![Green Day Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=53614011&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
This year marks two huge anniversaries for Green Day. They defined an entire era of pop-punk with their 1994 major-label debut, Dookie, then did it all over again 10 years later with the punk-rock-opera American Idiot. This year, Idiot turns 20; Dookie is 30.
To celebrate the milestones, Green Day has been blasting through stadiums across North America playing both albums in full, back-to-back, with a few odds and ends from their 30-plus years together, plus choice hits from their 2024 record, Saviors. It’s a ton of ground to cover—especially considering each epoch seems to have different and defining sonic characteristics. The guitar and bass tones on Dookie alone are the subject of amp mods, guitar pedals, and signature guitars.
At the band’s Nashville stop at GEODIS Park, techs Darian Polach and Gabe Monnot, who manage the rigs of bassist Mike Dirnt and guitarist Jason White respectively, took Premier Guitar’s Chris Kies through the rockers’ gear wardrobes for this mammoth tour.
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I Declare I Dirnt Care No More
Mike Dirnt’s main axes for this year’s tour have been his Fender Mike Dirnt Signature Precision basses. He’s got them tuned up with different paint jobs from Mike Bender for different portions of the set—the green-star-adorned P-bass comes out for American Idiot.
Dirnt runs these mostly stock, with ash bodies, Fender HiMass bridges, either maple or rosewood fretboards, and Ernie Ball strings (.045–.105s), but some have small tweaks in the pickup department, with either custom vintage-style ’59 split single-coils or a Pure Vintage ’63 Precision pickup.
Caffeinated Rabbit
This Fender parts-project bass got a special makeover, this time featuring the logo from Green Day’s own Punk Bunny Coffee. This sleek, hyper 4-string has a roadworn ’50s-style neck, Hipshot KickAss bridge, and Hipshot tuners to drop to C-sharp for “Dilemma” off Saviors, then to jump back up to E-flat for fan-favorite “Minority.”
Homecoming
No replica or roadworn copy here. This is a genuine Dookie-era Gibson G3 that comes out for the ’94 portion of the show. Polach says the added Bartolini pickup in the bridge position woke up the bass. Along with its Gotoh bridge, the bass’ defining feature is its “buck-and-a-half” wiring, which turns two of the single coils into a humbucker, with the third single coil as the extra “half” for loads of tone possibilities. Dirnt has since undertaken a signature Epiphone model based on this guitar—tune in to the full video for more details.
All About That Superbass
Dirnt runs his bass into this custom-design Fender Super Bassman, an amp he developed with Fender based on a mix of amps, preamps, and DI units he loved. The Super Bassman runs into a 4x10 in an onstage isolation cabinet, front of house, and Dirnt’s in-ears.
Gibson Garage
Long-time touring member Jason White’s stable is dominated by his Gibson Les Pauls and ES-335s. His number-one is his Custom Shop ’54 Reissue goldtop LP loaded with P-90s and Ernie Ball strings (.010–.046). Like the rest of the band, White runs his guitars to his rig through a Shure AD4Q wireless unit. The goldtop is used extensively during the set, including for Idiot and Saviors hits and “Know Your Enemy” from 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown. The stunning, light blue LP Special is a backup for the goldtop. Another black, early-2000s Les Paul Standard is tuned a half-step down and comes out for Dookie and older tunes.
The red Gibson ES-335 is another Idiot-era pickup that still sees heavy action. It’s wired with piezo saddles, and tech Monnot switches between the magnetic system and the piezo to cop acoustic sounds for “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Minority.”
The lone Fender in White’s boat is his Esquire, which Monnot guesses is a late ’60s or early ’70s model. It usually stays at home, but it came along for this special tour, and gets used on Idiot deep cuts “Extraordinary Girl” and “Whatsername.”
Jason White's Rig
White’s Shure wireless system sends to a rack system with an ISP noise gate, just in case White’s P-90s are picking up a lot of noise. From there, it hits a Dunlop Cry Baby and DVP1XL, then a MIDI-controllable RJM Effect Gizmo, which handles White’s effects: an MXR Reverb and Poly Blue Octave, Strymon TimeLine and Mobius, API Select TranZformer GTR, and a Custom Audio Electronics 3+SE Guitar Preamp which gets engaged for clean tones and small combo sounds. A Lehle Dual SGoS Switcher and Fishman Aura DI Preamp handle changes with the piezo-equipped guitars. A Strymon Zuma provides the juice.
True to Green Day style, White rocks with two Marshall heads. The first one is a ’90s reissue JMP 1959SLP MKII with the famed Dookie mod. It handles cleaner, more midrange-focused sounds. The bottom box, a late ’70s 100-watt JMP Super Lead with SE mod, gets more gain-y. They both run into 4x12 cabs in isolation boxes on stage, so like the rest of the band, White works just with in-ears.
Shop Green Day's Rig
Fender Mike Dirnt Signature Precision Bass
Fender HiMass Bridge
Ernie Ball Strings (.045–.105s)
Pure Vintage ’63 Precision Pickup
Bartolini Pickup
Gotoh Bridge
Fender Super Bassman
Gibson Custom Shop ’54 Reissue Goldtop LP
Ernie Ball Strings (.010–.046)
Shure AD4Q
Gibson LP Special
Gibson Les Paul Standard
Gibson ES-335
Fender Esquire
Dunlop Cry Baby
Dunlop DVP1XL
MXR Reverb
MXR Poly Blue Octave
Strymon TimeLine
Strymon Mobius
Lehle Dual SGoS Switcher
Fishman Aura DI Preamp
Strymon Zuma
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Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.