page_title: Billie Joe Armstrong
section_title: Instruments
hierarchical_section_title: Billie Joe Armstrong / Instruments
caption_attribution_description: Español: Billie Joe Armstrong de Green Day.
context_page_description: Billie Joe Armstrong is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. Armstrong serves as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter, and lead guitarist of the punk rock band Green Day, co-founded with Mike Dirnt. He is also a guitarist and vocalist for the punk rock band Pinhead Gunpowder, and provides lead vocals for Green Day's side projects Foxboro Hot Tubs, The Network, The Longshot and The Coverups.
  Raised in Rodeo, California, Armstrong developed an interest in music at a young age, and recorded his first song at the age of five. He met Mike Dirnt while attending elementary school, and the two instantly bonded over their mutual interest in music, forming the band Sweet Children when the two were 14 years old. The band changed its name to Green Day, and would later achieve commercial success. Armstrong has also pursued musical projects outside of Green Day's work, including numerous collaborations with other musicians.
  In 1997, to coincide with the release of Nimrod, Armstrong founded Adeline Records in Oakland to help support other bands releasing music, and signed bands such as The Frustrators, AFI and Dillinger Four.
context_section_description: Armstrong's first guitar was a Cherry Red Hohner acoustic, which his father bought for him. He received his first electric guitar, a Fernandes Stratocaster that he named "Blue," when he was ten years old. His mother got "Blue" from George Cole, who taught Armstrong electric guitar for 10 years. Armstrong says in a 1995 MTV interview, "Basically, it wasn't like guitar lessons because I never really learned how to read music. So he just taught me how to put my hands on the thing." Cole bought the guitar new from David Margen of the band Santana. Cole gave Armstrong a Bill Lawrence L500XL Humbucker pickup and told him to install the pickup in the bridge position. Armstrong switched the L500XL with a white Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB Humbucker at Woodstock '94. After the Seymour Duncan was filled with mud and ruined in November 1994, Armstrong reinstalled the original Bill Lawrence pickup before recording Insomniac in 1995, and used it for a long time after that, although he has since switched to a black Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB. "Armstrong fetishized his teacher's guitar, partly because the blue instrument had a sound quality and Van Halen-worthy fluidity he couldn't get from his little red Hohner. He prized it mostly, however, because of his relationship with Cole, another father figure after the death of Andy." He toured with this guitar from the band's early days and still uses it to this day, Both middle and neck pickups are disconnected and the pickup selector locked in the bridge position. "Blue" also appears in a number of Green Day music videos such as "Longview", "Basket Case", "Geek Stink Breath", "Stuck with Me", "Brain Stew/Jaded", "Hitchin' a Ride", and most recently in "Minority".
  Today, Armstrong mainly uses Gibson and Fender guitars. Twenty of his Gibson guitars are Les Paul Junior models from the mid- to late-1950s. His Fender collection includes: Stratocaster, Jazzmaster, Telecaster, a Gretsch hollowbody, Rickenbacker 360 and his copies of "Blue" from Fender Custom Shop. Recently he has begun giving away guitars to audience members invited to play on stage with Green Day, usually during the songs "Knowledge" or "Longview". He states that his favorite guitar is a 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior he calls "Floyd". He bought this guitar in 2000 just before recording the album Warning.
  Armstrong also has two of his own Les Paul Junior signature models from Gibson. The first has been in production since 2006 and is modeled closely after "Floyd", Armstrong's original 1956 Les Paul Junior. The second began production in 2012 and is a TV Yellow double-cutaway Junior. Both models include a Gibson "H-90" pickup, exclusive to Armstrong's models. Gibson has also released an extremely limited run of acoustic signature guitars.
  He plays several other instruments as well as guitar. He recorded harmonica and mandolin parts on (Nimrod and Warning), piano parts on 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording (2010) and ¡Tré!, and plays drums and bass from time to time.
caption: Armstrong performing in South American Tour with "Blue" copy in 2010
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