Billie Joe Armstrong

In this Rig Rundown video of Billie Joe Armstrong’s guitars and gear, his tech Hans shows one of Billie Joe’s most famous guitars, the Fernandes Stratocaster copy named Blue. The guitar shows a lot of wear and is covered in stickers. Starting at the beginning of the video, 0:30 in:

“The guitar everyone likes to hear about most is Blue, Billie’s guitar he got many years ago for his birthday. And it’s the same guitar, he’s still playing it. There’s a pic of him there on the back.”

The interviewer asks if there are any modifications Billie Joe Armstrong has done to it, to which his tech replies:

“I replaced - it’s a Seymour Duncan SH-4, which just sounds great, and… not really much. This is the biggest mod, having the pickup angled like that. It’s a completely different sound than having it just straight, like in a Les Paul. I’m still trying to figure it out in my mind, why it sounds that way, but it just does. Eddie Van Halen - same thing, his guitar has the pickup angled. ”

The tech then confirms that Billie Joe Armstrong uses this guitar to perform Green Day’s older material live, which is all Eb. He also confirms that guitar is strung with Ernie Ball .010 - .046 strings.

Blue's official model is a Fernandes The Revival RST-50 '57 - dating from early 1980. The official color is "Sonic Blue" - which is the same one Fender Japan used on their guitars as the guitar was manufactured by Fuji Gen Gakki (whom made Ibanez and the Fender Japan instruments).

From Billie Joe's guitar tech speaking about his pedals, "Blues Driver, and that's it. I'll just kind of, depending upon the song, manipulate it to get feedback or gain or whatever."

"There was some stuff where to get a really big tone, we’d just plug a guitar through a Boss Blues Driver and mess around with different echoes and delays." - Guitar Player.

"These heads were at Woodstock. I repainted them for some other show back then. We call these the Dookie mod and also the Bradshaw Gain mod. This cascades the front end and puts on the master volume. The SE lead mod adds a tube to it for even more gain. The way we run the heads is really all the knobs pretty much straight up and the master and gain at 10 o'clock. You turn it up any louder or any more gain it doesn't really sound that great. And Billie's tone is really not about tons of gain. It's actually cleaner than you would think it is. His technique playing and using the pick is more about where the sound is coming out of. I mean he'll turn the guitar down and clean it up then pop it back up," explains Hans, the tech for Billie Joe Armstrong.

Gibson's website describes this artist guitar, "In honor of Billie Joe’s achievement in taking the punk ethos, attitude and energy right to the top of the mainstream without once compromising his vision, Gibson USA presents the Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior Double Cut, a great partner to the original single-cutaway Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior, and a guitar that is primed to get you straight into no fuss, no frills rock ’n’ roll. Designed in the image of the late ’50s rendition of the breed, the Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior Double Cut is crafted with select tonewoods and an advanced rendition of Gibson’s hallowed P-90 pickup, the noise-cancelling H-90, with a double-cutaway body and subtle custom graphics to help it stand out from the crowd, and includes an extra special new Gibson gigbag with a stylish surprise lurking inside."

This guitar was also used on famous iHeart Radio festival, and it was smashed later. Armstrong, frustrated with his set cut short, smashed this guitar. He later posted to Instagram the rebuilt guitar, which he later used on Trilogy tour after his comeback. This guitar was rebuilt by Billie Joe's guitar tech, Hans.

This guitar was sold in 2019 during Green Day's sale of their gear via Reverb. According to the listing, the serial number of the guitar is 109011416.

Billie Joe Armstrong starting using Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster for playing all song from Nimrod in E Standard.

In 1997, Billie Joe Armstrong ordered "Blue" replica and other Stratocaster called "Frankenstein" in Shell Pink (which can see on Howard Stern Show and 1998 MTV New Year Eve's), There all guitar was smashed/turned out into other guitar (confirmed by Bill Schneider), "Blue" replica and shell pink "Frankenstein" guitar no longer used since 2000.

"Blue" replica has left handed bridge with GraphTech Saddles. Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB humbucker with 9 holes pickguard and neck has sanded off Fender logo on headstock (later he replace with another Stratocaster neck with Fender logo). The guitar is bulit by Alex Perez from Fender Custom Shop.

Green Day's guitarist and singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, often used a red Gibson SG Standard Electric Guitar during shows.

Red Gibson SG Standard was mostly used on TV appearances for "Warning" era, as well as live shows. He played "Waiting" with this guitar on Jay Leno show.

Second Gibson SG Standard he was seen using, was on the appearance on Hotel Babylon, which was in 1996, to be precise, on 27th of April, 1996. This guitar is rumoured, as well as the whole equipment in this show, to be borrowed from the Living End members. But actually this guitar was owned by Billie. You can see this picture with his son playing Gibson SG Standard.

Billie Joe Armstrong used the Marshall JCM900 4100 100-watt 2-channel Tube Head during the recording of Green Day's "Kerplunk." He also utilized it for live performances, including some shows during the "Dookie" era.

At this concert in Stockholm, Billie used Björn's Warterloo guitar, the actual one from the museum. He directly thanks Björn at 1:51 in this video

Billie Joe Armstrong uses the Boss TR-2 Tremolo for a specific part in the song "Warning." Although it is not typically employed during live performances of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," it features on the recorded version. This information is detailed on Customaudioelectronics under the CAE Legends section.

Billie with a wall of JCM800s from Marshall’s website.

Billie Joe Armsrtong's guitar tech mentions that Billie uses an SH-4, Aka, the Seymour Duncan JB.

Billie Joe Armstrong, the guitarist for Green Day, uses a Boss GE-7 Equalizer. This pedal can be seen at 10:10.

In this Instagram post by Billie Joe Armstrong, his Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer pedal can be seen in front of the amp head.

In the photo from Photobucket, Billie Joe Armstrong is holding a customized Gretsch Brian Setzer Hot Rod Model, not the Gretsch G5420T Electromatic Hollow Body. The guitar features modifications such as a removed pickguard and a Dogear P90 pickup. Despite the low resolution, it's evident that this Gretsch, like others Armstrong owns, was used during the recording of the "Trilogy" albums.

"For me, I think that, you know, Les Paul Juniors have more of a rock 'n roll sound just because it's the true sound of a guitar. The sound that I go for is that real punchy mid-range kind of sound."

“I didn’t want to go for a modern Marshall amp sound,” Armstrong says. “I wanted to do something that sounded more like a classic rock tone. I used a Gretsch guitar, and we figured if we couldn’t find the exact vintage amp we were looking for we would just build it. But I did use a Vox AC 30 and a 1974 Marshall JTM45. We miked the room and captured that.”

Billie Joe start using this guitar for this year, and mostly gave away to audience after playing Knowledge.

Also in this video, you can see Billie Joe playing this guitar from Epiphone in Cracow, Tauron Arena, Poland, on 2017-01-21. At the end of the video he gives it away to a fan named Christopher.

The Gibson Les Paul Junior 1956 Sunburst Electric Guitar is used by guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong of the world-renowned rock band Green Day. Billie Joe named this guitar "Floyd," which served as the inspiration for his signature Gibson model and remains his favorite guitar.

In an interview for Guitar Player he also notes that this guitar was used for recording "21st Century Breakdown".

I mainly played a ’56 Gibson Les Paul Junior, but I also had a Slash model Les Paul, a Jimmy Page model Les Paul, and my ’59 ’burst.

As can be seen in this photo, Billie Joe during the hella mega tour is using a Gibson Les Paul Junior in Satin White but modified with black stripes around it making it look like in the style of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar. This is not the same Les Paul Junior he used in 2004-2010 because that is in the rock n roll hall of fame.

Here he is pictured with a black Les Paul Junior with white pickguard.

This is one of Billie Joe Armstrong's main guitars on the Hella Mega Tour. It was a natural finish Les Paul Junior that Billie hadn't used much before. He had it repainted in this gold sparkle finish and now he plays it for the first songs of these gigs: American Idiot, Pollyanna, Holiday, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, Know Your Enemy and a few more.

Can be spotted during Green Day's rig rundown. Also used by Jason White, as seen in the same video. Green Day's picks are custom-designed, in some cases with the face of the guitar player using it (e.g, Billie Joe's has his face on his pick).

"The Dunlop Tortex .73s... this is the first time we went for the multi-color imprint pick. So... thank you Dunlop."

Billie Joe can be seen playing this custom Epiphone Les Paul Junior throughout this video. 5:24 is best shot of "Special" marking on guitar and around 2:11 is clear shot of guitar.

Here's Billie's technician showing Billies' rig during a 2013 tour, he talks about the string at 1:28, he talks about ''Ernie ball .10's''

This pedal was seen in the documentary Heart Like A Hand Grenade at 18:30

Billie Joe Armstrong uses a custom-built Fender Telecaster as a backup for his iconic "Blue" guitar. This blackout Telecaster features a slanted Seymour Duncan SH4-JB pickup, a maple neck, a solid body, and a single volume knob, matching the specs of "Blue." It also includes a Fender Tele Deluxe pickguard, custom-routed by Armstrong's guitar tech, Hans.

Though not frequently used live, Armstrong played this guitar for the entire Reading Festival 2013 show, as seen in the accompanying photo. A similar custom-made Telecaster served as a backup during 2000-2001, featuring slight variations like black tape, different volume knob positions, and sometimes a rosewood fretboard. This guitar has also been played by Timmy Chunks and Jason White during performances of "Platypus" and "King for a Day."

In this photo, we can see Billie Joe with a Gibson Explorer.

Another one of these was sold in Green Day's Reverb Shop. Source

The Gibson Explorer is a type of electric guitar that made its debut in 1958. The Explorer offered a radical, "futuristic" body design, much like its siblings: the Flying V, which was released the same year, and the Moderne, which was designed in 1957 but not released until 1982. The Explorer was the final development of a prototype design that, years later, Gibson marketed under the name Futura. The Explorer's initial run was unsuccessful, and the model was discontinued in 1963. In 1976, Gibson began reissuing the Explorer after other guitar companies had success selling similar designs. The Explorer became especially popular among the hard rock and heavy metal musicians of the 1970s and 1980s.

He used this guitar at Reading 2013, but he smashed it almost immediately because the guitar went out of tune. He used this guitar solely for "Waiting". The similar model, although with the P-90's was used around 2007 - this can be seen during the 2007 performance of "Working Class Hero"..

Another LP Custom, the white one, has been used in the 2016 EMA Awards performance of "Bang Bang".

Billie Joe Armstrong used a Fernandes LE-1 for his "Blue" replica guitar in 1997, which was modified by Bill Schneider. This is evidenced by a user-uploaded photo.

During performance at Reading Festival 2013, Billie Joe Armstrong can be seen playing with this guitar during "Pulling Teeth"

In this photo Billie can be seen using a Black Ernie Ball Polypro Guitar Strap

Billie Joe Armstrong uses Ernie Ball Power Slinky Guitar Strings (11-48), as seen in a 2017 Instagram post by hansblooey.

In this Premier Guitar Rig Rundown, Hans (Billie's tech) states that some of the Les Paul Juniors have a Seymour Duncan Antiquity Dog Ear P90 Pickup. For example, the silver signature at 3:05 has the SD P90.