Billie Joe Armstrong has recounted the time “f****** a**hole” Perry Farrell didn’t want Green Day to play Lollapalooza 1994.
In the new tome, ‘Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival’, Armstrong and the event’s then-stage manager John Rubeli shared how the Jane’s Addiction frontman was against having the pop punk legends join his touring alternative festival – because he thought they were a manufactured boy band.
Rubeli shared: “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.'”
Armstrong recalled: “Perry was a f****** 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.”
After some persuasion, Green Day were allowed to play half the tour.
Rubeli continued: “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.’”
When onstage, Green Day performed ‘Chump’ in response to Farrell’s remarks.
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 a**.”
He added: “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 and Farrell would reunite at Woodstock ’94, where they are believed to have patched things up with a handshake.
Lollapalooza started as a touring alternative rock festival in the American in 1991 and was founded by Farrell to bid farewell to Jane’s Addiction.
Today, the main event is an annual four-day music festival held in Grant Park in Chicago, however, it’s no longer limited to rock music.
Lollapalooza went international, with festivals having taken place in Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Berlin and more.