Along with Hillcrest Elementary, Armstrong attended Carquinez Middle School and John Swett High School, both in Crockett, California, and later transferred to Pinole Valley High School in Pinole, California. The first concert he watched was Van Halen in 1984. He has also cited The Replacements and Hüsker Dü as major musical influences.
He became interested in punk rock after being introduced to the genre by his brothers. At the age of 10, he met Dirnt in the school cafeteria, and they immediately bonded over their love of music. After his father died, his mother married a man whom her children disliked, which resulted in Armstrong's further retreat into music. Īrmstrong attended Hillcrest Elementary School in Rodeo, where a teacher encouraged him to record a song titled "Look for Love" at the age of five on the Bay Area label Fiat Records. His great-great-grandparents Pietro Marsicano and Teresa Nigro were Italian immigrants from Viggiano who settled in Boston until 1869, when they moved to Berkeley, California. His mother worked as a waitress at Rod's Hickory Pit in El Cerrito, California, where he and Mike Dirnt would play their first gig in 1987. Armstrong has three older sisters named Marci, Hollie, and Anna, and two older brothers named David and Alan. The song " Wake Me Up When September Ends" is a memorial to his father.
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His father, a jazz musician and truck driver for Safeway, died of esophageal cancer in September 1982, when Armstrong was 10 years old. īillie Joe Armstrong was born in Oakland, California, on February 17, 1972, the youngest of six children of Ollie Jackson (born 1932) and Andrew Marciano Armstrong (1928–1982). The record company later shut down in August 2017. In 1997, to coincide with the release of Nimrod, he founded Adeline Records to help support other bands, signing acts such as The Frustrators, AFI, and Dillinger Four. Armstrong has also pursued musical projects including numerous collaborations with other musicians.
The band later changed its name to Green Day. He met Dirnt while attending elementary school, and the two instantly bonded over their mutual interest in music, forming the band Sweet Children when the two were 14 years old. He is also a guitarist and vocalist for the punk rock band Pinhead Gunpowder, and provides lead vocals for Green Day's side projects Foxboro Hot Tubs, The Network, The Longshot, and The Coverups.Īrmstrong developed an interest in music at a young age, and recorded his first song at the age of five. He is best known as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter, and lead guitarist of the rock band Green Day, which he co-founded with Mike Dirnt in 1987. Billie Joe Armstrong (born February 17, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor.