Lean, Mean and Green

No rock opera concepts, no multi-disc sets. Green Day’s newest album Revolution Radio is just a dozen great pop-punk songs, done as only Green Day can do them. Just don’t call it a back-tobasics album when face to face with Billie Joe Armstrong.

- Alan Di Perna

When Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong isn’t on the road or in the recording studio, he can most often be found at Broken Guitars, his guitar store in Oakland, California. ¶ “For me, it’s a great place to hang out and talk to other musicians and see friends I’ve had forever,” he says. “It’s just a really cool, vibey local spot. It kind of fits in with the neighborhood. It’s a really great hangout.”

¶ Armstrong co-owns the shop with Bill Schneider, longtime Green Day guitar tech/tour manager and the bassist in Armstrong’s side band, Pinhead Gunpowder. In keeping with its working class Oakland locale, and Armstrong’s punk rock pedigree, Broken Guitars is more about thrift shop, retro-chic instruments than super high-end vintage stuff that’s only within the financial reach of Wall Street bankers and other one-percenters. ¶ “We couldn’t afford that anyway,” Armstrong laughs. “We have a price range that’s cheaper. It’s for working bands. Like someone brought in this cool Gibson Melody Maker SG. It was all punked out. It looked like it just got back from tour, like someone was playing it in punk clubs. It was, like, a $150 guitar. And that’s what’s great.”

Although Armstrong doesn’t often invoke his privilege as co-owner of the shop, the “punked out” Melody Maker was one guitar that he had to add to his own collection. “Every once in a while,” he says, “someone will sell something to the shop— a guitar will come in—and I’ll say, ‘I want that!’ And it’s mostly weird stuff.”