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.
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.”
Denne historien er fra March 2017-utgaven av Guitar World.
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Denne historien er fra March 2017-utgaven av Guitar World.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Kittie - Guitarists Morgan Lander and Tara Mcleod discuss the canadian metal powerhouse's unexpected rebirth — by fire!
Guitarists Morgan Lander and Tara McLeod explain that making new music was “not on their bingo card” when the band regrouped in 2022 for a few festival appearances, preferring to think of the sets as more of a “final lap” than a new beginning. But drilling into old favorites — whether the nu-flavored teenage slams of 1999’s Spit or the more venomously groove-thrashed tunes of their late-’00s period — revealed that despite not having raged together in years, there was something undeniably special about Kittie’s musical connection. “Playing with these girls is like putting on an old pair of pants,” Lander says. “It’s very comfortable — and it looks good too.”
McKinley James - Why all you really need is a guitar, a drummer and some serious low-end six-string skills
Nashville-based blues rocker McKinley James came flying out of the gate in 2022 with his Dan Auerbachproduced EP, Still Standing By. His momentum screeched to a halt, however, when his keyboardist split, leaving only him and his drummer, Jason Smay (who also happens to be his father). “For a moment, I was like, ‘What are we going to do?” James says. “But then I thought, ‘Well, other bands have succeeded as a duo. Maybe we can, too.”
TC Electronic TC 2290P Dynamic Digital Delay
THE MID EIGHTIES was a golden age for digital delay, thanks to the proliferation of pro- and studio-quality rack effects units from Eventide, Korg, Lexicon, Roland and Yamaha.
Danelectro Doubleneck
WHEN I THINK back to the Seventies, the famously coined “Me” decade, it seems the only surefire way you could leave audiences awestruck was to strap on a doubleneck guitar.
CARLOS ALOMAR
The former David Bowie guitarist talks Young Americans, Station to Station and the Berlin Trilogy, plus recording (and co-writing) \"Fame\" with John Lennon
GEORGE TERRY
It turns out Eric Clapton's Seventies guitarist (and co-writer of \"Lay Down Sally\") also played on ABBA's \"Voulez-Vous.\" Below, he looks back on a decade-plus of E.C., Bee Gees, Diana Ross and more
FRANK MARINO
The Mahogany Rush frontman charts the band's Seventies lows and highs, plus SG's, pickups and how he was definitely not visited by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix
DEWAYNE "BLACKBYRD" MCKNIGHT
The jazz/funk/fusion veteran on his smooth segue from Herbie Hancock sideman to full-on Funkdaledic member -plus his '70s gear and what he learned from Shuggie Otis
PAT TRAVERS
The Canadian-born virtuoso discusses the rise and fall of the Pat Travers Band, witnessing the U.K. punk revolution and the riotous roots of \"Snortin' Whiskey\"
JOE PERRY
The iconic guitarist looks back on Aerosmith in the Seventies, the decade that literally made and temporarily broke apart those Bad Boys from Boston
