Why Perry Farrell didn’t want Green Day on the Lollapalooza bill: “He was like, ‘They’re a boy band. I don’t want to book a boy band’”

Green Day might have been the opening act at the 1994 Lollapalooza festival, but there was no love lost between them and the festival’s founder, Perry Farrell. Indeed the Jane’s Addiction singer originally regarded the Bay City punk trio as a “boy band”.

This and other revelations arrive in a new book, LOLLAPALOOZA: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival. It’s an oral history of the fest, which was originally envisaged by Farrell to be a travelling version of Glastonbury; a gathering of counter culture’s many tribes.

In the book, John Rupeli, who was the fest’s stage manager during the festival’s initial run says: “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.'”

Billie Joe Armstrong was understandably disappointed by this. “Perry was a fucking asshole, straight-up,” he says in the book. “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 (Japanese noise band) 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.”

In the end, Farrell relented, albeit after some gentle cajoling from Rupeli: “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, “Okay, they can do half the tour, but I want the Boredoms on the other half.'”

For Armstrong, the experience left a sour taste. “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.”

Green Day managed to make their feelings known about Farrell though – they would dedicate the song Chump to him, much to the Jane’s Addiction singer’s annoyance. “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.'”

In the end, Armstrong and co had the last laugh. Green Day might have been the opening act for just half the tour but 1994 was very much their year. Their third album Dookie sold over 20 million and catapulted them into the big league, way ahead of the acts they were supporting in 1994: Beastie Boys, The Breeders and A Tribe Called Quest.

LOLLAPALOOZA: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival is put together by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour and is out now via Amazon.