The history of this guitar begins with what was probably a mistake. At each of the concerts in Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown World Tour in 2009 and 2010, Billie Joe Armstrong gave a guitar to a fan, an instrument that the pope of punk pop had certainly touched but without much intrinsic value. And then, one evening, some very lucky fan walked away with this superb Strat. Did Armstrong make a mistake in the heat of the moment, or was it the ultimate punk act of generosity towards the fans? 

We know that Billie Joe is a fan of the Les Paul Junior model, but he has always remained faithful to the guitar that brought him success in the ‘90s, the famous Blue. This custom Strat covered with stickers has the particularity of having a Seymour Duncan SH4 humbucker in the bridge position, a pickup whose enormous output level perfectly matches the band’s taste for heavy distortion. This 1970 Olympic White Strat is a variation on the Blue theme, a way to find your familiar points of reference on another guitar. There we find the famous SH4 which is the only connected pickup and is linked directly to the volume knob, all on a changed pick guard. The neck has been refretted, the logo on the headstock replaced (for a transition model), and the saddles replaced with graphite ones, a good way not to break too many strings when you hit them as hard as Billie Joe does. A vintage Strat transformed into a real punk machine.