John Kiffmeyer: The musician that walked away from Green Day
It’s not always easy to spot a band’s potential in its early stages. For as many bands that seem to have the goods from the minute they start playing, some artists starting out haven’t dialled in their sound just yet, only to refine their chops from one song to the next until they become legendary. While Green Day may have had potential in their early days, one of their earliest drummers was convinced he couldn’t play with the pop-punk hopefuls forever.
Before the band had even congealed, Billie Joe Armstrong had already started discovering his love for punk rock in his teens. Being a lifelong fan of all kinds of rock music, Armstrong started to undergo a sea change in his musical development when listening to bands like The Replacements, soon becoming enamoured with the indie scene in northern California with bands like Operation Ivy and Sewertrout.
After spending the past few years trying to learn different hard rock songs like ‘Back In Black’ by AC/DC and ‘Crazy Train’ by Ozzy Osbourne, Armstrong soon traded in his guitar chops for Ramones-style power chords, with school friend Mike Dirnt joining him on bass guitar. While the band fluctuated between different drummers, they drafted in John Kiffmeyer permanently, thanks to his connections in the punk community.
Playing numerous at the club 924 Gilman Street, the band started to create a buzz thanks to their impressive musicianship. While many punk bands were looking to make as much noise as possible, Armstrong was already finding his voice as a songwriter, making melodic passages informed by power pop acts like Cheap Trick and the early Beatles.
Once the band started to assemble the songs that would make up their debut 39/Smooth, even Kiffmeyer contributed pieces to the tunes, penning the lyrics to the song ‘I Was There’. While the group had a decent following in their native California scene, Armstrong and Dirnt had started to grow as musicians compared to the chaotic playing of Kiffmeyer.
Not wanting to spend the rest of his life in a punk outfit, Kiffmeyer would later walk away from Green Day, wanting to pursue a college education outside his local squats. While the band were left high and dry, they ran into some luck when they heard their indie contemporaries, The Lookouts, featuring a wild young drummer named Tre Cool.
Despite some strained rehearsals with their new drummer, Cool would ease into the band’s groove, learning to focus on serving the song rather than trying to fill the entire track with as many drum fills as possible. Even though Kiffmeyer acted as a manager of sorts for the band’s next album, Kerplunk!, it was becoming clear that the band were starting to become too big for their scene to handle.
After a label bidding war started, the new trio would eventually sign with Reprise Records, sending them to superstardom when they recorded their third album, Dookie, with producer Rob Cavallo. While Kiffmeyer may have missed out on the chance of a lifetime when working with Green Day, the chemistry between the three core members was instrumental in turning them into the rock legends they are known as today.