Billie Joe Armstrong

Billie Joe Armstrong, the frontman and guitarist for Green Day, had a musical epiphany the first time he encountered Floyd, his well-worn 1956 sunburst Junior. He stumbled upon the guitar a few years back at a guitar show not far from his home in Oakland, California. When he plugged the guitar in, he claims to have heard for the first time the sound he had searched for ever since he first started playing. It was the start of Armstrong’s passionate love of all Juniors, and Floyd became the first in an impressive collection of more than 25 vintage Juniors. The past few years have also found Armstrong moving away from the battered white Strat copy that he played throughout Green Day’s early years, and moving towards Gibsons. On American Idiot, the band’s critically acclaimed 2005 album, Armstrong layers snarling Juniors on top of the thick roar of Les Paul Standards to create a sonic wall of guitars. It is a tribute to the Ramones, the Who, and Hüsker Dü, but it is also the sound of one of the most popular American bands evolving in the spotlight. And Armstrong’s happenstance finding of Floyd has led to an amazing complete circle: a relationship with Gibson that culminates with this month’s release of the Billie Joe Armstrong Signature Les Paul Junior. The vintage guitar that inspired Armstrong will now inspire a whole new generation of players to fall in love with the power and versatility of the
Les Paul Junior.