for his 11th birthday.

When Billy turned 10, his father passed away, and two years later a stepfather appeared in the family, whom the boy did not accept, going into all serious trouble: he sold cigarettes with marijuana, skipped classes, was not going to study and work. Protesting against the choice of his mother, at the age of 14 he recorded the song “Why did you need him? (Why Do You Want Him?), but it was impossible to change the situation.

Start

In 1986, Billy Armstrong, together with a childhood friend, bassist Mike Dernt, formed a band that was renamed Green Day two years later. Billy played great not only on the guitar, he owned the harmonica, mandolin, virtuoso improvised on the piano, beat intricate rhythms on the drums. The group performed their songs, adhering to the flow of punk rock. Despite the fact that there are lyrical themes in the repertoire, the main emphasis is on action music: energetic, incendiary, sharp and defiant.

Personal

In 1990, Billy met his future wife Andrienne, whom they married 4 years later. They have two sons who are professional musicians. Billy is bisexual. He argues that if it were not for public opinion, then the sexual life of people looked completely different. In his youth, he adhered to vegetarianism, but it was more a tribute to fashion than health care.

For most of his life, the elder Armstrong lived on the edge, abusing alcohol and sleeping pills. In 2012, having experienced an emotional crisis, he chose rehabilitation, as he could no longer control his condition.

(born February 17, 1972) is an American musician, vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, best known as the leader and founder of the popular punk rock band green day.

Billie Joe Armstrong was born on February 17, 1972 in the small town of Rodeo, California. He has five older siblings: David, Alan, Marcy, Holly and Anna. He is the youngest in the family. His father worked as a truck driver and also worked in clubs playing jazz. Billy Joe's mother was a waitress in one of the city's restaurants. In September 1982, when the future star was only 10 years old, his father, Andy, died of esophageal cancer. Two years later, his mother remarried. Billy took this event hard, he began to hate this man. At 14, Billy Joe wrote his first song ("Why Do You Want Him?"), which was about his mother and stepfather. Billy started singing quite early, at the age of 5. He often visited hospitals and sang there to their patients. Somewhat later, he had his own song "Look For Love", recorded by the local company Fiat Records. At the age of 11, his mother gave him his first electric guitar, it was the famous "Blue", which Billy plays to this day (in black and white photo).

At the age of 10, Billy Joe met Mike Dirnt in a school cafe. Staying with each other for the night, they listened to and performed the songs of such giants of rock as Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Van Halen. Their music was equally influenced by the work of the Bay Area alternative band during the eighties. In 1988, Billy Joe and Mike recruited drummer John Kiffmeier under the pseudonym Al Sobrant to Sweet Children and began their creative career. Their first, but by no means their last, performance was at the Rods Hickory Pit in Vallejo. The day before his eighteenth birthday, having almost finished school, Billy dropped out and decided to devote all his time to Sweet Children. Music became his vocation.

Green Day was originally part of the punk rock scene around the 924 Gilman Street punk club in Berkeley. Their first albums, recorded on the independent label Lookout! Records, earned the band a large following. As a result, the group, along with other Californian punks (The Offspring, Rancid), raised a wave of huge interest in punk music not only in the US, but throughout the world. Green Day inspired such famous bands as Good Charlotte, Fall Out Boy, Simple Plan, My Chemical Romance, All Time Low.

In 2011, the trio was voted the best punk band in the history of music in a poll conducted by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2015, Green Day was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band became one of the most popular and successful punk rock bands. As of 2012, over 85 million copies of Green Day records have been sold, 30 of which are in the US.

Armstrong's first guitar was a Cherry Red Hohner acoustic guitar that his father bought him. Then, when he was eleven, he got his first electric guitar, a copy of the Fender Stratocaster, which he named "Blue". His mom got "Blue" from George Cole, who taught Billy how to play electric guitar for 10 years. Armstrong said in a 1995 MTV interview, "Basically, it wasn't guitar lessons because I never learned to read music, he just taught me how to place my hands." Cole bought the guitar brand new from David Margen of Santana. Cole gave Billy a "Bill Lawrence Humbucking" pickup and suggested installing it in the bridge. After the pickup failed at Woodstock '94, Armstrong supplied the Duncan JB.

“Armstrong fetishized his teacher's guitar, in part because it had the sound quality and Van Halen smoothness that he couldn't get from his little red Hohner. He appreciated it more, however, due to his relationship with Cole, another father figured after Andy's death. He has toured with this guitar since the band's early days and continues to use it to this day.

"Blue" is also featured in some of their videos starting with "Longview", "Basket Case", "Brain Stew/Jaded", "Hitchin" a Ride", and finally in "Minority".

Today, Armstrong primarily uses Gibson and Fender guitars. Twenty of his Gibson Les Paul guitars are junior models from the mid to late 1950s. His Fender Collection includes: Stratocaster, Jazzmaster, Telecaster, Hollowbody Gretsch and its "Blue" copies. He states that his favorite guitar is a 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior, which he calls "Floyd". He bought this guitar in 2000 shortly before recording their Warning album. Armstrong also has his own line of Gibson Les Paul Junior guitars, modeled after Floyd, Billy Joe's original 1956 Les Paul Junior.

He plays several other instruments quite well. He has recorded harmonica and mandolin parts, piano on 21st Century Breakdown, and played drums during concerts from time to time. Also recently, Armstrong began to master the saxophone.