In a new video testing out his awesome new signature MXR Dookie Drive pedal, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has explained the sound of the band's 1994 breakthrough third album Dookie – and how you can create the same style.
"I think that the guitar sounds on Dookie and [1995 follow-up] Insomniac are very heavy," he says. "We grew up listening to The Ramones, and Bob Mould's sound from Hüsker Dü, and Sex Pistols. It's just been something that's stuck with me, always chasing good tone and trying to get the ultimate rock sound.
"If there's one thing that you listen to on the Dookie record, I would say it was the 'Dookie sound' that would be in the verses, but then when we wanted more power, we turned it up," Billie Joe continues. "You can really hear it in a song like She, where the verse goes and then when it kicks into the chorus that big heavy guitar with more distortion kinda comes right up the middle. It was just trying to go from loud to louder."
Check out what he means in the video below as he tests out the MXR Dookie Drive pedal (interestingly by performing the riffs from 1990's Disappearing Boy and 1991's One Of My Lies).