In the 1990s, Green Day emerged as one of the most well-known rock bands in America. The band has been the recipient of multiple Grammy Awards over time; however, their original name was not always Green Day.
Initially, the band was named Blood Rage when Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt, then teenagers of 15, established the group alongside bassist Sean Hughes and drummer Raj Punjabi.
After a short period, they decided to change their name to Sweet Children and showcased their music for the first time under this new name at Rod’s Hickory Pit in Vallejo, California, on October 17, 1987.
The following year, Pinjabi was replaced by former Isocracy drummer John Kiffmeyer, and Hughes decided to quit the band.
In 1989, the group ditched the name Sweet Children in order to avoid confusion with another local band, Sweet Baby.
They settled on the name Green Day – and welcomed new drummer Cool – and it seems their new moniker had nothing to do with the color green, and everything to do with cannabis.
The phrase ‘green day’ was slang in the Bay Area – where the band originated – for spending a day doing nothing but smoking marijuana.
Armstrong confirmed this is why they chose the name and told Bill Maher in a 2010 interview: ‘It was absolutely about pot.
‘I think at first we were trying to be the Cheech & Chong of punk rock, and some of us still are the Cheech & Chong of punk rock in a lot of ways.’Â
Years earlier in a 2001 interview, the singer admitted that he considered Green Day to be ‘the worst band name in the world.’
Speaking on a VH1 special about their previous name, Sweet Children, he said: ‘After a while, it just sorta sucked. It was terrible.’
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He then recalled: ‘I got high one time and I wrote about the way I felt and I called the song Green Day.
‘We went from one bad name to another bad name. I think we have the worst name in rock, I really do. I think it’s the worst name in the world.’
The song in question, which is on the band’s 1991 album 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, features the lyrics: ‘A small cloud has fallen, the white mist hits the ground/My lungs comfort me with joy/Vegging on one detail, the rest just crowds around/My eyes itch of burning red.’
Since then, the band have gone on to release more than 10 studio albums including 1994’s Dookie and 2004’s American Idiot.Â
Their most recent record, Saviors, dropped in January 2024 and the trio are currently on The Saviors Tour, which is expected to conclude in Ocean City in September this year.
At the beginning of March, the band were performing in Melbourne, Australia, when they changed up the lyrics in a blatant dig at Vice President JD Vance.Â
During their hit track Jesus of Suburbia, Armstrong switched up the lyrics and sang: ‘Am I retarded, or am I just JD Vance?’
The father-of-two offered no explanation of the diss, but it came just days after President Donald Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Earlier in the same song, Armstrong doubled-down on the band’s support for Ukraine, tweaking another line in the song from: ‘We are the kids of war and peace/ From Anaheim to the Middle East,’ to: ‘We are the kids of war and peace/ From Ukraine to the Middle East.’
