Call Billie Joe Armstrong a punk, a neo-punk, or a post-punk popster -- but however you describe him, there's no denying that his band Green Day has had an enormous influence on popular music. Since the band -- Armstrong (vocals/guitar), Tre Cool (drums), and Mike Dirnt (bass) -- first blasted onto MTV with their high-energy songs of adolescent alienation, Green Day has helped make the charts safe for three-chord, Ramones-style pop/punk songs.

Emerging from the San Francisco Bay area music scene, Green Day released two independent label albums before hitting it big with 1994's Dookie. The album spawned four hit singles, including "Basket Case," "When I Come Around," and "Longview," and went on to sell 12 million copies around the world. The band played at Woodstock '94 and won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Green Day kept the momentum going with Insomniac (1995) and Nimrod (1997). The latter featured "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," which was played over the closing credits of the last Seinfeld episode. Green Day also released Warning (2000) and Shenanigans (2002).

According to Rolling Stone magazine, "Few bands have had the success and influence that Green Day have had." Along with fellow neo-punks The Offspring, Green Day paved the way for bands like Blink 182, Good Charlotte, Sum 41, and Fall Out Boy.

However, what fans may not know about Green Day's frontman, the funny and charismatic Armstrong, is that he is a registered Libertarian voter in California. And while Armstrong has not talked specifically about his libertarian beliefs, he has hinted at them. In Spin magazine (October 2005), Armstrong said, "Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality." In an interview on Yahoo.com (December 10, 2000), Armstrong alluded to his dissatisfaction with Republicans and Democrats when he said, "There's a lot of people that [didn't] vote this year just because of a lack of a better selection."

Green Day lyrics also suggest a libertarian worldview. A review in California's Metro newspaper (October 12-18, 2000) said the title track of the Warning album summarized Green Day's "attitude toward life, which is not so much anarchic as libertarian." The song takes a sarcastic swipe at government-mandated product warnings, while the song "Minority" proclaims: "I want to be in the minority, I don't need your authority / Down with the moral majority."

In 2003, Armstrong released an mp3 version of the song "Life During Wartime," which voiced opposition to the war in Iraq. In an interview with Great Britain's CMU Weekly (January 12, 2004), Armstrong broadened his criticism, saying, "There is a war on terror which is basically a war on fear. It is playing with our fear." Green Day also contributed a track to the Rock Against Bush album in 2004, and signed on to support the PunkVoter.com website, which encourages young people to vote.

In 2005, the band's ambitious punk-rock opera, American Idiot, won enormous critical praise, picked up a Grammy as Best Rock Album, and sold 10 million copies around the world. The title track decried the Bush Administration's "redneck agenda." Another song on the album, "Holiday," was described by Rolling Stone (November 17, 2005) as an "incendiary anti-government song in the tradition of [Bob] Dylan's 'Masters of War.'" The magazine also reported that at an October 16, 2005 concert in Nashville, Tennessee, Armstrong, referring to politicians, told the crowd, "They don't have the power! You're the [expletive] leaders! We elect these people into office! Don't let them dictate your life or tell you what to do!"

According to the U.K.'s New Music Express magazine, American Idiot: The Motion Picture is scheduled to begin production in 2006.

-- Bill Winter

Quotable

"I want to be in the minority, I don't need your authority / Down with the moral majority." -- Billie Joe Armstrong in the Green Day song "Minority" (2003)

"Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality." -- Billie Joe Armstrong in Spin magazine (October 2005)

Books & Tapes

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