Green Day’s Mike Dirnt on His Epiphone G-3 Signature Bass and Chasing His Sound

In 1994, a new entry was etched into the registry of songs every bass player should learn. Green Day’s “Longview” is driven by Mike Dirnt’s bouncy bass line, which adds a pseudo-jazz feel to punk rock. It’s creative, demanding, and extremely fun to play. It also sounds amazing thanks to his trusty Gibson Grabber G-3, which was recently reissued as a signature Epiphone model for Dirnt.

With his new bass out now, we caught up with Dirnt for a wide-ranging interview. In part one, we dive deep into the nitty-gritty of his gear and his tone. Dirnt is a certified bass nerd, and he gave us the scoop on all the little details that went into his new bass, the modifications of his original bass, and the evolution of his tone. Our rapid-fire bass questions also give insight into his preferences. (Be sure to check out the latest bass he bought!)

Dive into the deep end of Mike Dirnt’s bass gear, and stay tuned for part two.

I want to start off by telling you a little bit of my musical story. I started playing bass when I was like 10 or 11. The first two CDs I bought were Smash by The Offspring and Dookie, and my dad made me throw them both away. Looking back, I think it’s hilarious, so I wanted to tell you. Do you hear that kind of stuff much?

I do. Mainly with Dookie it was because of “F.O.D.” at the end. Moms would walk in and hear it… and they saw Ernie [from Sesame Street] on the back. We had Ernie on the back of the first pressings, and everybody thought it was like this kids’ record.

I remember a few parents complained to the Children’s Television Workshop and we ended up having to pull Ernie off the back of, I don’t know how many pressings it was… 500,000 or something. We just put a little line that said “RIP Ernie,” and then we gave a donation to Children’s Television Workshop. Back then, it was kind of a bigger deal.

You’ve got a few big things going on right now, and the big one in the bass world, of course, is the new G-3 signature. What prompted the model to come back?

Well, it’s funny. Honestly, just timing, I think. I’ve had that signature Fender for years and I love those basses, but there wasn’t really a tie-in for the 30th anniversary of Dookie.

I’ve always wanted to do this with Gibson, and it just never worked out between my timing and their timing. It came back around again and somehow, very organically, it was offered up. They said, “Hey, would you want to redo that again?” And I’m like, well, the timing is kind of cool, but they’ve got to do it right.

So first, we started having conversations. They said, “Look, we could put Gibson on the headstock, but we can’t make a bolt-on neck right now.” They didn’t have the equipment anymore or something like that. They said, “But we can do the exact quality and everything you would want out of Epiphone.”

I said, “I would love that. Let’s go.” Honestly, you won’t be able to tell the difference at this point. You’ll just go, “Oh, what is that? Oh, those were made in that model year.” I think it kind of gives it a distinction.

And I feel like, you know, I know how great this bass is. Hats off to the Epiphone team. They freaking killed it. I’ve been playing them on stage for two years now, basically.

What tweaks were you looking for over the two years?

We started this process probably three years ago now. I gave them my bass to analyze. One thing we realized early on: I said, “You know, I’ve got this Maton guitar that I love, and it has this really cool ebony fretboard.”

They were like, “Absolutely, we can do that.” So that was cool. When it came, I just loved it. It sounds like maple, but it’s buttery like ebony, which is something that you don’t get with rosewood. Rosewood can be a little sticky sometimes if it’s dry, or the grain in it can get at you. But with ebony, the grain doesn’t get in the way of any lateral fatigue when you’re sliding all over it. It just feels great, and it’s punchy.

Things like the Badass II bridge, analyzing the pickups… that was a big one: making sure the pickups sounded every bit as good as mine, if not better. Honestly, I had my bass out on tour, and I had those out on tour. [On one gig,] I had to throw my bass onto a road case because we got rushed off the stage because somebody flew a drone into the show.

Billy Corgan actually saved my bass from falling off of it, but I broke the pickup in it. So I ended up playing the other ones all the time, and I just never went back.

I was playing those for like three or four songs a night. They were just the prototypes, but we had done so much R&D up to that point it was just a matter of the finishing.

The prototypes were all matte, and I realized I wanted the gloss. I think you’re missing the detail of the body with the matte. So we ended up going with the gloss, which I think looks beautiful.
There’s something I did on the headstock, which is that there’s a little name plate on it that says Mike Dirnt. I included a little delete plate there where you can put your own on there and leave it blank, or you can carve your own name in there if you want to.

I think it’s cool. Somebody might want to play this and I’m like, “Go put your own name on it. Go make your own history.”

I think a lot of people want to emulate your tone and that kind of stuff, but they still have to find their own voice, right?

Yeah. It’s like when a clothing company puts their logo in the wrong place on a great piece of clothing. You know, we don’t need that. We’re just going to give you this little thing, and if you want to carve your name in it, you can do that too. I think that’s really fun.

But I think the Leo Quan Badass II bridge – for the scale of the bass and for the height – my tech, Darian, was telling me, “Man, the height on this thing, the way it sets, it actually sets better than yours ever did.”

I was watching the Matt Freeman interview you did last year about the prototype, and it had the matte finish then. He also showed the bridge and it was a little bit different.

I replaced the original bridge when we were in Germany back in ’91. One of my pickups broke and then my bridge was completely rusted out.

In fact, [when he replaced the bridge,] he never took the strings out. So I still have the same strings in the body-through on the back of that. They’re like 30-year-old strings. [laughs]

But that was a Gotoh bridge on that one, and it was great. It did a great job on that. And then I had that Bartolini, and this German luthier we brought it to was like, “I’ve got a good pickup for that.” That Bartolini had a very similar sound. It didn’t change my sound, which was amazing. The guy killed it with that.

When we sent my bass in, I said the one thing that Bartolini did is it added a little extra low end.
I think between the Bartolini pickup and the pots that they used, they were able to get a little more low end out of it, and it still retains all that punch and that 1–2k that cuts through with all the little ear-candy things that I try to play.

That top end seems to be a signature part of your sound. How would you describe your tone? What do you go for?

The evolution of my sound has changed with every record.

The first bass I had was a Peavey Patriot that I recorded the first record on. It didn’t have a lot of tone, but it cut through. It was woolly, almost like a cheaper P-Bass, right?

And then when I got the G-3, that was distinctive and it was great because Billie’s guitar – he got a bigger amp and it was cutting through.

Traditionally on each record, our guitar sounds have gotten bigger and bigger with Green Day. So my challenge has been, through bass design, through helping Fender curate the Super Bassmans and everything else: how do I cut through these giant guitars and make the low end punch?

We’re all sharing low end. You can only stack so much. Tré’s got three floor toms, and I love the way he plays those floor toms, but it’s definitely a rub sometimes in the mix for me. It’s like, how do I punch through?
So it’s always been: how do I stand out within these giant guitars?

There are two guys I think of when I think of that sort of thing. First is the wall of guitars from Hüsker Dü, and how Greg Norton just sort of was bouncing around in the background – you could hear it like a bouncing ball.
And then Ross Valory from Journey. I was listening to Journey about a year ago and I was like, “Holy [expletive], he’s kind of doing the thing that I do,” which is these little bits and pieces popping out in between big guitars.
It’s a Bay Area reference, you know, but you hear it on the radio and you listen and you go, “Oh, what is that little thing?” He had a really mid-rangy, sort of honky, punchy sound, but it kicked in little bits here and there, and I was like, “Yeah, those are great little hooks, man.”

Ok, we’ve got some rapid-fire bass questions for you. Active or passive?

Good question. Both. Mostly passive. I lean passive, but there’s a thing about active. With a passive pickup, it designates how close to the strings you can set it before the magnets have a negative impact and cut out your tone.
Whereas active, you can play a little lighter. As long as you have a very good preamp in there, you can extend the note longer.

…I get into this stuff. I’m a nerd. In regards to sound, I am all in.

Tube or solid state?

Tube preamp, solid-state power.

Favorite fretboard material right now?

Overall maple, but right now it’s ebony.

Case or gig bag?

Gig bag.

Do you have a gig bag that you prefer?

Not really. I’ve got to say the Fender ones are pretty good because I like the shoulder straps, but not really. I had a Roadrunner one that I thought was good, but gig bags are supposed to be cheap and they’re supposed to be great.

I’d love to see really cool different colors of gig bags and tweed ones and things like that, or canvas. They need to get into making the gig bag more special. I’ll work on that.

Latest bass acquisition besides your new signature bass, obviously?

A Kent from London. It’s a hollow body. It’s like a 1960s hollow-body Kent, and the body looks like an oversized SG, but it’s squared off, like a flat-top. It just feels really good to play and it’s [expletive] cool.
It’s a cool one. I bought it in London and they shipped it out. It was only 900 bucks, but it’s really cool-looking, man. Having it in the house makes you go, “Yeah, that’s [expletive] cool.”

And ironically, it sounds pretty good. It’s kind of got almost a Höfner vibe to it, but it has more clean tone. Honestly, it kind of sounds like a Höfner mixed with my G-3.

Is there a piece of gear that you regret selling or parting with?

That’s a good question. Yeah – but it’s not a bass. I had a ’59 Burst.

I bought it because I hate the stock market. I was like, you know what, let’s buy this. We can use it in the studio. And we did, and it was awesome. Over time I was like, I’m not playing it. I wasn’t an investor for money or anything – I don’t collect to hold on to things. I’d rather get rid of them.

I sold it to a friend who got it in the hands of somebody who really plays a lot. That was my thing. But I was like, damn, I should’ve held on to that. Other than that, just some of my first basses were stolen, so I wish I had those still.