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Wednesday January 17th, 2001
Green Day Warning: 'This is a total P-90 record'
You can spend hours analyzing Green Day's new sound in critical terms. But Billie Joe Armstrong offers an alternative explanation. "This is a total P-90 record," he exclaims.
After years as a Fender man, Armstrong has gone off the deep end over Gibsons equipped with vintage P-90 pickups and reissue P-100s. "A lot of people are suspicious of the P-100s," notes Billie. "But I love them."
In the realm of P-90-equipped Gibsons, the guitarist is particularly fond of Les Paul Juniors . He used a few different ones on Warning: "I just got addicted to Les Paul Juniors and was asking everybody around if they had any to sell." He pulls a beautiful old TV (yellow) finish Junior from a case and points out the stop tailpiece. "The thing about them is the intonation is always perfect," he marvels.
A Fifties reissue Les Paul Gold Top also figures prominently on the record. "And I got a great ES-135 with P-100s in it," he adds. "It sounds really good. I recorded the song 'Fashion Victim' with that guitar."
The guitars went through a variety of amps in the studio, including an ancient Gibson GA-40 Les Paul model combo and a modern Line 6. But mainly Armstrong used a Marshall half stack and an old blackface Fender Bassman head through a Marshall cab. "There's something about a P-90 through a Bassman," he says. "They sound like they were meant to be together. There's so much you can do with the volume control of the guitar. You go down one notch and it's a completely different tone."
Green Day Bassist Mike Dirnt makes the following novel observation on gender and guitar aesthetics: "Most pickups, and guitars in general, are assembled by women, because they have smaller hands to wrap the coils and deal with the little screws and everything. There are probably more men guitar players in the world. But guitars are shaped like women and put together by women. And I just think that's a beautiful thing."
Check out the Les Paul Junior at marsmusic.com here or the ES-135 . See the interactive Gibson '57 Les Paul Goldtop here. Go to Gear up: The history of Gibson pickups and Gear Up: How Gibson pickups are made for more about classic and cutting-edge Gibson pickups.
Listen to the title track and see two videos from Green Day's Warning here. Enter the official world of Green Day here.
Call 1-800-4GIBSON for more information anytime or email Gibson Customer Support.
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