Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong has shared that Perry Farrell dismissed the group as a “boy band” and didn’t want them on the bill at Lollapalooza in 1994.
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The row, which has been documented in a new book Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival, erupted when the Jane’s Addiction frontman approached John Rubeli, who was a stage manager for Lollapalooza at the time.
“I can’t think of a single time that Perry pushed back or vetoed a band – except for Green Day. … He was like, ‘They’re a boy band. I don’t want to book a boy band,’” Rubeli said in the book via Consequence.
Armstrong recalled: “Perry was a fucking asshole, straight up. He wasn’t a part of that conversation, because he’d checked out, but they asked us to play it and we said yes.
“And it was going to be the Boredoms on the first half, and us on the second half as the opening band. And then all of a sudden, he comes back in and he’s like, ‘I don’t want them on the bill.’ Apparently, he thought that we were a band that was put together by [record executive] Mo Ostin at Warner Bros.”
Rubeli added: “To Perry’s credit, I was able to go through [Green Day’s] history in the Bay Area and how they had released indie records and eventually he said, ‘OK, they can do half the tour, but I want the Boredoms on the other half.’”
Green Day ended up taking out their frustrations with Farrell onstage, with Armstrong dedicating the song ‘Chump’ to the Jane’s Addiction singer.
Armstrong recalled: “For us it was really disappointing, because Perry was someone that we really respected. I think that made us want to play [Lollapalooza] even more, actually, because we wanted to prove that he had his head very far up his own ass.
“He had minions that would come up and say, ‘Perry Farrell’s really angry that you dedicated ‘Chump’ to him. And I’m like, ‘Tell him to stop acting like one.’”
The Green Day frontman went on to say he never interacted with Farrell until the two met later that summer at Woodstock ’94 and briefly shook hands.
Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival was written and curated by best-selling authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour.
The pair recently shared on Rolling Stone podcast Rolling Stone Music Now that one of Farrell’s ideas was to include a giant burrito meant to be shared by all festivalgoers. Farrell was “obsessed” with the idea, Beaujour revealed. “It’s truly the most prodigious health hazard you could think of, but that was what he was really going for.”
Green Day meanwhile are set to headline Coachella 2025 this weekend and next alongside Lady Gaga, Post Malone and Travis Scott.
