Guitarist-vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong and bassist Mike Dirnt founded their first band, Sweet Children, in the San Francisco Bay Area community of Rodeo, Calif., when they were 14 years old.

In 1989, they changed the name to Green Day [ tickets ], picked up drummer Al Sobrante and released the "1,000 Hours" EP. Later that same year, they released "39/Smooth" on Lookout! Records, a local independent label. Tre Cool replaced Sobrante after he left the band in 1990.

Once revered in East Bay punk circles, they found themselves facing quite a backlash when they committed the punk sin of signing with a major label. Their 1994 Reprise debut, "Dookie," exploded with the success of the singles "Longview," "Basket Case," and "When I Come Around." The album sold over 12 million copies internationally, spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, and won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance that year.

No longer just a punk flag-waving trio, Green Day pumped out melodic gems on each of its follow-ups, 1995's "Insomniac," 1997's "Nimrod," and last year's "Warning." With Billie Joe evolving into a formidable songwriting talent, the ballad "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" further distanced them from their original punk-purist following, and besides being a Top 10 hit, it was featured on "ER" and "Seinfeld."

Today (11/13), Green Day released "International Superhits" (Reprise). Besides being the requisite retrospective of a dozen years and six recordings, the collection features the new tracks "Maria" and "Poprocks & Coke."

LiveDaily spoke with Tre Cool from his Oakland home.

LiveDaily: Is there any tour brewing around this album?

Tre Cool: No, not really. We're going to get to work on another album of new stuff. We're demo-ing right now.

When will you release it? Fall, winter of next year?

When we get enough songs in the can, we'll say, "Hey, let's do it."

Did you really think you'd be here 10-plus years later, talking about a greatest hits album?

You know, I'm 28 years old now. I just can't believe it took this long to make a greatest hits record. [laughs] We had the songs, wrote two new ones, and just decided, "Yeah, let's do a greatest hits, and start a new era of Green Day."

When did you guys record the new songs "Maria" and "Poprocks & Coke?"

We recorded them those in August of this year. We wrote them about a year before that.

The opening of "Maria," with the kid's voice, is that Billie Joe?

Yeah, he made [a record] when he was, like, three or four. Three, I think. So we used a little bit of it.

Tell me a little bit about how you got into the band, meeting Billie Joe and Mike. What was that, 1989?

Oh, yeah. I thought Mike was fun-ny. He was crackin' me up. Billie and Mike were in this band, I was in a different band, so that's how we met. We smoked weed, drank beers, had a good time. ... I eventually started playing with them.

Where are you from originally?

Mendocino County [in Northern California].

The VH1 "Behind the Music" special really played up the whole East Bay-Gilman Street punk scene. [The crowd at the famous Berkeley, Calif., punk club 924 Gilman Street is known for fostering the Do-It-Yourself ethic, and for disowning bands that sign with corporate-owned labels.] Talk about what happened there. You guys were loved one minute, then the hardcore fans didn't like that you had a hit.

We just played at Gilman a couple of months ago, and it was all good. You know, people who do those rockumentaries and stuff like that, they like to kind of make more out of something--they want to have some sort of crutch. Some sort of way to sell it, a gimmick, you know. Otherwise, they won't be able to pull it off, the guys won't let them put it out.

True. But when you did "Good Riddance," that was certainly a different thing to do at that particular point. A ballad.

"Good Riddance" was actually written around the time "Dookie" came out. When we put that out, we knew we had kick-ass ballads--we still have some more that we're going to drop at the right time. You don't want to have too many of them. It's a great song, I just didn't know it was going to be the most-played song that year.

How did you get started playing drums?

Actually, I started out on the violin when I was like nine years old. No noise came out that sounded good, so I kind of gave it up. But I knew I wanted to play the drums. There was a neighbor that had a punk band, and he played drums. I just thought it was something I could do.

I told my dad, "Yeah, I’m going to be a drummer." And he said, "Well, if you can rub your stomach at the same time as you pat your head, at the same time you're jumping up and down on one leg and kicking the other one out in a circle, and saying 'The Pledge of Allegiance....'" And then I did all that just like, bam, you know.

What bands influenced you early on?

7 Seconds. Dead Kennedys.

Have you ever had any physical problems playing the drums? I always wonder about punk and metal drummers.

They're always self-inflicted. I've been on fire four times, been hospitalized. My hands are like leather, which is pretty cool.

What's up with your signature Slingerland drum kit? You're the only drummer who has a signature kit that mortals can afford.

And it's American drums, even though it's made in Taiwan. It's cool, [Slingerland lets] me burn a lot of drums. [The drums] kick ass. I record with them. I started with that kit ever since before "Nimrod." I played DWs for like a minute, then I changed to Ludwig, I used Gretsch on "Insomniac," used Ayotte live, and I'm using Slingerland now.

Are the companies scared out of their minds, thinking you'll be calling them every night, "I need a new kick drum."

They just give me a truckload of stuff in advance. [laughs]

I know you get asked all the time about a lot of the new punk bands like Sum 41 and Blink-182. What's your opinion on them?

We met Sum 41 and the Blink guys. They're good guys. They sell a lot of records, but they're more like boy bands. They're like really polished, they're an easier pill to swallow for a lot of kids. But at least it gets kids into music that has guitars in it, whereas a lot of kids are going in a hip-hop route. I mean, at an age where kids can decide on what kind of music they're going to like, it's a lot better to have some stuff to lure them over to the dark side, right?