Notes:
One of Billie's most famous guitars is a Fernandes Stratocaster copy he calls "Blue" which was given to him by his mother as an early Christmas present when he was 11 (she bought the guitar from Billie's guitar teacher). Billie still uses the original on tour to this day (most recently during parts of the 21st Century Breakdown tour). He's had replicas of "Blue" made, but gave them all away during the tour.

On Nimrod he also used some Gibsons, some old Les Pauls, an ES-355, an ES-135 and a Fender Jaguar. He also made a guitar he calls 'Frankenstein' because it is a combination of several different parts purchased at a Fender shop. He has a Seymour Duncan humbucker added to Blue.

Billie mainly plays through a modified Marshall amp. On Nimrod he used a Fender Bassman, a Hiwatt, and a Leslie. The amp he used on Dookie is most commonly referred to as the 'Pete' amp and can be seen most noticeably at the Woodstock concert; it has 'Pete' written across it. Pete was recently spotted being used at some of the small 21st Century Breakdown preview shows in San Francisco and Oakland.

When asked about what brand his acoustic guitar is, Billie says: "I don't know, one with strings and a hole in the middle!" Billie says a lot of his sound comes from strumming. "I use my thumb. It's that half-pick and half-thumb that gives it that thwack. Also, I don't play with my wrist, I play with my shoulder and hit it really hard."

Notes:
From Guitar World: "On this record [Nimrod], I used Precision basses because my old Gibson G-3 didn't sound good with the new songs. I used a '66 and '69; they have a real warmth on the low end. For this record I knew we weren't going for the huge guitar sound; this gave me more room to get in there. I needed to play a real punchy bass on the old records because the guitar frequencies where everywhere and I needed to get right in the middle. I recorded Dookie with a Precision bass too."

"I use Mesa/Boogie amps, MB 2000's. They're half-tube and half-solid state. I wanted to custom-make my own sound, and Mesa/Boogie was really willing to work with me. They made me 6 x 10 cabinets, and we put those on top of a 1 x 18. I think I'm nailing it. I have an MB 2000 running each one of my 6x10 cabinets and then an MB 2000 running both of my 18's."