Book excerpt: The Green Day story is very blunt: three school friends grow up together in a cluster of small blue-collar Californian towns, form a band ... and sell more than fifty million albums. Except it wasn't that simple. Self-confessed latch-key children, theirs is far from an easy ride. Inspired by both the energy of British punk bands like the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks and cult American bands such as Dead Kennedys and Operation Ivy, Green Day formed in 1989 when all three members were still at school. Against a backdrop of dodgy glam rock revivalists and mainstream rock-pop, the trio were quickly selling out every underground club that booked them. They toured - constantly. Word spread, fast.Their 1994 major label debut Dookie was a 10-million-selling worldwide smash hit that seized the zeitgest at a time when American rock music was still reeling from the death of Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain. With the arrival of Green Day, suddenly music was dumb, fun, upbeat and colourful again. Many now credit Green Day with saving rock from the hands of a hundred grunge-lite bands. Punk was back on the agenda.In 2004 Green Day reached a career pinnacle with the concept album American Idiot, a sophisticated commentary on modern life - not least dissatisfaction with their president and America's continued cultural and economical imperialism. With American Idiot, Green Day boldly went where few others have dared and as such have extended their fanbase even further - from pre-teen kids to previously sceptical critics. This book is the world's first full biography on Green Day. An authority on punk and hardcore, author Ben Myers charts the band members' difficult childhoods, the context of the band within the US and world punk scene and their glittering rise to success. The author has also interviewed the band for various magazines at different stages of their career, including in the midst of a riot in Los Angeles during the making of 2000's Warning album.Green Day is the biggest punk band in the world.This is how it happened...Unofficial and unauthorised