A Sweeping Week in Heavy Metal: King Diamond Rebuilds His Guitar Chair, Guns N’ Roses Kicks Off a Marathon Tour, Gibson, Epiphone and Billie Joe Armstrong
Gibson Brings Its Guitar Mecca to Miami, Epiphone and Billie Joe Armstrong, Wave of New Music Hits Every Corner of the Genre
Gibson Brings Its Guitar Mecca to Miami, Opening a Wynwood Flagship Built for Musicians and Fans Alike
Gibson has spent more than a century shaping the sound of popular music, and this September, the company is bringing that legacy to one of the country’s most vibrant creative neighborhoods. Gibson Garage Miami will officially open its doors to the public on Thursday, September 10, in the heart of Wynwood, marking the brand’s third global Garage destination and its first foothold in Florida.
The announcement caps off nearly a year of anticipation. Gibson first revealed plans for a Miami location back in October of last year, with the project initially targeting a spring 2026 debut before organizers settled on the September opening date to ensure the space matched the ambition of the brand’s two existing flagship locations. Those earlier stores set a high bar. Gibson Garage Nashville established itself as the company’s global flagship, while Gibson Garage London became the brand’s first retail presence outside the United States, and Miami now joins that lineup as the third stop in what Gibson is positioning as an ongoing expansion of its most immersive retail concept.
The location itself carries plenty of architectural significance on its own. Gibson Garage Miami occupies the ground floor of the Wynwood Garage, a striking structure wrapped in a facade of more than 1,500 uniquely shaped perforated aluminum panels, designed through a collaboration between Faulders Studio and Wolfberg Alvarez and Partners. The building was leased to Gibson by Goldman Properties, the development firm widely credited with transforming Wynwood from an industrial pocket of Miami into one of the most celebrated arts and culture districts in the world, filled with murals, galleries, and a dense concentration of creative energy that Gibson clearly views as a natural fit for its brand.
Spanning more than 8,000 square feet, the new space is designed to function as far more than a traditional guitar shop. Visitors will find more than 500 instruments spanning Gibson’s entire family of brands, including Gibson, Epiphone, Kramer, MESA Boogie, Maestro, KRK, and Gibson Amplifiers, all displayed in a way that actively invites hands on exploration rather than simple browsing. One of the space’s signature visual features will be a moving overhead conveyor of guitars, a nod to the finishing process used inside Gibson’s own production facilities, turning what is normally a behind the scenes manufacturing detail into a piece of interactive theater for visitors walking the floor.
At the center of the store sits a dedicated live performance stage, built to host regular artist appearances, intimate showcases, album release events, and community programming throughout the year. Gibson has described the stage as a direct bridge between artists, fans, and the instruments themselves, giving Miami’s already thriving music community a new venue built specifically around that connection. Given the city’s deep ties to Latin, Caribbean, rock, pop, hip hop, and electronic music, Gibson has made clear that the Miami location will lean into that cultural identity throughout the space, incorporating design elements inspired by Latin culture alongside exclusive apparel collaborations with local designers, curated lifestyle goods, and rare instrument displays. The location will also debut Gibson’s first stateside gallery installation, featuring photography, street art, and imagery drawn from some of music history’s most iconic moments.
For players looking for something entirely their own, Gibson Garage Miami will also offer the brand’s Custom Made to Measure program, allowing customers to work directly with Gibson Garage specialists to design an instrument from the ground up. That process includes choosing wood tops, neck profiles, pickups, hardware, finishes, and aging techniques drawn from Gibson’s renowned Custom Murphy Lab, with every finished guitar handcrafted by Gibson Custom artisans back in Nashville. It is the kind of offering that turns a retail visit into something closer to a bespoke commissioning process, giving serious collectors and working musicians alike a reason to make the trip to Wynwood beyond simply browsing the floor.
In a statement announcing the opening, Gibson’s interim chief executive Anne Rohosy framed the new location as reflecting a broader shift in how retail itself is evolving, describing the Garage concept as something that goes well beyond a simple transaction by inviting people in to play, explore, and connect with the brand’s history in a tangible, real world setting. That philosophy has clearly shaped every detail of the Miami build out, from the interactive instrument displays to the dedicated performance stage to the custom guitar program, all designed to give visitors a reason to linger rather than simply pass through.
Gibson has indicated that additional details about the opening week celebrations, including confirmed artist appearances and live performance programming, will be announced in the weeks leading up to the September debut. For musicians, collectors, and music fans across South Florida, Gibson Garage Miami is shaping up to be one of the most significant new additions to the city’s cultural landscape this fall, giving Wynwood a permanent, hands on tribute to more than 130 years of guitar craftsmanship right in the middle of one of the country’s most creative neighborhoods.
A Sweeping Week in Heavy Metal: King Diamond Rebuilds His Guitar Chair, Guns N’ Roses Kicks Off a Marathon Tour, and a Wave of New Music Hits Every Corner of the Genre
Heavy metal rarely goes quiet for long, but the past several days have delivered an unusually dense stretch of news spanning nearly every corner of the genre, from a decades old lineup shakeup in the world of horror rock to a stadium sized tour kickoff, an industrial pioneer’s farewell announcement, and a genuinely packed local calendar for fans in New Jersey. Here is a full accounting of everything worth knowing right now.
King Diamond has entered a new era after parting ways with Andy LaRocque, the guitarist who had stood beside him since 1985 and played on every one of the band’s twelve studio albums. The split was announced as mutual, with King Diamond’s social media statement describing LaRocque’s four decade tenure as leaving a permanent and irreplaceable mark on both the band and heavy metal as a whole. Taking his place is Gus G, the Greek born guitarist best known for founding Firewind and for serving as Ozzy Osbourne’s lead guitarist from 2009 through 2017, a run that included work on the Grammy nominated album Scream. King Diamond confirmed that Gus will compose, record, and tour with the band going forward while continuing his other projects without restriction, a transition timed directly to the band’s work on an upcoming trilogy of new concept albums. For a band whose guitar chair has been occupied by essentially one man for forty years, the change marks one of the more significant lineup moments in the genre this year.
On the festival front, 70000 Tons of Metal has unveiled the first wave of confirmed acts for its 2027 voyage, and the initial fourteen names already give a strong sense of how stacked the sailing will be. Arch Enemy, Moonspell, Evergrey, Obscura, and eleven other bands are locked in for the cruise, which departs Miami for Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic aboard Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas from January 14 through 18. Among the most anticipated appearances is guitar legend Uli Jon Roth, the former Scorpions guitarist and a founding figure of neoclassical metal, who will perform two dedicated sets marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Scorpions albums Virgin Killer and In Trance, playing the former in its entirety and leaning heavily on the latter during his second appearance. Organizers have confirmed forty six additional acts are still to be announced, meaning this year’s cruise lineup is only beginning to take shape.
Arch Enemy, one of the bands already confirmed for that cruise, has spent the past several months navigating its own significant transition. New vocalist Lauren Hart, an Australian singer who previously fronted Once Human and has guested with Kamelot, stepped into the band following Alissa White Gluz’s departure late last year, debuting with the single To The Last Breath in February before playing her first live show with the band in Beijing that March. Reflecting on the experience in a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Hart called the opportunity a dream come true and described the moment as reconnecting her with the version of herself who fell in love with Arch Enemy as a teenager listening to the band’s 2001 album Wages of Sin. Founding guitarist Michael Amott has been similarly enthusiastic about the pairing, praising Hart’s voice, professionalism, and dedication as bringing a rare level of excellence to the band’s next chapter.
On the stadium side of the genre, Guns N’ Roses opened the North American leg of their sprawling 2026 world tour with a marathon 29 song performance at Carter Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina. The set leaned heavily on the band’s landmark debut, pulling eight songs from Appetite for Destruction, including opener Welcome to the Jungle and closer Paradise City, while also weaving in a run of covers spanning Bob Dylan, Wings, The Damned, Velvet Revolver, and Black Sabbath. Public Enemy opened the Raleigh show as part of a rotating support bill that will also bring out Ice Cube, The Black Crowes, Pierce the Veil, and The Barbarians of California across the tour’s run through Atlanta in September, giving fans across the continent a genuinely varied opening act experience depending on which date they attend.
Industrial music, meanwhile, is bidding farewell to one of its most influential and confrontational voices. Ministry has announced Hate to Go, subtitled Take Out or Delivery, as the band’s seventeenth and final studio album, arriving October 30 through Cleopatra Records alongside the churning first single Burned Out. Frontman Al Jourgensen did not mince words about the decision, stating plainly that he is done and at peace with closing the book on a band he formed in 1981, adding that it is time, in his words, to herd goats. The album includes one last collaboration with longtime songwriting partner Paul Barker on its closing track, and Ministry has confirmed the European leg of its farewell tour, dubbed Goodbye Europe, will launch next April with support from Die Krupps, with a full United States run still to be detailed.
Trivium is heading into its own next chapter with a substantial new headlining run. The band has announced a 32 date North American tour beginning November 5 in St. Petersburg, Florida, and running through December 19 in Charlotte, North Carolina, bringing along In Flames, Orbit Culture, Fit for an Autopsy, and Frozen Soul across various stretches of the trek. The tour marks what the band is calling the unofficial start of its next era, introducing new drummer Alex Rudinger to North American audiences for the first time while previewing material from the follow up to 2021’s In the Court of the Dragon, with the routing bringing the tour through New York, Toronto, Chicago, and a Philadelphia stop along the way.
New music has continued flooding in as well. The week of July 24 brought a genuinely loaded release calendar, headlined by New York hardcore mainstays Madball dropping their new album Not Your Kingdom, industrial veterans Combichrist unleashing The Venom in the Mouth of God, and Swedish technical metal pioneers Meshuggah marking the twentieth and thirtieth anniversaries of two of their most influential records, Catch Thirtythree and Destroy Erase Improve, with newly issued digital re-releases through Reigning Phoenix Music.
For fans looking to catch something live closer to home, the coming days bring a genuinely strong run of shows across New Jersey. Dutch straight edge hardcore institution Vitamin X, a band whose history stretches back to Amsterdam in 1997 and includes a pair of sold out CBGB appearances in the early 2000s, rolls through a Central Jersey underground space in New Brunswick alongside Controller and Heatens, giving local hardcore fans a rare chance to catch a genuinely international act in an intimate setting. On July 30, JUMP, a Toledo, Ohio based tribute act built around the David Lee Roth era of Van Halen, brings its high energy homage to Asbury Lanes in Asbury Park, delivering roughly two hours of classic riffs and gymnastic guitar work from a band whose members have themselves become an increasingly in demand act on the tribute circuit. And on July 31, the Meatlocker in Montclair, a basement level DIY venue with more than four decades of history hosting underground acts from across the world, plays host to Velvet Forever, Solitude, and Trichor, giving fans a gritty, unpretentious showcase of the kind of local heavy and alternative talent that has always defined New Jersey’s underground scene.
Taken together, this stretch of news captures heavy metal at its most dynamic, with legacy institutions reshaping their lineups and legacies, stadium scale tours rolling through the summer heat, an industrial pioneer preparing to say goodbye on his own terms, and an unusually rich local calendar giving fans across New Jersey plenty of reasons to head out to a show in the coming days.
Epiphone and Billie Joe Armstrong Strip Punk Rock Down to Its Essentials With the New Radiant Red Les Paul Junior
Some guitars are built to do everything. The Les Paul Junior has never been one of them, and that is exactly the point. Epiphone has just unveiled the latest version of its signature collaboration with Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, releasing the Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior in a bold new Radiant Red finish that brings one of punk rock’s most iconic instruments back into the spotlight with a fresh coat of paint and the same uncompromising, no frills spirit that has defined it since its debut.
Armstrong’s relationship with the Les Paul Junior goes back decades, and it has always been rooted in a simple philosophy: strip away everything that gets in the way of the performance. Epiphone first introduced its Armstrong signature model in a Classic White finish back in 2021, and the guitar quickly became a favorite among players drawn to its minimalist design and unfiltered tone. This new Radiant Red edition keeps that same core formula intact while giving the instrument a considerably louder, more attention grabbing look, arriving as a limited run rather than a permanent addition to the lineup.
At the center of the design is a philosophy that has guided Armstrong’s entire career, one built around one pickup, two knobs, and absolutely nothing else standing between a player and their sound. The guitar features a single cutaway mahogany body paired with a set mahogany neck cut to a substantial 50s Vintage profile, giving it a chunky, familiar feel in the hand that recalls the earliest generation of Gibson’s original Junior model. A rosewood fretboard fitted with 22 medium jumbo frets and pearloid dot inlays keeps the playing experience smooth and effortless, while Vintage Deluxe tuners and a Graph Tech nut round out a build clearly designed with touring reliability in mind. A reproduction of Armstrong’s own signature stamped onto the back of the headstock adds a final, personal touch that separates this model from any standard production instrument.
The electronics follow the same stripped down approach that has always defined the Junior platform. A single Epiphone P-90 PRO pickup handles the entire tonal range of the instrument, delivering the aggressive midrange bite and raw punch that have become inseparable from Armstrong’s sound over more than three decades fronting Green Day. That pickup is wired to master volume and tone controls built around high quality CTS potentiometers, giving players a surprising amount of tonal range from what is, on paper, an extremely simple electronics layout. Rounding out the hardware is a nickel plated Lightning Bar wraparound bridge mounted directly to the body, a configuration long favored for the added sustain and resonance it provides, along with a black single ply pickguard that keeps the guitar’s aesthetic firmly rooted in Les Paul Junior tradition. Every unit ships inside a custom black hardshell case lined with a leopard print interior, a small but distinctly punk rock detail that Epiphone has carried over from the original Armstrong signature release.
The timing of this launch is no accident. Green Day remains one of the most consistently active arena and stadium touring acts in modern rock, and Armstrong has continued expanding his signature gear lineup well beyond the guitar itself, recently partnering with Marshall on a companion signature amplifier head modeled after the sound that powered Green Day’s breakthrough era. Taken together, the new amp and the Radiant Red Les Paul Junior give players an unusually direct path toward recreating Armstrong’s exact rig, right down to the finish on the instrument itself.
For a guitar built around subtraction rather than addition, the Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior in Radiant Red manages to make a considerable statement. It is not a guitar designed to impress with switching options or tonal versatility. It is designed to be picked up, plugged in, and played loud, exactly the way Armstrong has approached his instrument since Green Day’s earliest days playing basement shows and small clubs before the band became one of punk rock’s defining global acts. The Epiphone Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior in Radiant Red is available now worldwide through authorized Epiphone dealers, Gibson Garage locations in Nashville and London, and directly through Epiphone’s own website, though as a limited edition release, it is not expected to stick around for long.
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