The first album Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong bought
If we’re all being honest, unless you got extremely lucky, the first album we purchased as youngsters is not a record that you still spin today. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong is no different from the rest of us, but it still brings back special childhood memories.
During his youth, Armstrong’s daily routine consisted of watching The Monkees’ television programme when he came home from school, which was the highlight of his day. The Green Day frontman was born in 1972; therefore, he missed their sitcom during its original run, which ended in 1968. However, it was still shown throughout his youth, and a new generation became fans of the world’s first manufactured pop band.
Originally, The Monkees were plucked together by television executives after the success of The Beatles. Although the idea for the programme had first been envisaged in 1962, it wasn’t until Beatlemania swept through America the developers revived their pitch for the show following a Hard Day’s Night.
One major difference between The Beatles and The Monkees was the latter were not childhood friends. However, despite being put together by casting directors and not starting in tough clubs, each member was a genuinely talented musician who wrote their own material.
For Armstrong, watching The Monkees’ television programme was an early insight into what life was like in a band, even though it was a fictionalised series of events. It was a pivotal time for his development as a music lover and forced him to go out to buy a record for the first time.
Speaking to EW in 2016 about the soundtrack of his life, Armstrong revealed The Monkees’ Greatest Hits was the first record he purchased. He recalled: “I got it on eight-track at Fiat Music Company in Pinole, Calif. I remember singing ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday.’ We watched the syndicated Monkees television show after school every day. It was pretty cool.”
After purchasing the record, Armstrong’s obsession with music intensified. He received his first guitar at eight years old, and the Green Day singer knew that’s all he wanted to do for the rest of his life. His tastes continued to evolve, and Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’ will always occupy a special place in his heart.
“It was a Hohner Les Paul,” Armstrong remembered. “I had a guitar teacher back then; he’s the one that showed me how to play that song. It was the first song [where] I realised, ‘Oh, I’m playing something!’ It shaped everything I did after that, subconsciously, for the rest of my life.”
The Monkees enticed Armstrong into a life of rock ‘n’ roll, and they were his gateway drug into discovering the forefathers of the scene like Chuck Berry. While many disparage the group because of their manufactured roots, Armstrong’s story shows why they mattered.
