User:Rockseal1

In 1983 when he was 11 years old, young Billie Joe's mother had bought him a guitar. The guitar was not brand new, but this persued Armstrong's music career. His mother had bought his so called "Blue" guitar from Armstrong's guitar teacher, previously after he had an acoustic. Billie told his mom that she didn't need to spend the money on that for him, as seeing his family couldn't afford it. "Blue" is a Fernandes Stratocaster copy guitar. He has modified it several times just to get the right punch of tone out.

The neck: Billie replaced the standard Fernandes rosewood guitar neck with a Fender Lic'd (Licensed but copy) of a guitar neck. It has no decal of a brand name on the headstock, but it is a maple neck, with better tuners.

The guitar itself: Billie originally had a humbucking bridge pickup that was black. This is shown in early pictures of the guitar (1989 - 1994 also seen in the video's Basketcase and Longview). He later then installed a white humbucking bride pickup called a Bill Lawrence pickup. This can be seen in the performance of Green Day in August 1994's Woodstock or also named Mudstock. After a year he figured it didnt have the right amount of tone, so he changed it to a JB Seymour Duncan pickup. This was the right about of distortion he needed. It powered up "Blue" and caused it to have no feedback.

Copys of "Blue": There are many copies of "Blue". The first original "Blue", are in pictures 1989 - 2005 and are in the video's Longview and Basketcase (If you look closely in Basket Case after the video Longview, you can see that the red tape that are his initials are gradually wearing away, making the BJ less thick). Billie almost had to replace Blue because someone had a great shot in Woodstock when they were playing When I Come Around, and hit a dead on bullseye in the middle of the pickguard. The guitar was "said" retired because of wire complications but Billie had it fixed. In later years Billie replaces his old strap that he first put on the gutiar with a new red one. This is seen most likely sometime after Insomniac.In 1997 sometime after Nimrod, Billie made his first copy of Blue himself, which he can "Frenkenstrat" which he named because he took parts from Fender guitars and built this guitar himself. There are two stroys to why we dont see "Frenkenstrat". One is to have said that he set the guitar down and during switching guitars it smashed when it fell. And there is the story about how he smashed the hell out of it because he said it didn't sound like the original Blue. He has played Blue up until 2005, when he had Fernades personally make him a copy of Blue. This Blue is seen in the DVD Bullet In A Bible. None of the stickers are the same, and the initials are totally different. Billie Joe has had to fix Blue several times. In earlier shows around 2000, Blue was showing many signs of about breaking. In Japan at Supersonic festival, Blue is being played horribly. Not because of Billie though! After that he got it fixed and you can see a video of how its played now when they play Basket Case on Jules Holland. Billie rarely plays the original Blue anymore, but its still played.