Editing Insomniac (Green Day album) (section)

==Background==
{{Quote box
| quote="The fact that that album came out, like, a year and a half after ''Dookie'' was us trying to cut off the bullshit in its tracks and just keep making music. That’s all we wanted to do, keep making music. Sometimes I feel that ''Insomniac'' is the most honest record I ever made at the particular moment that it was written and recorded."
| source =—Billie Joe Armstrong on ''Insomniac''<ref name="Winwood" />
| width= 30em
| align= right
| salign= right
}}
Green Day's previous album ''[[Dookie (album)|Dookie]]'' (1994), their first for a [[major label]], was approaching the ten-million sales mark by the time of recording ''Insomniac'', and the band's success saw them rejected by the [[punk subculture|punk]] circles in which the group got their start.<ref name="Winwood" /> The group also began performing at large venues such as coliseums and hockey arenas.<ref name=stonecover>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/green-day-from-punk-to-platinum-19951228|title=Green Day: From Punk to Platinum|magazine=Rolling Stone|publisher=Jann Wenner|date=December 28, 1995|access-date=May 2, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171003075818/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/green-day-from-punk-to-platinum-19951228|archive-date=2017-10-03|url-status=live}}</ref> The singer and guitarist [[Billie Joe Armstrong]] was stung by criticisms of being a "[[sell out]]", telling an interviewer: "I think I was just lost. I couldn't find the strength to convince myself that what I was doing was a good thing. I was in a band that was huge because it was supposed to be huge, because our songs were that good. But I couldn't even feel that I was doing the right thing, because it felt like I was making so many people angry."<ref name="Winwood" />

The band's state of discombobulation inspired them to prove themselves with ''Insomniac''.  The bassist [[Mike Dirnt]] later said: "I felt at the time that there was a real urgency to what we were doing. There was a real urgency to stake our claim and say, 'No, we belong here.' It was really important to us to make sure people knew that we weren’t just a flash in the pan."<ref name="Winwood" /> During this period the band members also underwent changes in their personal lives; Armstrong married and had a son, while the drummer [[Tré Cool]] and his wife had a daughter.<ref name=successofdookiekerrang>{{cite news|url=https://www.kerrang.com/the-news/billie-joe-armstrong-on-the-success-of-dookie-i-remember-being-pretty-freaked-out/|title= Billie Joe Armstrong on the Success of Dookie: "I Remember Being Pretty Freaked Out" |newspaper=Kerrang |date=October 30, 2019 |access-date=May 28, 2020}}</ref><ref name=stonecover/> For Armstrong, reaching all these milestones was a surreal experience and he struggled to process these sudden changes, noting that "what I really wanted to do was keep working, and keep writing songs...I didn't really stop and smell the roses".<ref name=successofdookiekerrang/>