Legendary guitar company Epiphone is issuing a signature model of Billie Joe Armstrong's famous Les Paul Junior--in the Classic White finish--which has shared the stage with him for decades. The "Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior" features a slab Mahogany body and a set neck, Indian Laurel fret board with 22 medium jumbo frets, a powerful PRO P-90 pickup, and master volume and tone controls with CTS potentiometers, making it versatile for pros and beginners alike. The guitar has Armstrong's autograph as an emblem on the back of the headstock and comes with a deluxe leopard, faux fur-lined custom hardshell case.
The Les Paul Junior Player Pack version is ready to plug in and play and features the Epiphone Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior guitar with a bolt on neck, without signature, as well as a15 watt Epiphone 15G amplifier with two channels (clean and overdrive), full 3-band EQ, an aux input for your phone or other media player (a headphone outlet is included for silent practice). The soft gig bag includes an Epiphone guitar strap, cable, electronic clip-on tuner with three Epiphone guitar picks.
“Working with Billie Joe Armstrong over the years has been an absolute honor for our team,” says Aljon Go, Epiphone Product Manager. “The new Epiphone Billie Joe Armstrong signature guitars will help inspire a whole new generation of guitarists with an accessible, quality instrument to blaze their path in making music, just as Billie has throughout his Grammy Award-winning career.”
Green Day have certainly proved themselves since blasting out of the 90's punk rock revival and Billy Joe Armstrong proved himself to be a guitarist with formidable skills. The band, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, has released 13 studio albums including the Diamond-selling Dookie, punk rock opera album turned Broadway musical American Idiot, and their latest album Father of All, which reached #4 on the Billboard 200, resulting in the band’s11th U.S. Top-10 album.
Outside of Green Day, Armstrong teamed with jazz singer and pianist Norah Jones in a 2013 project to re-create the classic 1958 Everly Brothers album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us that was titled Foreverly. Last year Armstrong launched The "No Fun Monday’s" series which saw the guitarist put his spin on the songs that have formed the soundtrack to his life, including classics by John Lennon, Billy Bragg, and Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls.