Related Projects
Ever since 1991, some members of the band have branched out past Green Day and have started other projects with other musicians. Notable related projects of Green Day include Billie Joe Armstrong's Pinhead Gunpowder (which also features Green Day's live backup guitarist Jason White), The Frustrators in which Mike Dirnt plays bass, and The Network which has been speculated as having has all three members of Green Day under stage names. Billie Joe Armstrong has also confirmed that the main members of Green Day (Armstrong, Dirnt, and Cool) are in the band Foxboro Hot Tubs. A Foxboro Hot Tubs album titled Stop, Drop and Roll was released on 2008-05-20..
Charity projects that the band have been involved with include the collaboration with U2 ("The Saints Are Coming") to help raise money for musical instruments lost in Hurricane Katrina, and teaming with the Natural Resources Defense Council for the "Move America Beyond Oil" campaign and other environmental concerns.
In September 2006, Green Day teamed up with U2 and producer Rick Rubin to record a cover of the song "The Saints Are Coming", originally recorded by The Skids, with an accompanying video. The song is to benefit Music Rising, an organization to help raise money for musicians' instruments lost during Hurricane Katrina, and to bring awareness on the eve of the one year anniversary of the disaster. December 2006, Green Day and NRDC opened a web site in partnership to raise awareness on America's dependency on oil.
Green Day released a cover of the John Lennon song "Working Class Hero", that was featured on the album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. The band performed the song on the season finale of American Idol. The song was nominated for a Grammy in 2008, but lost to The White Stripes' "Icky Thump".
That summer, the band appeared in a cameo role in The Simpsons Movie, where they perform the show's theme song. Their version was released as a single on July 24, 2007.
