Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and Gibson have teamed up for the Les Paul Junior signature model guitar.
The new axe recreates Armstrong’s trusty single cut ’50s Les Paul Junior — what he described as the “the root” of his guitar tone for over 20 years. It follows his previous collab with Gibson for the more budget-friendly Epiphone Les Paul Junior in 2021.
“Ever since I bought ‘Floyd,’ my 1956 Sunburst Jr, in the early 2000s I have been addicted,” Armstrong said via a Gibson press release. “It’s a simple, raw, and powerful guitar that has a sound that just can’t be beat! Plug it straight into any tube amp, crank it, and it will roar!”
Designed to have “great tone with no frills,” the new Les Paul Junior signature model features a mahogany neck with Billie Joe Armstrong SlimTaper profile, rosewood fretboard, Graph Tech nut, and Billie Joe’s signature on the truss rod cover.
The mahogany body is equipped with a wraparound bridge/tailpiece and a P-90 DC Dogear pickup. The P-90 DC — Gibson’s latest hum-canceling pickup — features a modernized version of the Sidewinder dual-coil technology that was first developed by Seth Lover in 1958, “delivering a hum-free P-90 with the most authentic P-90 tonality yet, retaining the classic sound of a single coil P-90 while eliminating the noise.”
The Junior comes in two lacquer finishes — Silver Mist and Vintage Ebony Gloss — and includes a custom Billie Joe Armstrong Protector hardshell case with a pink exterior and a leopard-print interior.
“The collaboration between Billie Joe and Gibson has been long standing, popular and successful,” said Gibson master luthier Jim DeCola. “Billie Joe has previously used our P-90 and P-100 pickups to great effect and for him to choose the P-90 DC on his latest guitar is quite an honor.”
You can purchase Billie Joe Armstrong’s Gibson Les Paul Junior via Gibson (retailing for $2,199). Check out product photos of the guitar below.
