Tre Cool Biography

Cool was born on December 9, 1972, in Frankfurt, Germany. His father was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. He moved with his father and sister, Lori, to Willits, California, and became neighbors with the punk band, ‘The Lookouts’’ singer Larry Livermore.

At the age of 12, Livermore recognized Cool’s talent and hired him as the drummer of his band ‘The Lookouts’ and it was during this that he took the name ‘Tré Cool’—‘Tré’ means ‘very’ in French.

Cool was in school when he got an offer from ‘Green Day’ to replace their drummer, Kiffmeyer, as he had left the band. He dropped out in his sophomore year and started to take classes at a local community college.

His drumming with ‘Green Day’ became more and more demanding and time-consuming. While he was adjusting in the band, the band thought of breaking up as it was taking them a long time to adjust to his drumming.

In the 1990s and 2000s, he did ‘Green Day’ albums, like: ‘Kerplunk! (1992)’, ‘Dookie (1994)’, ‘Insomniac (1995)’, ‘Nimrod (1997)’, ‘Warning (2000)’, ‘American Idiot (2004)’, ‘Awesome as Fuck (2004)’, ‘¡Tre! (2012)’ etc. He mostly played drums and gave backing vocals for these albums.

In 2011, he won the ‘Best Punk Drummer’ in Drum! Magazine’s 2011 Drummies. He was recognized along with some of the best drummers from all over the world, across music genres.

The album, ‘¡Tre!’, was released in 2012 by ‘Green Day’ to honor Cool’s contribution and talent, and one of their songs on the album ‘¡Uno!’—‘Fell For You’ was originally titled ‘Fell for Snoo’—‘Snoo’ being his nickname.

Green Day released their twelfth studio album ‘Revolution Radio’ in 2016. The album received positive reviews from critics and topped several music charts including the ‘US Billboard 200,’ ‘UK Albums Chart,’ ‘Swiss Albums Chart,’ and ‘Scottish Albums Chart.’

In 2020, the band put out their thirteenth studio album under the name ‘Father of All Motherfuckers.’ The album topped the ‘US Top Rock Albums’ and ‘UK Albums Chart’ and peaked at number 4 on the ‘US Billboard 200.’

In 2011, Cool won the ‘Best Punk Drummer’ category in the Drum! Magazine and he was honored along with many other legendary drummers from all over the world, across music genres.

Although Cool was first recognized by ‘The Lookouts’’ lead singer Larry Livermore and played with him in his band, it was only in the 1990s that his talent was truly recognized with his entry into ‘Green Day’.

Cool got married to Lisea Lyons in 1995 and became a father to a daughter Ramona Isabel. He was the first member of Green Day to become a father back then. He got divorced from Lisea Lyons in 1996.

He married for the second time in 2000 to Claudia and became a father yet again to Frankito. The couple got divorced in 2003. In 2014, he married Sara Rose Wright and in 2018, they welcomed a son named Mickey.

Cool is a grandfather to Billie Joe Armstrong’s two children: Jakob and Joseph. Armstrong is the godfather to Cool’s son Frankito. They both spent the summer of 2013 in Newport Beach with their children, toured with them for ‘Green Day’ and took pictures to later upload on ‘Green Days’ Facebook page.

In 1998, when ‘Green Day’ won a ‘Moon Man’ Trophy at the MTV Music Awards, Cool notoriously balanced the Universal Globe at Universal Studios, but got away with it without any punishment, and was rather cheered on. Till now, he is the only person to be able to do that.

Cool's father was encouraging towards his musical career and renovated a bookmobile to transport the band. He once said, "I watched them go from a bunch of kids to a group of musicians with work ethic…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.'

His daughter, Ramona Isabel, is named after his idol, Joey Ramone.