COVER FEATURE
“my Goal IS TO BRING GUITAR MUSIC TO A NEW GENERATION!”“my Goal IS TO BRING GUITAR MUSIC TO A NEW GENERATION!”
PUNK ROCK HERO AND GEN Z SUPERSTAR YUNGBLUD IS NOW L AUNCHING HIS F IRST SIGNATURE GUITAR. “I SPENT COUNTLESS HOURS RE ADING TOTAL GUITAR, LE ARNING ABOUT THIS STUFF,” HE SAYS. AND HE’S ALRE ADY PLOT TING HIS NEXT MOVE: “A CLASSIC ROCK ALBUM FOR 2025!”
Interview Amit Sharma
Photo
Andrea Ripamonti/Alamy
yungblud is momentarily lost for words. It doesn’t happen often. The punk rock superstar is known for speaking up about everything that excites or motivates him. But when he joins aZoom call with TG, he is at the Gibson Garage in Nashville, holding his first-ever signature model, the Epiphone Yungblud SG Junior in Classic White, and at first, all he can bring himself to say is: “Just, wow…”
Seated on a turquoise sofa, and wearing leather-look dungarees, he shakes his head and takes a long pause for thought before finally saying with a smile: “It’s so cool, man. This day in particular, releasing it officially from the Gibson Garage, has been wild. Honestly, it’s been mental. When you’re a kid, you always dream of having a signature guitar made by Gibson and Epiphone, so now it’s happened, I’m like, ‘What the actual f*ck?’”
The new release is inspired by what he calls his “dream guitar” –an original 1964 Gibson SG Junior. Aslice of history from the very tail-end of Gibson’s golden age, it’s certainly one of the more striking guitars of its kind, given how the black scratchplate contrasts with its creamy aged Polaris White finish and the inclusion of a single P-90 pickup by the bridge –a defining quality of the Junior models when compared to the dual humbucker-loaded standard SG designs.
“It’s so iconic,” he says, “a rare ’64 SG Junior in white. It has just the one pickup, which suits me because I’m a f*cking scrappy player, man! I wanted an instrument that had character, something which could replicate my energy. I can also hit this guitar really hard and she can f*cking take it, you know what I mean? It’s such a sick instrument!”
It was a choice inspired by two of his greatest influences –Angus Young of AC/DC, one of the most famous exponents of the SG, and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, a fan of single-pickup Les Pauls…
“When Iwas younger, two massive characters who were very important to me were Angus and Billie Joe,” he says. “I was obsessed with them from a young age. Even before I picked up the guitar, I looked at those guys as heroes. They were like cartoon characters to me, people who made me think, ‘I wanna be like that!’