| Mike Dirnt |
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Mike Dirnt (born '''Michael Ryan Pritchard''' on May 4 , 1972 , in Rodeo, California ) is best known as the bassist and backing vocalist of Green Day . While at school, he would play unamplified plucking the strings, making a noise soon familiar (dirnt, dirnt, dirnt), he later adopted 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 of age. He was adopted by a Native American mother and a European American 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. {Link without Title} "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 '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's going to mess me up. Don't play mom once a year. It doesn't cut it." {Link without Title} Dirnt met Billie Joe Armstrong in 1982 , in the Rodeo Elementary 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 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 '', Tre Cool accidentally broke it on stage. Armstrong then sent Mike'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" Single Coil Pickup, a BadAss II bridge and a thinner neck. 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 . Mike Dirnt married his girlfriend Anastasia in 1996, from whom he again separated a few years later because the pressure of the success of Green Day was too much for Anastasia. He has a daughter, Estelle-Desiree, who was born in April 1997 and has the nickname "Hero". In 2004 he married his then girlfriend Sarah. The two divorced that same year because Mike allegedly could not spend enough time with the family. EQUIPMENT ]] Basses
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