James Hetfield once said that “the world needs Green Day”. It was 2012, and Metallica had stepped in to fill the band’s headline slot at New Orleans’ Voodoo Festival. He was right.
Seldom will you see Green Day mentioned in the same breath as Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Queen or Metallica, but the punk-rock trio have become a heritage act in their own right. Classic because of their catalogue (it now spans four decades), rock because of their influence on the genre at large – not to mention the commercial metrics. How many celebrated contemporary rock artists will have picked up a guitar or a pair of drum sticks because they heard Green Day on the radio? They remain the world’s premier punk-rock band with a pop slant, and that’s been the case for most of the time they have existed.
Forming the band in California in 1987, frontman Billie Joe Armstrongalone selling 20 million copies.
