Jump to content

How did you get into Green Day?


pouty bitch

Recommended Posts

When american idiot came out (I was about 9/10), my older brother was recording songs off the radio. I had a shitty 6 minute version of jesus of suburbia for years. :lol: He also bought dookie, and I was hooked from then on. One of my friends in high school started giving me the cds for birthday/christmas presents, so by the time I reached university I only had the first two albums left to get. 

I introduced my younger brother to GD around when 21CB came out (he would have been 8?) and at first he loved know your enemy but would only take specific songs off me, until years later when he started asking for entire albums. By the time revrad came out, still breathing became his favourite song, and we went to see GD in hyde park on his 16th birthday. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Replies 47
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I'm pretty sure I've posted this some other place before, but I got into them during the Idiot era, when I was like 9 or 10. My cousin was a really big fan of theirs and I remember him freaking out about "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", playing it for everybody who'd listen and putting it on every mix CD he'd make. At the time, I actually didn't think much of the song, but I liked that he said "fuck" in it (give me a break, I was young and had never heard that in a song prior :P). Around Easter, I went to said cousin's house, 'cuz it was a family tradition to always go to their house for Easter. They'd moved out of the area a year prior, and this was the first time we'd ever been to their new house. While we were there, his dad (my uncle, obviously) had just gotten an ear-piercing kit and wanting to test it out and pierce someone's ear. My sister was originally down for it, but she got scared at the last minute and backed out, so I took one for the team and decided to let him pierce my ear. It wasn't as painful as I imagined it would be, but it still hurt pretty bad and to help get my mind off the pain, my cousin went over to the computer and played the whole American Idiot album. I was a little too focused on the pain, but I enjoyed what I heard, so later when we got back home, I went and bought it on a whim at the local Fred Meyer (one of two places in town that sold CDs). It was my first ever album purchase! When I got home and put it on, I fell in love with songs like "Are We the Waiting", "St. Jimmy", "Extraordinary Girl" (yes, I know everyone hates that one, but I liked it a lot) and "Homecoming". I subsequently bought every GD album available at that point (1,039 and Kerplunk took a bit to track down, but I found them eventually). It was also around this time that I made a really good friend, one of the closest friends I've ever had. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was pretty new at the time, so for my 10th birthday party, my friend wanted to go down to the video store and rent it. We stayed up 'til like midnight that day just playing San Andreas and listening to my Green Day records, and that became kind of a ritual for us. Whenever we hung out, that's what we did. So, in my mind, San Andreas and Green Day will always be connected. 

When I was young, I toyed around with a lot of different ideas about what I wanted to be when I grew up, but it was American Idiot when I finally decided what I wanted to do: I wanted to be a musician. And that hasn't changed since then. I got my first guitar (a shit kiddy acoustic) from my parents that Christmas, and my first electric guitar from my godfather about a year later. Obviously, I had liked certain songs before that, but GD was the first band that I ever really really got into. After I got into Green Day, I looked into what other bands were similar. Instead of going towards bands like My Chemical Romance (to whom they were often compared at the time), I took the route of checking out their peers from where they came from, like Crimpshrine, Operation Ivy, Jawbreaker, Screeching Weasel, etc. I also looked into Green Day's influences, like Hüsker Dü and The Replacements, which (along with Nirvana) led to all the "alternative rock" that I listen to. It was also because of GD that my dad got me into a bunch of other punk that he grew up listening to like The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, which lead to my godfather getting me into bands HE grew up listening to like Bad Brains and The Germs and shit. Then I looked into bands similar to all those bands I mentioned and it just went way out of control from there. So, in essence, Green Day formed my music taste. People always ask me why I listen to so many older bands, and that's my answer. That's just the path I decided to go down, and I may not be listening to the same bands I do now if it wasn't for GD. It sounds like such an overstatement to say something like this, but they changed me as a person. I'm much more into other bands these days than Green Day, but I would not be the same person now if my cousin just happened to get really into a different band. Unfortunately, my relationship with my cousin turned really sour by the time we entered our late teen/early adult years. Despite my anger towards him though, I'll always be grateful for him getting me into Green Day, and music in general.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Went to their show at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma 1991.  Loved them form day one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Green Day was superficially popular in the 2000s when I was a kid in fifth grade. At the time, in the beginning of the school year, American Idiot was released. My friends and I used to collect Bop magazines which was like our own form of Instagram because there was no social media back then. This was also around the time Green Day won a Grammy and during Christmas of that year, I traveled to London to visit my cousins. On the flight, the radio was different because it was pre-recorded meaning you had to keep hearing the same songs over and over. That was when Jesus of Suburbia came on and it was first time I heard Green Day in my life, followed by American Idiot and then Holiday. I had to wait after Gwen Stefani and Norah Jones to hear Green Day again and again lol. I was thrilled because once I got off the flight, I bought Bullet in the Bible in the UK, then the American idiot album in the US. For the rest of the year we all became fangirls. In high school, the same except now there was social media so I ditched CDs for Spotify and that's my story about Green Day :wub:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

What first attracted you to Green Day?

Who first introduced you to them?

How long have you been a fan?

Most importantly, where do you think you would be without Green Day? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Reverend Twitch said:

 

Hey welcome to GDC! This is a popular subject to discuss and we've had quite a few threads about it over the years. Since this one was made only recently I've gone ahead and merged your thread with it and discussion can continue here :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I heard American Idot when I was six or seven because at the time it was my brother first album he ever brought so I really was too young to understand what they were actually singing about. Fast forward to junior year of high school I was a very lost and broken teen because I didn’t get along with kids in my own age group because they judge me because I am on the autism spectrum and they were too quick to judge but I still function like every one else on top of it I was bullied and out cast since seventh grade and in seventh grade I got tested for mental health because I was very sucidal and it turn out I am diagnosed with depression and anxiety as soon I switch schools because I bullied 24/7, my bullies followed me there, so all of the other kids at my new school treated me like shit also, so I started to discover punk music and I look up some punk bands to listen to so I click on Green Day and that changed everything for me, so I started to stand out and forgot what everyone was picking on me Green Day made me so happy!! Green Day means the world to me and the rest is history 

On 6/20/2018 at 6:26 PM, Reverend Twitch said:

What first attracted you to Green Day?

Who first introduced you to them?

How long have you been a fan?

Most importantly, where do you think you would be without Green Day? 

 

On 6/20/2018 at 6:26 PM, Reverend Twitch said:

What first attracted you to Green Day?

Who first introduced you to them?

How long have you been a fan?

Most importantly, where do you think you would be without Green Day? 

1. Standing up for they believe in and having an open mind and non judgmental environment 2. I discovered them on my own 3. Three years 4. Probably lost and in the hospital 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh boy, I had already heard of them and thought they were cool around 2005, but this girl I was talking to on AIM was really into Green Day, so I thought I'd dig a little deeper. By now, Holiday was making it big on mainstream radio, and that was absolutely awesome. But I needed more Green Day. Since I was young (10), it was tough to get ahold of their stuff, but my friend from school hooked me up with a burned copy of International Superhits. From then on, I was a full on fan and have very fond memories of all their hit songs from American Idiot actually getting airplay. I got the rest of my friends into them, and we've been buying their music and going to shows ever since.

Now that girl from AIM moved on to My Chemical Romance and Panic! At the Disco soon after, but I really do owe her for introducing me to my favorite band.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I personaly live in a family of pop music lovers, so the closest thing that I could get to “alternative” was 5sos. Eventually i found their cover of american idiot and i fell in love with the song and eventually became obsessed with green day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We haven't been formally introduced to each other yet, hopefully it will happen one day ! 😭

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was watching a video on this guy doing singer impressions, and he did Billie Joe (he sang Basket Case in BJ’s voice) and I’m like DAAYYUMMM and I searched “Green Day” on YouTube and listened to every song till I found Basket Case and it took off from there

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, MagicGraGraDaFan39 said:

I personaly live in a family of pop music lovers, so the closest thing that I could get to “alternative” was 5sos. Eventually i found their cover of american idiot and i fell in love with the song and eventually became obsessed with green day.

Hey welcome to GDC! We already have a thread for this here in Green Day Chat so I've merged your thread with it. While I'm here I'll suggest you give the guidelines a read if you haven't yet, good little intro to how the forum works :)  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was a fan since the beginning. It was a case of my good friend Nate saying "you gotta check out this band".

First time I saw them was in front of a few hundred people with bleachers that could have held another 1000 people completely empty and about 200-300 on the floor but they put on a show the likes of which I've never seen and I had already seen a lot by that age and I was young. Very early 90s and then Dookie came out and I was hooked.

I was not engulfed in the punk scene. Quite the opposite, I was a "rave" DJ and promoter (still am) and (what we now call "EDM" and frankly I hate both those terms). I had only been to concerts like RUN DMC (Run DMC and the Beastie Boys in Nassau Collusium was my first concert at like 11 or 12).

At that point in my life, all I had been into was hip hop, electro, and fusion music. I loved bands like The Stones, Floyd, Beatles, etc but as we do when we're young, I rejected most music other than what I was into and GD was my first foyer into the world of live rock music and the last time I saw them was during the Longshot tour and will never stop until they do. 

God willing they will never stop. I'm about 6 years younger than Billie and I have sort of paralleled his life and that probably helped me relate and also having booked them throughout the 90s several times also helped cement it because as great as you think they are, they are that and more in person. Mike is about the nicest person in music and Billie is extraordinarily cool to be around as well and it doesn't hurt to be around your idols so I am as super as a fan as can be and I don't care.

I say that because I spent years hiding that fact.

28 minutes ago, Hermione said:

Hey welcome to GDC! We already have a thread for this here in Green Day Chat so I've merged your thread with it. While I'm here I'll suggest you give the guidelines a read if you haven't yet, good little intro to how the forum works :)  

She says that but in reality she's not a stickler at all for the rules. They are just guidelines to be considered. Do whatever you like. You have my permission. ;) sorry Herms, could not resist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, LaughingClock said:

 

She says that but in reality she's not a stickler at all for the rules. They are just guidelines to be considered. Do whatever you like. You have my permission. ;) sorry Herms, could not resist.

Number one guideline never listen to this man :P 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Hermione said:

Number one guideline never listen to this man :P 

Haha! Good one but I must dissent! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So the first Green Day song I ever heard knowing it was GD was probably when I saw them playing KYE on tv. At one point (I had to be in 4th or 5th grade) my brother's gf at the time ended up giving me four of her old CDs. They were Dookie, American Idiot (all scratched to hell), Warning, and BIAB. I put Dookie on my phone but that's about all I listened to. It actually wasn't until 7th grade when I went all in. My mom ended up getting UNO and on the bus to trip to Philly that's all I played (excluding kill the dj and let yourself go bc I didn't like them). Now I have just about their whole discography on my phone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was nine years old when Dookie came out (I'm totally aging myself here), and these boys in my class were listening to it on their walkman (seriously, I'm so old). I was nosy and asked them what they were listening to, and when they told me the name of the album I thought they were making it up because it was the dumbest name ever hahaha. They let me listen to it, and that was pretty much it for me! I didn't become a super fan really until Nimrod, and didn't see them live until American Idiot, but I think I reached the height of my fandom somewhere around Warning, and I've stayed at that level of obsession ever since! It's been fun to grow and evolve with them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, R_Z-Log said:

I was nine years old when Dookie came out (I'm totally aging myself here), and these boys in my class were listening to it on their walkman (seriously, I'm so old). I was nosy and asked them what they were listening to, and when they told me the name of the album I thought they were making it up because it was the dumbest name ever hahaha. They let me listen to it, and that was pretty much it for me! I didn't become a super fan really until Nimrod, and didn't see them live until American Idiot, but I think I reached the height of my fandom somewhere around Warning, and I've stayed at that level of obsession ever since! It's been fun to grow and evolve with them.

Hoy - long time no hear😀

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/13/2018 at 11:02 PM, SHART said:

Hoy - long time no hear😀

Right?? It's seriously been years. I had to look at your name history to see who you were hahaha. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I initially got into them before I can even remember. I just always knew the hits off Dookie from the radio when I was a young kid and watching the videos from the Nimrod through 21CB eras on MTV and VH1 while I was in school. I've always been a casual fan though not liking (at the time) the singles from the 21CB era and my ignorant judgement of Billie in the Trilogy era threw me off track for a while. But listening to Rev Rad and seeing them live finally in 2017 (mostly thanks to it being part of my job to go to the show in NYC) FINALLY took me from casual fan to super fan practically overnight. Sometimes I wish I'd gotten that last push sooner, but I don't think I could've ever appreciated the many reasons that I love them now, when I was a teen/young adult (ironic since that's half their audience). So in a way, I'm kind of glad I actually fell in love with this band as late as I did. 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...