This is Billie Joe Armstrong vs. Perry Farrell, with some serious Lollapalooza drama from 1994 finally getting dragged back into the sunlight like a forgotten pair of JNCO jeans.
Let me hit you with this: in the brand-new book “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival”, Billie Joe doesn’t just spill tea—he straight-up throws it in Perry Farrell’s face.
So, what happened? Why did the frontman of Green Day bashed the creator of Lollapalooza.
It was supposed to be a huge year for Green Day. Dookie had just dropped. It was punk rock invading the suburbs. Suddenly, Green Day was everywhere. MTV. College radio. Kids spray-painting “Basket Case” lyrics on their lockers.
Naturally, Lollapalooza wanted in on the action… or at least some people behind the scenes did.
But not Perry Farrell, the founder of Lollapalooza. Nope. According to the book, Perry took one good look at Green Day. Lollapalooza’s former stage manager John Rubeli recalls in the book:
“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.’”
Regarding the whole ordeal, Armstrong said: “Perry was a a-hole, 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.’”
During one of Green Day’s performances at Lollapalooza, the band called Farrell out by dedicating their song “Chump” to the Jane’s Addiction frontman.
Armstrong said: “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.’”
Armstrong went on to say that he never interacted with Farrell personally until the two of them met at Woodstock ‘94 later that summer where they only briefly shook hands.
