Mike Dirnt - Green Day's Bassist, backing vocal

Mike Dirnt (born Michael Ryan Pritchard; May 4, 1972) is the American bassist and backing vocalist for the American punk rock band Green Day. While at school, he would play "air-bass". While pretending to pluck the strings, he made a noise: "dirnt, dirnt, dirnt", so his friends started to call him that name in High School.

Biography

Dirnt was born in Orlando but grew up in Rodeo, California. He was adopted by a Native American mother and a European American father. He has one stepsister, Myla, who left home when she was 13. Soon after Dirnt's 6th birthday, his adoptive parents divorced, leaving him torn between his father, a prosperous computer programmer, and his struggling mother. "I grew up with my mom hating the white man and loving me," he has said. His mother later remarried. "When I was in fourth or fifth grade, my mom stayed out all night, came home the next day with a guy, and then he moved in. I'd never met the guy, and suddenly he's my step-dad." When asked about his stepdad, he says, "We didn't get along for years."^[1]
"Later on," Dirnt continues, "my mom moved away and my stepdad and I got real close. He instilled a lot in me. The one thing my family did give me is blue collar morals. But he died when I was 17."^[1] Dirnt had left home at 15 to live out of his truck, but later rented a room in Billie Joe Armstrong's house. He attended Salesian High School (where he briefly played with the band Helder and the Heldernauts), John Swett High School, and ended up graduating from Pinole Valley High School in 1990, and Green Day went on their first tour the day after graduation.
However, Dirnt almost didn't graduate. He had missed school because of work, and his mother wasn't around to sign absentee forms. Two unexcused absences caused him to lose a full grade point; and at the end of senior year, he had lowly results instead of the grades he'd worked to achieve. "I took my mom aside and I said to her, 'This is how it is. You have so much stuff going on in your life, so if once every semester you ask me if I've done my homework and jump all over my case, that's not right. I haven't failed yet, have I? And I'm going to graduate if you stay off my back. The one time in your life you choose to have morals, and it's going to mess me up. Don't play mom once a year. It doesn't cut it.'"^[1]
Dirnt met Billie Joe Armstrong in 1982, at age ten, in the Rodeo Elementary School cafeteria, a few months before Armstrong's father died. He first founded Sweet Children with Armstrong in 1987, then Green Day with Armstrong and former Isocracy drummer Al Sobrante in 1989. Some years before, Dirnt moved in with Armstrong because his adoptive mother and stepsister moved away from Rodeo. Dirnt did not want to move away from his new-found best friend and love for music.
Green Day's Woodstock '94 gig was one for the history books: a huge mud fight ensued between the band and the audience. So many mud-covered fans got up on stage by the end of the set that one of the security guards mistook Dirnt for a marauding fan, tackled him, and broke several of his teeth while attempting to haul him off the stage.
He used to play an old Gibson G-3 bass, but during Nimrod., Tré Cool accidentally broke it on stage trying to show fan Brendan Taylor how to spin a bass around his back. Armstrong then sent Dirnt's bass tech out to get him a new bass. It resulted in a '69 Fender Precision Bass. He later asked Fender to make him a custom P-Bass, and the result is modeled after the '51 P-Bass with a '59 Custom Shop "Hot Rod" Split-Coil Pickup, a BadAss II bridge and a thinner neck. It was released in early 2004.

[edit] Personal life

Dirnt has a daughter, Estelle Desiree who was born in December of 1996 and has the nickname "Hero", whom he recently won full custody over in summer 2008 and took her to live in LA. In 2004 he married his then girlfriend Sarah. The two divorced that same year. Dirnt also has a son named Brixton Michael with Brittney Cade, born on October 11, 2008. Brittney and Mike were wed on March 14, 2009 in a private ceremony in Ojai, California.
Dirnt is part owner of Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, a diner in Emeryville, California.
After the album Warning was released, Dirnt needed surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. ^[2]

[edit] Equipment

Mike Dirnt (center) and Tré Cool

Basses

• Mike Dirnt Precision Bass (in several different colors including: black, white and a two-tone sunburst)
• Fender 1969 Vintage Precision Bass (w/ a BadAss II Bridge, Seymour Duncan Antiquity Pride II Pickups) aka. "Stella"
• Fender Standard Precision Bass
• Fender American Jazz Bass (used with the S-1 Switch "down")
• Fender 1966 Vintage Precision Bass
• Gibson G-3 Bass (no longer used)
• Peavey Patriot Bass (no longer used)

Amplification

• Mesa/Boogie M-2000 Head (x3)
• Mesa/Boogie 6x10 Custom Cab (x2+)
• Mesa/Boogie 1x18 Cab (x2+)
• Mesa/Boogie 2x10 Cab (x2+)
• Fender Pro 1200 Head (x2)
• Fender Pro 800 Head (x1)
• Fender Pro 810 Cab (x3+)

Misc

• Gretsch ..
• Fender Medium Nickel Plated Bass Strings
• Shure ULX Wireless
• Custom Audio Electronics Switcher
• Custom Moody 2.5" Signature Leather Straps
• Custom "Dirnt" Dunlop Tortex Picks .76 mm and .88 mm
• Zinky Master Blaster Boost Pedal
• Zinky True Grit Overdrive Pedal

Dirnt plays exclusively with a pick as opposed to plucking the strings with his fingers.