In 1994, their major-label debut Dookie, released through Reprise Records, became a breakout success and eventually shipped over 20 million copies in the U.S. Alongside fellow California punk bands Bad Religion, the Offspring, Rancid, NOFX, Pennywise and Social Distortion, Green Day is credited with re-popularizing mainstream interest in punk rock in the U.S. Before taking its current name in 1989, the band was named Blood Rage, then Sweet Children.

In 1987, friends and guitarists Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt, 15 years old at the time, along with bassist Sean Hughes and drummer Raj Punjabi, a fellow student from Pinole Valley High School, formed band "Blood Rage", the name taken from the eponymous film, and played together in Punjabi's father's house garage at Rodeo, California; a few months later, the band renamed to Sweet Children.

In late 1990, shortly after the band's first nationwide tour, Kiffmeyer left the East Bay area to attend Humboldt State University in Arcata, California.

[30] Recorded in three weeks and released in February 1994,[31] Dookie became a commercial success, helped by extensive MTV airplay for the videos of the songs "Longview", "Basket Case", and "When I Come Around", all of which reached the number one position on the Modern Rock Tracks charts.

[32] At a performance on September 9, 1994, at Hatch Memorial Shell in Boston, mayhem broke out during the band's set (cut short to seven songs), and by the end of the rampage, 100 people were injured and 45 arrested.

[28] The album opened to warm critical reception, earning 4 of 5 stars from Rolling Stone, which said "In punk, the good stuff unfolds and gains meaning as you listen without sacrificing any of its electric, haywire immediacy.

[45] The album was released in October 1997 and provided a variety of music, from punk, pop, hardcore, folk, surf rock, ska, to the acoustic ballad "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)".

"[58] Rolling Stone was more critical, giving it 3/5 and saying, "Warning ... invites the question: Who wants to listen to songs of faith, hope and social commentary from what used to be snot core's biggest-selling band?

[65] Shenanigans contained collected B-sides, including "Espionage", which was featured in the 1999 film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

On February 1, 2004, a cover of "I Fought the Law" (originally performed by The Crickets) made its debut on a commercial for iTunes during NFL Super Bowl XXXVIII.

The Foxboro Hot Tubs went on a mini tour during the same year to promote the record, hitting tiny Bay Area venues such as the Stork Club in Oakland and Toot's Tavern in Crockett, California.

[99] In an interview with Carson Daly, Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson revealed that the band's drummer Butch Vig would be producing Green Day's forthcoming album.

The game features the full albums of Dookie, American Idiot, and 21st Century Breakdown as well as select songs from the rest of Green Day's discography.

[120][121] During the end of 2011, the band played several secret shows (under the name Foxboro Hot Tubs) whose setlists consisted almost entirely of previously unheard songs.

[156] After a couple of weeks of small hints on social media, as well as Green Day claiming they were not the Network, the band released an EP on November 20, 2020, titled Trans Am.

[179][180] On the evening of January 16, 2024, the band appeared in a surprise performance in the 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station of the New York subway system, with late-night host Jimmy Fallon joining them on tambourine to help draw attention to the upcoming album and tour, and played several songs, including the recent single "Look Ma, No Brains", "Basket Case", and "American Idiot"; this time, Armstrong left space to let the subway crowd sing out the song's revised line "I'm not a part of the MAGA agenda.

[188] Green Day's sound is described as "often hard-driving and aggressive", and is often compared to first wave American and British punk rock bands such as the Ramones, Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Dickies, and Buzzcocks.

and Father of All...[218] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described Green Day as "punk revivalists who recharged the energy of speedy, catchy three-chord punk-pop songs.

[227][228][229] In August 1996, Billie Joe Armstrong told Guitar World he "can remember a few different instances" of when he first discovered punk rock: "There were these two guys who introduced me to things like D.O.A.

[256] The band has been cited as an influence by a variety of artists, including Alkaline Trio,[257] Avril Lavigne,[258] AFI,[3] Fall Out Boy,[259] Blink-182,[260] Joyce Manor,[261] Lady Gaga,[262] Wavves,[263] Fidlar,[263] Tegan and Sara,[263] the Menzingers,[264] New Found Glory,[265] Prince Daddy & the Hyena,[266] Bowling for Soup,[267][268] Billie Eilish,[269] and Sum 41.

Since January 2018, Armstrong, Dirnt and White have played in the band the Coverups along with Green Day audio engineer Chris Dugan and tour manager Bill Schneider.

The song was recorded to benefit Music Rising, an organization to help raise money for musicians' instruments lost during Hurricane Katrina, and to bring awareness on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the disaster.

[277][278] Green Day released a cover of the John Lennon song "Working Class Hero", which was featured on the album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur.

[279][280][281][282] In 2009, the band collaborated with theater director Michael Mayer to adapt the group's rock opera American Idiot into a one-act stage musical that premiered at the Berkeley Rep on September 15, 2009.

Jed Gottlieb of the Boston Herald enjoyed the premise of the show but found that "the music and message suffer in a setting where the audience is politely, soberly seated".

Paul Kolnik in USA Today enjoyed the contradiction that Green Day's "massively popular, starkly disenchanted album ... would be the feel-good musical of the season".

However, in February 2020, Billie Joe Armstrong revealed to NME that plans for a film adaptation of the stage musical had been "pretty much scrapped", without providing anymore details as to the reason.

'"[295] In 2021, Armstrong condemned the band's labeling as "pop-punk" by critics in a Vulture magazine interview, stating, "I never really liked that term (pop punk), it turned into sort of a genre.

[305][306] On July 7, 2017, about 20 minutes before Green Day headlined Mad Cool, a festival in Madrid, an acrobat fell about 30 metres (98 ft) from a cage above the stage and died.

During the concert, Billie Joe Armstrong expressed his anger over the A's leaving Oakland, repeatedly cursing Las Vegas and called it "the worst shithole in America".