Claim: John Kiffmeyer used to be in a punk rock band.

John Kiffmeyer -LRB- born July 11 , 1969 -RRB- , known professionally in music as Al Sobrante , is an American musician , best known as the former drummer for the punk rock band Green Day . His name of Al Sobrante is a reference to his hometown , El Sobrante . His work with Green Day resulted in about 961,000 albums sold , which are mostly from the compilation album 1,039 / Smoothed Out Slappy Hours .