Billie Joe Armstrong “Blue” Guitar History Green Day | Guitars of the Gods 

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I like this video because it has humour that Billie Joe himself could appreciate

Dan Maloney installed the pickup for us… I chose the angle… and Billy was most definitely taught how to read, ear training and music theory. Thx George

My friend George taught Billie guitar lessons and sold his mother Blue. Cool to see that info in this video! I sold guitars to Tre years ago, the band used to shop at Subway guitars in Berkeley where i worked for years.

This isn't a video, it's a docu-comedy masterpiece. I love Billy and that damn blue guitar!

Cobain's black strat was originally a Japanese fender strat and he later put a Fernandez neck on it.

The replicas are all a bright daphne/ sonic blue. The original has its clear-coat/poly faded to a mint greenish hue with some lighter variations and lots of wear and tear that could not be truly replicated in the relicing process. It is easy for me tell the copies as he rarely plays them and it's almost always his old favorite in his hands.

I always get an unexplainable sense of nostalgia when I see this guitar.

But still thanks for the shout out and the request video :) 👍

That last pic of him and his mom, right behind them, theres a blue house to the left of his mom. that street is called Veiwpoint Blvd. and I used to live on it. It crosses BJ's street, and next door to BJ's moms house, was my old band mate Marco Gonzales house where we practiced. I grew up in Rodeo, Ca with Billy and Mike (John their old drummer too), and used to watch em practice at BJ's house as a kid. era 1988 to like 1990 or so. My brother was good friends with em, you could see Billys house from our backyard. Was crazy to see a band we watched and hung with in a garage get as big as they did. Billy and Mike were always super cool to me, whereas my brothers other friends bullied me all the time. I will always support BJ and Mike, they are good people. Good vid man. That last pic, if you took it now, would be all buildings and houses in the distance behind his moms right shoulder. I miss Rodeo. I think that pic of his mom waitressing was taken actually at The Embers in Pinole, Ca on San Pablo Ave. She worked there for YRS, and was SOOO SWEET. He had a great mom, yrs later she let me in to hold his grammy and talk about how he was doing. What a time in the Bay area that was. Metallicas infamous garage was in El Cerrito down the street from my dads shop. My friend Nats uncle used to sell them weed, I went to summer school where Kirk Hammett went to HS, and Les Claypool. I was supposed to go fishing with Les Claypool(Primus) and turned it down, and ALWAYS REGRETTED IT. My coworker at the pet shop that was literally in the same parking lot of The Embers, he invited me but it was RIGHT before i really liked Primus. I was 15 and didnt realize what a mistake that was not to be able to make friends with Les, especially since I was a guitarist in a band and thats all I wanted to do with my life. My friend Ray marshall's sister was dating Mike Pastton for a min, Machine Head used to practice at, I think it was called Paradigm Studios in Oakland, CA where my old band used to play. Used to seer big name musicians on Telegraph Ave all the time back then, and The 924 Gilman club was INSANELY cool in the mid 90's. Primus, Les lived same area as myt grandmother and I, when I lived with her in Pinole, next to El Sobrante. Cristy Road was 3 mins from her house, Pushed that did all Metallicas shirts lived around the corner from my grandma, it was insane back then, but we didnt realize it til later. good vid man..

This is the type of content I didn't know I needed, but now want an entire series on. Awesome stuff; love the detailed research (and humor!).

I never realized how significant this guitar is to Billie until I saw this video

You should totally do a video about Rivers Cuomo's warmoth strats overtime, ie the "Blue" guitar he used up until the late 90s, and the seafoam green strat he's been using for the last few years.

I remember watching the rig run down, and hearing his tech chew that gum. lol Drove me insane!

Thanks for taking the time to research and put this video together. I can tell a lot work and care was put into and I really enjoyed it. Cheers. 🤘

Yo this channel deserves more views with how much work you put into it. You can see the mud ball that hit Billies pickups during Paper Lanterns in Woodstock 94. I personally like the Les Paul Jr's he has (That's what I grew up hearing/seeing.) My suggestion: Rivers Cuomo from Weezer and his strat. Be perfect since they're on tour together.

Holy shit 🤘🤘 I appreciate you making this video, great quality

such an interesting video!!! I Love Green Day now i know more about Billie Joe :3 great jobb man! make more Guitar History Vids!

Yaay you took my request :D Also LOL thanks for the shout out ✌️✌️✌️😁 2:54 actually Kurt’s vandy strat had a fender neck, then a Fernández neck (seen in paramount show) then a kramer neck (seen in Amsterdam show and Hummingbird) UWU ☝️

The white pickup looks more cream to me, and you wont get a cream humbucker with the Seymour Duncan name on it because Larry DiMarzio copyrighted the colour. I've heard...that if u call the Duncan custom shop and they will make you a creme pickup but with a cover on it and all you have to do is take the cover off...just what I hear 🤫

Most unusual and interesting video on my all time favorite subject : the guitar! Thanks for the effort you put in this.

Subbbed!!! Amazing Video Dude!!!! Phenomenal Details. Keep up the great work my man!!

I used to have a very similar Fernandez with a HSS pickup configuration... Always loved that thing

Great videos my brutha, keep it up and you will be huge. Huge.

This video was awesoem ! Keep making them !

I'd imagine that the pickup was put in squint to pick up on the existing mounting holes. When I fitted a humbucker to my strat copy I installed it straight and fitted a pickup ring to cover the left over holes.

LOL 8:45 omg it was the first thing I thought of when you mentioned his tech, that damn GUM!!!

I've been looking for a video like this

what I love is that my birthday is February 18, so im the day after Billie :)

I remember reading years ago, that the pickup during tour '94 is a DiMarzio PAF Pro

YOU SHOULD DO TOM DELONGES STICKERED STRAT AKA THE CHESHIRE CAT GUITAR AND HIS OTHER STICKERED GUITAR TOO WHICH WAS HIS RED ONE THATS SO RARE TO FIND

Awesome video, I love the way you put the subject across, genius! Fernandes guitars were awesome back in the day as we're a lot of the Japanese Strats. I've got a couple of SD pick ups, a JB included, some SDs, including mine, came without SD branding (on the front face), most did come with, not sure why some didn't🤔✌️💜😄

Great video dude! I'm a huge fan of Billie Joe Armstrong that's why I created a copy of Blue (although it's not blue, it's a sunburst brown I think), I bought it for dirt cheap from a friend in school because I don't have a lot of money and it's a great deal for me. It's a "Fernando" strat copy and I modified the bridge pickup just like Blue's plus I sticker bombed the hell of it. I used it on few contests but sadly I didn't won from any of it. Now that I'm a med school student in college, looking back at my guitar while watching this video makes me cry a little bit because of joy and that I followed my passion even just for a short period of my life time. Thanks for reminding me the good times and long live for Green Day!

Great series! Subscribed!

I watched the rig rundown video before this one and about died when you quoted the guitar tech. Extremely accurate interpretation. 🤣🤣🤣

That intro artwork...beautiful

Loved how in depth you into the pickups sound and pickup configuration (California).

8:43 I feel very cultured for getting this inside joke.

Love your style. Nice work dude.

My mom bought me my main strat 19 years ago when I first started playing... Can confirm, they are the best moms

Please, Mike Dirnt history basses and amps please.☺

Loving this series. Please tell me you're going to do one on Gilmour's black strat.

Wow 1k subs I’m gettin in on the ground level. Good shit dude 👍

We can tell with the guitar that hans shown in 2013. That, that one is the original. Because on the back you can see the original actual blue color paint on it, and how the surf green color was painted over the original blue paint. Where the paint is chipping and on the edges. So "blue" is the surf green painted color, which was painted overtop. With the fernandes logo on the back. But you can see in the 1997-1998 nimrod photo, of an actual blue color guitar. And the blue color guitar is a replica. Which looks like on the replica, the neck is more lacker painted (similar to fender custom shop guitars). I believe his actual "frankenstein" guitar- there was a pink guitar with maple neck, with DOUBLE HUMBUCKERS in the bridge that I've only seen one time- playing live on france with the song stuck with me. But I think he smashed it. I think you might be right about the japanese bowling alley wood in his original. Because the color looks deeper then standard pale maple, but it it's not as deep as the fender custom shop lacker maple neck. It's like in-between.

Awesome video! The waterslide headstock decals on the Fernandes Revival strats from the early 80's were on top of the finish. They were not clear coated over, so they could easily be scratched off with your fingernail. I have an early 80's Fernandes Revival, like Billie's so that's how I know. You can also date the guitar by the stone logo on the neck plate. These Japanese Strats from that era absolutely rocked! They were better than the actual Fenders being produced at that time. There's misinformed talk out there that Billie's "Blue" is just some old crappy Fender copy but that's not true at all. Anyone who has ever played one of these old "The Revival" strats knows what I'm talking about.

when ive changed out bridge single pickups for humbuckers its easisr to have it slanted cause u can usually get away with using the same screwholes and not having to drill new ones, when i was first modding guitars i didn't really have proper tools so itd use files to cut away the excess material to be able to fit the humbucker into the guitar, i imagine that could also be a good reason for why billie joe Armstrong or whoever put it in did it like that

You showed a photo of it , Back in the lookout label days the 1st and 2 albums( Which were by all means the best music they ever made ) he used to have a very small record sticker sticker on his guitar

Great vid! Laughed my ass off

Man, that's a piece of art!!! What a work you did!!! P.S.: I loved the GD songs on violn at the backgroung

Hey! This was such a dope video. I clicked on it thinking it would be just another Green Day fan-tribute video, but i have been gladly proven wrong. I really enjoyed the depth of the technicalities you went into and also the humour (especially the Hans' gum bit) 😂

Thank you so much for addressing Hans’ gum use

Well done.

this is so interesting!!

What's really funny is cuz of the black tabe on blue combined with Billies black shirt, I always thought the guitar in the video for basket case was a telecaster 😂😂

When he got the guitar, his teacher took it to his house to drop it off and told him to put a humbucker in it. You can find the interview with the teacher on YT. Sorry, dont have the link. Thanks for the video!

Great job, sir!

As someone who instantly subscribed and hit the notification bell because I know I will love everything this channel produces… I kindly ask if you can do a video on Jack White’s red guitar he played all the time in the White Stripes. Pretty please 🙏🏽

i fkn lost it at "i come here to chew gum and kick ass" Nice!

I love how you referenced the bubble gum chewing by Billie Joes guitar tech . And this is a fantastic channel that you’ve started, check out my videos of my Warmoth Strat builds, they’re very much inspired by this and rivers’ Strats.

And yeah, big up to Mom, Nana and Papa for buying me guitars. ❤💯

Choked on my water when you referenced Han's gum chewing.

I heard that Billie Joe retired the original Fernandez years ago.

Just found this from the Kurt’s Fenders vid, nice humor dude!

This is gonna be huge one day

wen i was a kid i threw a humbucker in my strat witch required routing out a cavity and since i was a broke kid i had to reuse the pick guard i had witch pretty much demanded it be sitting at the same angle the old single coil sat at, so i used my soldering iron to cut out the pick guard to fit the old humbucker i was using, it ended up looking alot like his blue strat but mine is pearl white..

“It was a full Fernandez” Is that like a dirty Sanchez?

You can easily tell which guitars are the replicas and which is actually blue by the stickers. The stickers do change overtime, but gradually. It’s pretty easy to follow.

Great video. My best guess as to which Gibson pickup Billie put in Blue is a 57 Classic. For one, it's what's in his 2018 Les Paul Junior. Second, it's a PAF style humbucker. Going with the idea that the pickup tilt is because of Eddie Van Halen, it makes sense, because Frankie at one point had a PAF humbucker from a 1960 (I think) ES-335. So if Billie was going for EVH's tone, it only makes sense that he'd use a similar pickup. I could be dead wrong though and I probably am. The world may never know.

In my life, 55 years and counting, the terms Indie and alternative in music came in the 80s, and 90s respectively. At the time, after decades of the same classic rock songs on every rock radio station, and these new, young bands that weren't playing blues-rock, and had completely different influences, coming up, college radio, then alternative radio came about. It made sense people had names for those bands. They weren't Foreigner or Clapton or the Eagles, the were an alternative to classic rock. 40 years later, does "alternative" still mean anything?

This channel is so underrated

What's the classical sounding song that plays throughout this?

The rails cut at 7:30 is hilarious

Nice history lesson 👍

I can help with this video. I own 3 rst-50 fernandes revivals. Most of them are alder. There are some that didn’t come with gloss finished necks, and non vintage style tuners. Like a cheaper model, but it’s only the electronic that are cheaper. The body and neck are still the same as the higher end ones. Billy joes is one of the cheaper models. You can tell by the original non vintage style gotoh tuners it had. I own the exact same guitar, but in black. They are absolutely fantastic guitars, both the cheaper version and the expensive one. I’d just recommend changing the electronics in the cheaper one because they came with ceramic pickups instead of alnico.

this guitar should be in a museum

I may be the only person to watch this video and know who David Margen is .. one of my favorite bass players of all time .. an absolute badass... so interesting that he is part of Green Day History

This is gold!

Dude Greenday performed at irving plaza lol that place is small as hell for a band like Green day ! i went to see Chon a smaller band and i was squashed like a sardine

Does anyone know what the round green and white sticker that used to be on top of CIRCUS TENTS was from? It was kind of a Bitcoin-looking design (long before Bitcoin, obviously) most prevalent from June 1994 to the late '90s before it started getting covered.

I have a J on my Strat pickguard. I say it was inspired my SRV, but it was originally inspired by Armstrong

At 9:22 - lol. That guitar he is holding is mine. Lol. That photo was taken in Athens Ga during the warning tour. That’s a 50s strat with a JB pickup. That’s his body guard behind him

Where can I get a copy of that panoramic pic of all the guitar players? That is awesome! There are some I didn't recognize. Who's the guy between Gilmore and Frampton? The guy between Moore and Angus (young Via?). The one between Prince and Brian May? The guy above Les Paul? Not sure of the one between Tom Morello and Santana, or the one between Joe Walsh and Zakk? And I'm pretty sure that's Jerry Cantrell next to Slash but who's to the left of Jerry? And this looks like a cropped picture! I'd love to find this whole picture. Who can help me with that and name those I didn't know? Thank you so much!

(pls correct me if im wrong, but im gunna try to explain the sound of the slanted humbucker) The slanted humbucker brings the treble pull pieces closer to the bridge, and the bass pull pieces are farther up. This makes the EBG strings brighter, and the EAD strings sound ticker. That's what gives it that kick ass tone. I did the same mod with a JB in a shitty strat replica and it was the best knockoff strat i'd ever heard. And the slant just looks cooler.

I mean I think if you don’t subscribe to this guy after this then you hate music that’s all that it could narrow down to! Phenomenal documentary! Thanks for this!

Fun fact, Dimebag Darrell also used the Bill Lawrence 500 XL for a time

he only has one pick guard so he modded it to fit witch kept it the same angle the old single coil, the mounting holes are the same still...i did the same thing on mine wen i was a kid in the 90s

Great video! Have you done or can you do a video on Dimebag’s Dean From Hell??

In a Vh1 special (can't remember if behind the music or a biography is the same one where they show the picture that's on the back of the guitar, it's an obvious screenshot, you can see the Vh1 logo) it's stated by family members that both Billie and Mike Dirnt were huge Van Halen fans before they formed Green Day, so my guess is that probably his teacher encouraged him into using the humbucker that way for an easier install (probably didn't want to buy a second pickguard, just cutted the original) and used Eddie's mod as an example in order to convince him.

Thanks so much for this video. It’s super helpful! Can I use some info for a RU-vid video similar to this? I will mention your channel in the description.

The way you said osaka so aggressively 😂

the GUM tech . .. oh dear god I wiped the gum-tech from my mind . . ..

In 1997 and 98 the blue replicas they were only for the newer nimrod song at the time⏲️ because his normal strat was on a eb tuning for 39 kerplunk dookie and insomniac and the replicas were on a E standard for the newer song.

The guy chewing gum reference LOL

2:35 Did they got a paper Jamz Guitar and make it look like Billie Joe’s guitar? That’s awesome!

I played this guitar! May 28th 1998

The guitar tech chewing was a funny touch

The chewing over Hans is the cherry on the cake.

He had a Pansy Division sticker on there back in the early to mid 2000s, or maybe in the 90s. I just remember seeing it on there when I was a Freshman in high school, which would have been circa 2005. Although I have no idea what year the photo in question was from, and I don't recall seeing it on Blue when I saw them live that same year.

The blade magnets in the pickup on Blue look way thicker than in the Bill Lawrence pickup you posted.

Im making my own blue..out of a late 70s hondo guitar from japan..it has maple neck also...im gonna paint it blue...should be fun..lol 😮