Do Green Day call themselves 'punk'? Well, perhaps they do. Whatever, John Lydon has said that Green Day have stolen 'punk' - from who? Its true owners, The Sex Pistols, presumably. According to Contactmusic he says: "Don't try and tell me Green Day are punk. They're not, they're plonk and they're bandwagoning on something they didn't come up with themselves. I think they are phony."
On his own experiences of 'being punk' he continued: "The government's against you, the police are on you. So there we are fending off all that and it pisses me off that years later a wank outfit like Green Day hop in and nick all that and attach it to themselves. They didn't earn their wings to do that and if they were true punk they wouldn't look anything like they do."