1. Mike Dirnt has played in several other bands, including the Frustrators.
22 Facts About Mike Dirnt
1. 2.
Mike Dirnt eventually saved enough money to purchase a used pickup truck that he and Armstrong often drove to Berkeley, where they attended shows at 924 Gilman Street, an influential DIY punk club.
3.
Mike Dirnt's mother struggled to provide for him and his sister as a single parent and eventually had to leave Rodeo in 1987 to look for work.
4.
Unwilling to leave Sweet Children, Armstrong and Mike Dirnt convinced each other's parents to allow Mike Dirnt to move into Armstrong's garage.
5.
Mike Dirnt often brought his bass to school, and the plucking noise of the unamplified strings led classmates to jokingly call him by the onomatopoeia "Mike Dirnt".
6.
Mike Dirnt helped form the secret Green Day side project The Network during the summer of 2003.
7.
Mike Dirnt played bass and provided backup vocals on the album.
8.
Mike Dirnt composed the intro to "Desensitized" from Shenanigans using a baseball bat and an old cathode ray tube television.
9.
Originally a guitar player, Mike Dirnt switched to bass when Green Day became a power trio.
10.
Mike Dirnt prefers a "warm and round" bass tone with enough upper midrange to contend with Armstrong's guitar tone.
11.
Mike Dirnt primarily recorded Dookie with a 1985 Fender Precision Bass, although he used a mid-1970s Gibson G3 for songs like Longview, the walking bassline of which was inspired by Dirnt's interest in jazz.
12.
Between Warning and American Idiot, Mike Dirnt developed a signature model bass with Fender.
13.
Mike Dirnt switched to Fender amps in 2003, using Bassman Pro and TB-1200 heads with 8x10 Pro cabs.
14.
In 2010, Mike Dirnt helped develop an updated Super Bassman model, which has since become his main amplifier.
15.
Mike Dirnt married his first wife, Anastasia Serman, in 1996; they divorced in 1999.
16.
Anastasia and Mike Dirnt had a daughter together, Estelle Desiree, who was born on December 20,1996.
17.
Mike Dirnt won full custody of his daughter in the summer of 2008 and took her to live in Oakland.
18.
Mike Dirnt is a Star Wars fan; he stated jokingly in an interview that he bases "most of his religious beliefs" on Star Wars.
19.
Mike Dirnt is a part owner of Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, a diner in Emeryville and Oakland.
20.
Mike Dirnt was adopted; his biological mother died on January 9,2013.
21.
Mike Dirnt only managed to meet her one month before her death.
22.
In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic Armstrong noted that Mike Dirnt is "basically becoming a farmer".