DAYS OF OUR LIVES

What’s more punk than playing the biggest arenas in the world, giving your new album a frankly unprintable title and playing a bass with an ancient shape? Nothing, that’s what. We know because we asked Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt...

- Mike Brooks

Mike Dirnt is an often-cited bass influence in these pages and beyond, responsible for drawing many a young player into the joys of bassdom. Furthermore, he blew away the definition of a ‘punk bassist’ years ago. The man has far more artillery in his cannon than that, as we discovered when we caught up with Dirnt for a much-needed update and some enlightening conversation.

With their new album Father Of All Motherf***ers recently unleashed on the world, Green Day are in a good place. The new record covers a lot of ground, as Dirnt confirms: “There’s definitely some 1950s rock’n’roll in there, and we’ve got some 70s glam in there, too; a little bit of Phil Spector and I’m playing with some newer tones that are pushing forward. What was nice was that I was able to play a lot lower, a lot of deeper notes, and drop more actual sub-low bass than I ever have before.”

Sounds intriguing... “Well, I’ve always gone back and forth between the punk side of where we come from and old-school rock’n’roll. Much of this album was split between one of my signature series basses and an old flatwound-equipped Fender Mustang, which gave me a kind of old-style Hofner tone. To record that, I was running through one of my Fender Super Bassman amps.”