Green Day Thank Vans, Fans, Rock & Roll at Hall of Fame

In December, when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that his band would be among its class of 2015, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong had to go for a long walk just to process the news. He told Rolling Stone at the time, "We're in incredible company and I'm still trying to make sense of this. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has always held something special for me because my heroes were in there. This is a great time for us to sort of reflect and look back with gratitude." Formed by Armstrong and Dirnt in 1986, Green Day evolved from scrappy East Bay punks into rock & roll superstars with over 75 million in record sales. The hooky pop-punk songs of Dookie, the band's 1994 major label debut, opened the doors for the countless tuneful and energetic punk bands to follow, while 2004's Grammy-winning American Idiot proved that the "rock opera" — a concept long associated with the classic rock of the Sixties and Seventies — was still more than viable in the 21st century.