A grocery store clerk in Medford, OR has filed a copyright infringement suit against Green Day, claiming the band took the lyrics for American Idiot from songs he wrote in high school in 1992. In a suit filed in U.S. District Court, Paul McPike, 32, alleges he sung all the songs on the album for his classmates and thinks perhaps a friend recorded a tape of him singing at home and that somehow that tape made its way into Green Day's hands. McPike is seeking an unspecified share of the profits from the album and from the concert CD/DVD Bullet in a Bible.

"It was just disbelief every time I heard it on the radio," McPike, who says he wrote several letters to Warner Bros. and the band, but never got an answer, told Oregon's Mail Tribune. Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Cooney suggested the case be dismissed but said McPike could file an amended complaint detailing his copyright of the lyrics and music. The only evidence in McPike's original complaint was a copy of Green Day's album and a claim that the words Billie Joe Armstrong sings do not exactly match those written in the liner notes. McPike told the Mail Tribune he will continue researching copyright law and will resubmit his case with additional evidence.

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