The song Billie Joe Armstrong recorded at five years old
Billie Joe Armstrong was practically born to play rock and roll. Although he may have gone the punk route when working with Green Day, Armstrong’s reputation as a music lover has gone way past the realms of CBGBs, counting everyone from Patti Smith to The Beatles as his favourite acts. Although Armstrong formed the basis of Green Day as a teenager, his beginnings in music went all the way back to when he was barely out of diapers.
Coming from a musical family, Armstrong was the son of a jazz drummer, with his father first meeting his mother during one of his gigs. While first gravitating to the drums as a kid, Armstrong got to cut a song when he was five years old at a local music store.
Complete with a picture of his elfin face on the cover, ‘Look For Love’ became a regional hit in Armstrong’s hometown before quickly fading from relevance. Putting away the singing chops for a while, Armstrong became enamoured with guitar, trying to learn all the new hair metal he heard on the radio.
Although he could cobble together the beginnings of songs like Van Halen’s ‘Ain’t Talkin Bout Love’, his visions of being in a hair metal band were quickly dashed when he caught wind of the punk explosion. Being exposed to acts like the Dead Kennedys, Armstrong would soon create a new musical vocabulary based on the local punk acts he heard in Southern California, from Crimpshrine to Operation Ivy.
Getting the itch to put a band together, Armstrong found a musical soulmate in Mike Pritchard, nicknamed Mike Dirnt because of the sounds he would make trying to emulate an unplugged bass guitar. Christening themselves Sweet Children, the pair rounded out the lineup with John Kiffmeyer, playing the legendary punk venue 924 Gilman Street on the local circuit.
Garnering the attention of Lookout Records, the band cut their first few EPs along with their debut, 39/Smooth. Once the rest of the scene started to catch wind of these new kids on the block, though, they responded in droves. By the time the group replaced Kiffmeyer with Tre Cool for their second outing, Kerplunk!, they had enough backing for their indie release to go Platinum in the years since.
Once the major labels came calling, though, the band had the choice of staying true to their punk ethos or taking a gamble at being one of the biggest names in music. Working with producer Rob Cavallo, the band assembled Dookie, creating the building blocks for pop-punk over 14 tracks.
When they took to the road, though, Armstrong still had the same cues he had learned from his days training when he was five. During the handful of performances he made of ‘Look For Love’, Armstrong first showcased his now famous pose of leaving his arms outstretched, practically soaking in the applause every time he finished one of his performances. Even if he was part of one of the biggest punk bands in the world, that base level of showmanship never really goes away.
