From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tré Cool (born
Frank Edwin Wright III,
December 9,
1972, in
Frankfurt,
Germany) is the
drummer of the
pop punk band
Green Day. He replaced the band's former drummer
Al Sobrante.
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[edit] Biography
Frank Edwin Wright III was born December 9, 1972 in Frankfurt, Germany, making him the youngest member of Green Day. Tré is 5.7 ft . He lived in
Laytonville,
California with his dad and his 2 older siblings. His dad, a helicopter pilot in the
Vietnam War, decided the move the family there to insulate them upon his return to the United States. Tré's closest neighbor was future Lookout! Records owner
Lawrence Livermore, who at the time was the singer of the punk band
The Lookouts. At age 12, Livermore recruited Wright to join The Lookouts, and gave him the name of Tré Cool (a misspelling of 'Tres Cool', or approximately "Very Cool" in French). When Green Day's drummer Al Sobrante left the band they recruited Tré to play drums. Tré decided to drop out of high school his sophmore year. However, he passed an equivalency test and earned his
GED, and began taking classes at a nearby
community college. He had to drop out of college however, when the demands of Green Day's touring intensified. Tré's father, who owned a small trucking company, overhauled a used bookmobile, and even served as the driver on three separate tours. "I watched them go from a bunch of kids to a group of musicians with work ethic," says Tré's father, Frank Wright II. "On their first tour or two, it was more of a party than anything else. I still scratch my head and say, 'How in the hell did they make it?' They used to practice in my living room here -- a lot of the songs they did on Dookie. You hear it coming together, and you don't expect people are going to go out and buy it. But when it does, you just say, 'Wow, that's so cool.'" (Rolling Stone, January 26, 1995)
Tré had a daughter named Ramona in January of 1995, and married his long-time girlfriend Lisea Lyons in March. He and Lisea are now divorced, but Tré remarried in May of 2000, to Claudia. Claudia and him have a son named Frankito, which means "Little Frank". Tré and Claudia divorced in 2003. Recently, Tré has been linked to Donna C., drummer of
The Donnas. However they are no longer together.
[edit] Drumming Equipment
In the earlier years of Green Day, Tré used a
DW drum kit. Since the album
Warning, Tré has got his own signature
Slingerland drum kit, called the "Spitfire". However, on the
American Idiot tour, Tré parted ways with his Slingerland kit, and now uses a
Ludwig-Musser Classic Maple kit with a Shadow Purple paintjob. He says. He uses
Zildjian cymbals and
Danmar products. According to an interview with
Drum Magazine, his most prized and "still go-to" snare is a
Noble & Cooley which he purchased for $600 before making
DookieHis current
drum kit is as follows:
Drums: Cymbals (From left to right): - Zildjian K/Z 14" Special Hi-hat (K Hi-hat on top, Z Custom Dyno Beat on the bottom)
- Zildjian K 19" Dark Medium Thin Crash
- Zildjian A 19" Medium Thin Crash
- Zildjian A 22" Ping Ride
- Zildjian K 20" Crash/Ride (centre right)
- Zildjian FX 20" Oriental Classic China
Drumheads: - Snare: REMO Coated Emperor X (Batter), REMO Ambassador Snare Side Hazy (Resonant)
- Toms: REMO Coated Emperors (Batter), REMO Clear Ambassadors (Resonant)
- Bass drum: REMO Powerstroke 3 with a REMO Falam Slam Pad (back), Ebony Powerstroke 3 drum head with the American Idiot logo (front)
Drumsticks: Zildjian Tré Cool Artist Series
Hardware: DW[edit] Singing
Tré sings and plays guitar on the tracks "Dominated Love Slave" and "All by Myself", from
Kerplunk! and
Dookie, respectively. He wrote the subtrack "Rock and Roll Girlfriend" from the
medley, "Homecoming," featured on the album
American Idiot. He also sang and composed the track "DUI" ("Driving Under the Influence"), which was recorded during the
nimrod. sessions, and was due to be released on
Shenanigans (a compilation of B-sides), but was inexplicably omitted.
During a radio interview at Washington DC's alternative station
DC 101, Tré sang and played the guitar to a short song titled "Like a Rat does Cheese", a song about the pleasure of
fellatio.
Several live tracks also exist, usually from early dates around 1993, such as "Food Around the Corner", a song from the 1943
Elmer Fudd cartoon "An Itch in Time".
[edit] Trivia
[edit] External links
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