Mike Dirnt

Mike Dirnt
Origin	Rodeo, California
Years active	1988 to Present Day (With Green Day)

Mike Dirnt (born Michael Ryan Pritchard on May 4th, 1972, in Rodeo, California) is the bassist for the band Green Day. While at school, he would pretend to play the bass when unable to practice, making a noise of someone playing single notes (dirnt, dirnt, dirnt), resulting in the onomatopoeia that he later adopted as his stage name, Mike Dirnt.

Biography

Dirnt was born to a heroin-addicted teenage mother, who soon gave him up for adoption at 6 weeks old. He was adopted by a Native American mother and a Caucasian father. He has one step-sister, Myla, who left home at 13. Soon after Dirnt's 7th 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."

"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." Mike had left home at 15 to live out of his truck, but later rented a space over Billie Joe Armstrong's garage. He attended John Swett High School, switched schools, 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 crap 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' going to mess me up. Don't play mom once a year. It doesn't cut it.'"

Dirnt met Billie Joe Armstrong in 1982, in the Rodeo Elementery School cafeteria, a few months before Armstrong's father died. He first founded Sweet Children with Armstrong in 1988, 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 step-sister 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., Armstrong got Mike his first Fender Precision Bass. He also learned to play guitar and drums. He later asked Fender to make him a custom P-Bass, and the result is modeled after the '55 P-Bass with a split-coil pickup in the middle. It was released in early 2004.

Dirnt is also bassist in another band called The Frustrators. He was the bassist for Chicago punk band (and Lookout Records labelmates) Screeching Weasel on the album How to Make Enemies and Irritate People and also appeared as a guest vocalist on the debut album by Squirtgun (yet another Lookout Records recording artist).

While growing up, Mike sometimes worked as a chef to raise money for the band and himself. He now is the co-owner of Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, located in Emeryville, CA. [[1]]

Trivia

• He wrote the bassline for "Longview" while he was high and forgot it the next day.
• Mike took the picture of himself in the nimrod. booklet.
• Mike was born with a heart problem and sometimes has panic attacks.
• "Pulling Teeth" is a song about Mike and his wife before they got married, getting into a pillow fight and Mike ran around a corner, hit a lower ceil beam and fell back breaking both his elbows. He had 6 stitches on his head.
• Mike has written quite a few of Green Day's songs, including "Emenius Sleepus", "J.A.R.", "Governator", "Panic Song", "Ha Ha You're Dead" and "Nobody Likes You" from the medley "Homecoming", which appeared in their 2004 album American Idiot.
• In the Canadian cartoon 6teen there is a character named "Mike Dent" which may be a pun on his name.

See also

• Green Day
• Green Day's Homepage
• Green Day Online
• Green Day Authority - One of the best known Green Day fansites
• GeekStinkBreath.Net - Popular Green Day fansite

References

• Fender Australia: Mike Dirnt Precision Bass
• Metal Hammer Green Day Collectors Issue