Green Day, then and now: See Billie Joe Armstrong and the band over 35 years later Randall ColburnFebruary 9, 2026 at 12:30 AM 0 Green Day in 1998; Green Day in 2025 Ron Galella/Getty; Phillip Faraone/Getty 39/Smooth, Green Day's scrappy, lofi debut, arrived in 1990. Now, after more than 35 years, 19 Grammy nominations, and four wins, the Californiaborn rockers will headline the Super Bowl LX opening ceremony. It turns out that fans do have the time to listen to them whine.
- - Green Day, then and now: See Billie Joe Armstrong and the band over 35 years later
Randall ColburnFebruary 9, 2026 at 12:30 AM
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Green Day in 1998; Green Day in 2025
Ron Galella/Getty; Phillip Faraone/Getty
39/Smooth, Green Day's scrappy, lo-fi debut, arrived in 1990. Now, after more than 35 years, 19 Grammy nominations, and four wins, the California-born rockers will headline the Super Bowl LX opening ceremony. It turns out that fans do have the time to listen to them whine.
But it was Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool's follow-up, 1991's Kerplunk!, that caught broader attention, setting the stage for their Grammy-winning breakthrough, 1994's Dookie. Sure, the scatalogical title and prurient lyrics reflected the band's age — Armstrong was fresh out of his teens at the time — but its punk sneer was rooted in sophisticated songcraft. In 1994, Entertainment Weekly compared their tunes to a "quick slurp from a Sno-Kone — sweet, light-headed blasts of pop."
Pop-punk bands aren't particularly known for their longevity, but Green Day persevered by pushing the boundaries of its established sound, integrating folk and blues influences in with timely political commentary. The latter element was particularly present in American Idiot, a 2004 protest album that won a Grammy before being adapted into a hit Broadway musical.
"The evolution of the Bay Area trio from bracingly bratty pop punks whining about boredom to mature men (and still pop punks) lamenting the idiocracy in 10 years flat without losing any heat from their fastball is a true American success story," raved Entertainment Weekly in a 2020 piece naming 30 essential albums of the past 30 years.
Current pop-punk titans like Fall Out Boy and Paramore have consistently cited Green Day as an influence. (Fall Out Boy even inducted Green Day into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, calling the band their "reference point for everything.")
Ahead of the band's Super Bowl performance, see what Armstrong, Dirnt, and Cool have been up to over the past several decades.
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Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong at the world premiere of 'Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me' on June 8, 1999, in Universal City, Calif.; Armstrong at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles
Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty; Kevin Mazur/Getty
After a childhood spent worshipping the Ramones and the Replacements, Billie Joe Armstrong co-founded Green Day with bassist Mike Dirnt in 1987. As the band's lead singer and guitarist, he's released 14 studio albums, numerous EPs, and a handful of live albums.
But Green Day isn't Armstrong's only gig. Since the early '90s, he's chased his muse with side projects like Pinhead Gunpowder, Foxboro Hot Tubs, the Network, and the Longshot, the likes of which allowed him to indulge the harder-edged punk, new wave, and garage rock inclinations that didn't align with Green Day. Occasionally, he'll play shows with the Coverups, a band specializing in cover songs.
Throughout it all, he's maintained a puckish, playful approach. "To me, punk rock was about being silly, bringing a carpet to Gilman Street and rolling your friends up in it and spinning it in circles," he told Rolling Stone in 1995.
Speaking with EW in 2016, Armstrong expressed a particular fondness for the Boo, a band he started with his wife, Adrienne Nesser. "We wanted to start a dysfunctional Partridge Family kind of band," he explained. "We came up with a bunch of songs and I convinced [my wife] Adrienne to sing. She just sounds like a total girl-group diva."
Armstrong has also appeared in a handful of films and TV shows, including episodes of King of the Hill (1997), Haunted (2002), and Drunk History (2016), in which he played Charlie Chaplin. He appeared as himself in The Simpsons Movie (2007) and This Is 40 (2012), and in 2016 he acted alongside Judy Greer and Fred Armisen in Ordinary World, in which he starred as a long-in-the-tooth punk rocker.
He also joined the Broadway cast of American Idiot in 2010, playing the role of St. Jimmy for a string of performances.
A few years after his Broadway gig, Armstrong opened up to Rolling Stone about his struggles with alcohol and prescription medication. As he told the outlet, he knew he'd hit rock bottom after having a public meltdown onstage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in 2012.
"I remember tiny things," he said of the show. "The next morning, I woke up. I asked [my wife] Adrienne, 'How bad was it?' She said, 'It's bad.' I called my manager. He said, 'You're getting on a plane, going back to Oakland and going into rehab immediately.'"
He bounced back quickly, though, and the band continues to sell out world tours and headline festivals like Coachella and Riot Fest. In 2025, he, Dirnt, and Cool celebrated Green Day getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Armstrong has been married to Nesser since 1994, and the pair have two children together. "I married the right person. That's a big deal," he told Esquire in 2024. "My wife really was smarter than I was. I was more spontaneous and wild, where she could be more practical and knew how to make plans better. But we were the right people for each other."
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Mike Dirnt
Mike Dirnt at Vans Warped Tour in 2000; Dirnt at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 17, 2025, in Los Angeles
Patrick Ford/Redferns; Phillip Faraone/Getty
In a 2025 interview with Spin, Green Day bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt recalled learning to play Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" during a sleepover when he was 14. He only took up the bass because the bass player in their original band had a dentist appointment. "I picked it up and we jammed through a couple tunes, and I was like, 'Oh, man, here we go. I think I just turned into a bass player,'" he said.
Dirnt has remained a creative force in Green Day since its inception, having penned lyrics for deep cuts like "Scumbag," "Emenius Sleepus," and "J.A.R," among others. You can also hear him sing lead vocals on select songs, including "Governator," a track on the digital edition of American Idiot.
Dirnt joined Armstrong in Green Day side projects like the Network and Foxboro Hot Tubs, and also contributed to albums by punk bands Screeching Weasel and Squirtgun. He linked up with members of the bands Waterdog and Violent Anal Death to form the Frustrators, which released a pair of records via Adeline, the label started by Armstrong.
In 2025, he partnered with Epiphone to release a signature version of his Grabber G-3 bass guitar, the latest in his ongoing efforts to get instruments in the hands of young musicians.
"Let's create something great that lasts longer than we do. I just give basses away like lollipops," he told Spin. "The other side of it is just inspiring people to pick up an instrument. I remember in school, they just didn't have any instruments. It took me a year to get 13 basses to the Los Angeles Unified School District to their music program. So sometimes I just buy them and give them out myself."
Dirnt is married to Brittney Cade, his third wife. The pair have two children, a son and a daughter, and he also has a daughter from his first marriage.
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Tré Cool
Tré Cool in Munich in 1995; Cool at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles
Fryderyk Gabowicz/picture alliance via Getty; Jon Kopaloff/WireImage
Tré Cool was still a pre-teen when he cut his teeth in the punk band the Lookouts. He joined Green Day ahead of Kerplunk!, and has been drumming with the band ever since. He's also been at the center of some of the band's more notorious moments, like when he bailed on an interview to climb the Universal Studios Globe at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards.
The self-described "nutball" recalled in a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone how he wasn't a perfect fit for the band at first. "It took me awhile to get it: Play the song, don't play the instrument. I started figuring out how to make the band a stronger unit, to make it jump," he explained. "That has to do with rocking with Mike, once we were locked up — my foot and his fingers. He's got his own style. It's really rhythmic. There are a lot of in-between notes — grace notes and movement. My job was to make him sound better, instead of playing more fills."
Cool joined Armstrong and Dirnt in the Green Day side projects the Network and Foxboro Hot Tubs, and a few years back he sat in on drums (and washboard) for Willie Nelson, an experience he called a "surreal moment in my musical story."
You can also see him cameo in Fred Armisen's 2018 Standup for Drummers special on Netflix, as well as in the Apple TV documentary Let There Be Drums! (2022).
In 2014, he married Sara Rose. "Six years ago I married my dream girl, Sara Rose, and we have been on Honeymoon ever since," he shared in a 2020 Instagram post.
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Published: February 08, 2026 at 09:45PM on Source: MANUEL MAG
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