Tré Cool

Tré Cool
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Background information
Origin	Laytonville, California

Tré Cool (born Frank Edwin Wright III, December 9 1972, in Frankfurt, Germany) is the drummer of the rock band Green Day. He replaced the band's former drummer Al Sobrante.

Biography

Frank Edwin Wright III was born December 9, 1972 in Frankfurt, Germany, making him the youngest member of Green Day. 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. Tre'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 (which means "Very Cool" in French). When Green Day's drummer Alo 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. Tre'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 Tre's father, Frank Wright. "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)

Tre had a daughter named Ramona in January of 1995, then he married his long time girlfriend Lisea Lyons in March. He and Lisea are divorced now, but Tre remarried in May of 2000, to Claudia. Claudia and him have a son named Frankito, which means "Little Frank". Tre and Claudia divorced in 2003. Recently, Tre has been linked to Donna C., drummer of The Donnas. However they are no longer together.

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 Damner 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 Dookie

His current drum kit is as follows:

Drums:

• 22"x18" bass drum
• 14"x6.5" Ludwig Black Beauty Brass Super Sensitive snare
• 14"x11" rack tom
• 16"x16" floor tom
• 18"x16" floor tom
• A tambourine

Cymbals (From left to right):

• Zildjian K/Z 14" Special Hi-hat (K Hi-hat on top, Z 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

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", and "Billie Joe's Mom".

Trivia

• Appeared in an episode of King of the Hill [1]
• Supports the legalisation of marijuana [2]

External links

• Green Day's Official Homepage
• Tre Cool at DrummerWorld.com
• Tré Cool at Zildjian.com