Green Day are getting rid of their old instruments and selling them to fans to give them the chance to own some of their legendary gear.
The punk heroes are honouring the 25th anniversary of their iconic record ‘Dookie’. They have teamed up with Reverb.com to put more than 100 pieces of gear used during their career up for grabs.
The inventory includes nearly 50 of frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s guitars, 5 drum kits from drummer Tré Cool as well as a dozen snare drums. Most of the gear has been used live or during recording sessions.
Armstrong revealed via the NME,
“Every guitar has its own character. Each one reflects who you are – the kind of songwriter you are, the kind of guitar player that you are. Used guitars, in particular, come with a history to them. I love the character you can see looking at a fretboard that’s been used. After 30 years of collecting odds and ends and really good stuff, I have to sell some of it off.”
And drummer Cool said,
“If you hoard the right shit long enough, they call you a collector. So I’m selling off just a wee bit of the collection. I’m not doing it any justice sitting around when someone could be using this stuff. I haven’t really sold anything ever – this is the first time. My psychiatrist said I have to do this.”
“In all seriousness, I hope whoever buys this stuff gets some enjoyment out of it… rocking it on their stage or putting it in their studio. I really hope they just don’t sit around and get dusty.”
Here’s a list of the gear up for grabs,
– A rare 1958 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top Guitar – one of Armstrong’s favourites to play live
– A 1950s Gibson ES-140T Electric Guitar that Billie Joe used on the tour bus throughout the American Idiot tour.
– The 2011 TV Yellow Gibson Les Paul Junior Guitar that Armstrong smashed during the 2012 iHeartRadio Music Festival (don’t worry, it’s been repaired and is playable).
– A 1950s Gibson ES-125 TCD Electric Guitar used live on 21st Century Breakdown, Uno, Dos, Tré!, and Revolution Radio tours.
– An OCDP Silver Sparkle Drum Kit that Cool set on fire during the ‘Pop Disaster’ tour in 2002. It’s not been restored so retains all the ash and soot.
– An Ayotte Green Stain Maple Drum Kit that was used live throughout the Insomniac tour in 1995.
– A brand new Slingerland Spitfire Tré Cool Signature Drum Kit from the late ’90s/early ’00s. Cool kept several of these kits on hand then but this kit “is probably the only one left in existence” (he burned the rest).
The Official Green Day Reverb Shop goes live on Thursday, February 7th but you can have a look at the items here.
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