Biography

    Frank Edwin Wright III was born December 9, 1972 in Frankfurt, Germany, making him the youngest member of Green Day. He grew up in the Mendocino mountains in California with his dad and his 2 older siblings. His dad, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, decided to move the family there to insulate them upon his return to the United States. Tre's closest neighbor was none other than Lookout! Records owner Lawrence Livermore, who also owned the punk band the Lookouts. At age 12, Livermore recruited Tre to join The Lookouts, and that's when Livermore gave him the name of Tre Cool ("Tre", a common nickname for someone named with a "III" is pronounced like "tres," the French word for "very"). After Green Day's first tour around the country (following the release of 39/Smooth), John Kiffmeyer decided to leave the band. Looking no further than Gilman Street, Billie Joe and Mike recruited Tre, who was already a 5 year veteran of the Gilman Street scene.

    Tre decided to drop out of high school his sophmore year. However, he did pass an equivalency test and earned his GED, and he even 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 owns a small trucking company, overhauled a used bookmobile and served as the driver on three separate tours. "I watched them go from a bunch of kids to a group of musicians with work eithic," 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's daughter Ramona was born 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 Tre have a son named Frankito, which means "Little Frank". Tre and Claudia divorced in 2003, but they still live together with Frankito in Oakland, California. At one time, Tre was linked to Donna C., drummer of The Donnas; however, they are no longer together.