Green Day’sNimrodopens up with “Nice Guys Finish Last,” which is ironic:these nice guys were nearly finished before they even startedon that album, which contains a song that elevated them to even greater levels of mainstream success. But by the mid-1990s, Green Day—singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool—were ready to quit. The trio started out like any East Baypop-punk band, playing underground clubs and releasing their first two albums on the independent label, Lookout! Records, until things changed in 1994 withDookie.
With the release ofGreen Day’s third album(and first on a major record label), they were suddenly one of the biggest bands in the world. Something clicked with audiences, and Green Day went from playing to dozens in backyards to selling out arenas. Their songs “Longview,” “Basket Case” and “When I Come Around” were all over alternative rock radio, and their videos were in heavy rotation on MTV.
The group went on to play Lollapalooza and Woodstock ‘94, and they won their first Grammy (Best Alternative Album) in ‘95. Green Day were beginning their journey of becoming one of the biggest rock groups in history. Before that came to full fruition, however, one tour in 1996 almost derailed them completely.
Green Day Was “Burnt Out” By Their Insomniac Tour
The Band “Didn’t Know What It Was For Anymore”
Green Day didn’t let the grass grow under their feet. One year after releasingDookie, the group put outInsomniac,an album featuring “Geek Stink Breath,” a cautionary tale of declining dental hygiene due to methamphetamine use, and the album’s best known single, “Brain Stew / Jaded.” While it wasn’t as commercially successful asDookie, it maintained the band’s momentum. However, while touring in support ofInsomniac, which took the trio all over the world,Green Day was ready to stop.
“I think that we were going pretty mental at the time,” said Armstrong in Green Day’s episode of the docuseries Behind the Music (viaFar Out Magazine). “We started just, kind of losing the desire to want to play, and we didn’t know what it was for anymore. I didn’t want to feel like I was selling a product. I didn’t want to feel like I was up there faking it.”
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“We were burnt out,” Armstrong toldKerrang. “Playing for that hour a day was fun, but the rest of the day was a blank. We were beginning to not have any fun, so we decided to stop before it was six months too late and things really started getting unpleasant.” So ultimately,they cut the tour short, citing exhaustion.
Green Day Got Back To Having The “Time Of Their Lives”
The Band’s Next Album Contained One Of Their Biggest Hits
In ‘94, Green Day releasedDookie; in ‘95, they put outInsomniac; in ‘96, they rested.The trio took a brief hiatus from touring, recording, and the rest of the music worldto decompress and take stock. For Armstrong, it was a chance to be a family man. He toldKerrangthat he “dived back into being at home” with his wife, Adrienne Armstrong, and their then-infant son, Joey.
After recuperating a bit, the band began to work on what would become 1997’sNimrod,an album that starts with the trademark punk blast of “Nice Guys Finish Last,” but ends with a somber, guitar-driven ballad: “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life).” The song features heartfelt lyrics (“So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why / It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time”) and acoustic guitar and a string section. “At first it was a whole orchestra in there," said Armstrong, “and they’d all come in like, ‘SHUNG!’ And we were standing there.”
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That was too much. Eventually,the band whittled it down to four musicians, elevating the songto what we know it as today. Armstrong toldKerrangthat Green Day didn’t want to make anotherDookie.They “wanted to stretch out. We’re punks, obviously, but we’re also songwriters, and we’ll be writing songs for the rest of our lives.” Armstrong would tellKerrangin 2020 that closing outNimrodwith “Good Riddance” was “terrifying,” because he was being so “vulnerable.” He also thought that people “were probably gonna f**king hate it.”
Audiences didn’t. The song was used at weddings and high school proms, during sporting events andontelevision shows likeThe Office(most notably, the 1998 series finale ofSeinfeld). The RIAA certified “Good Riddance” as 5x Platinum in the United States, and it’s become one of the band’s signature songs. It alsovalidated Armstrong as a songwriter. “As an artist,“Green Day’s frontman toldKerrang, “I felt more empowered that I could keep doing my thing without having to feel like I had to please everybody.”
