Mike Dirnt

“You know what the best thing about San Francisco is? You can see Oakland from it.”

“There should be a law against lip syncing. Anybody who can't play live should be either strung up or have their musical talent revoked.”

“I tried my hand at two Sonic Youth records. I had one given to me and I bought two and... I'd be damed if they made more than one spin.”

“At one point, we were in Europe and we slept in this gal’s house. And upstairs, in a room, everyone’s piled in there, it was a small room and we were literally piled almost two high across the entire room. And her brother had shot himself in there. He was playing around, playing Russian roulette, joking around. And it was like, 'Go upstairs and sleep, just stay off the carpet.'”

“The sheer volume of 'blah blah' takes the wind out of the sails of real anger. It just gets lost when everyone says, 'I'm so angry!' Why are you angry because you were overlooked in the queue at McDonalds?!”

“I never imagined that our music would be so widely accepted. The situation we’re in now all things we never even dreamed of. People ask me, ‘You dreamed of this, didn’t you?’ I tell them, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I never dreamed of this.’”

“Music is all about sharing the power and love for music with others. If you don’t share it, you’re not having the full experience.”

“If you think too much about rock ’n’ roll, you end up with a big head and a lot of self-consciousness.”

“Basically, our first drummer said, ‘Believe in music,’ but he didn’t really believe in it. He couldn’t even bring himself to tell his mom that he wasn’t going to college and that he wanted to pursue music professionally. Or maybe he really just didn’t believe in music that much. In the end, I guess he wanted a stable life. It had already been proven that punk music would never be popular with the general public anyway… and now he’s doing well for himself.”

“Billie and me both wanted to be the class clown. He intrigued me because he could play the guitar. I’d finally found someone who’d listen to all my stupid jokes, and we became best friends. Before that, I played the piano a bit, but I wasn’t doing anything special. But Billie taught me how to play the guitar, and it worked. ”

“Music was always an escape for me. It was another world where I could just channel all my anger through the bass, and that would fit perfectly into the melodies that Billie wrote. ”

“When we play our last song, we don’t want to scream at the crowd. We want to feel a sense of unity with them.”

“I’ve always thought that writing songs and only playing them for yourself is half of the story. Performing those songs for others is the other half. Playing in front of people gives you that fear and adrenaline rush that makes you want to do it again. The first song you play live is always the scariest. And then there’s the fun of overcoming that fear. It’s incredible to overcome it every night.”

“Back in the day, I think it was on the Kerplunk Tour, we had a show booked in New Jersey. I remember arriving there and there were 1,100 people there, even though we’d never played New Jersey before. I was really surprised. That’s how we did it – we just toured a lot. People always ask us, ‘How did you make it?’ But we just spread the word little by little. We toured a lot, and toured a lot, and toured some more. We loved playing, so that gave us a positive attitude towards our work.”

“Billie says that this is our high school band, which it is. But what I take from it too is that our fans have grown up listening to us just the same as we’ve grown up. People say, ‘I grew up listening to your band,’ and I’m like, ‘So did I!’”

“We ask for what we think we deserve. With every album, I think our value increases a bit.”

“One thing that both me and Billie can relate to is what happens if you are brought up in a house full of women. It opens your eyes real quick and shows you a sense of respect for the world.”

“In the best way, it's humbling to be surrounded by people who know you so well. You have to get used to the fact that you definitely won't be treated like a rock star at home – it's a bit of a blow to your ego at first, but then it's very liberating.”

“Punk rock had already been proven that it couldn't be popular. We were playing punk shows and just doing our thing. We had no clue whatsoever that it could go as far as it did. But when it got to the point where we thought it could, we either had to get bigger or break up.”

“We already knew about Tre Cool. The first time we saw him play, he was wearing a ballet tutu and had one of those old lady swimming caps with flowers on his head, but he was rocking it. As soon as I saw him on the streets with his drums, backpack and suitcase, I immediately thought it was a sign. And then he had an amazing bag of weed, and that first day instantly became a glorious Green Day.”

“We had one lady walk into the bookmobile. We were smoking so much weed. She walks in, and she's standing there for a second. She looks and goes, ‘Oh! This isn't a bookmobile, is it?’ She got all the way into the vehicle in a cloud of smoke.”

“We grew up in the same suburban town. If you wanted to hear music, you had to play it, because we didn't have a record store in town. We were little kids and we had no way to get money – our parents were counting every dime, you know – but we saved up ourselves and Billie Joe got a guitar and played stuff. Then I started savin' like crazy. It took me a while, but I learned to play guitar and then I finally got one... it was the funnest thing we ever could do.”

“While we were off, I started to see some people and took some bass lessons. I like to play a lot of jazz. In fact, that’s how I came up with Longview, playing a jazz thing one day.”

“My mom had a roommate who was a guitar player, he’d show me how to play a couple of things here and there. Then lo and behold, I have a sleepover at Billie’s house, he says let’s learn some songs together and the next day we had a sort of band.”

“Where we come from, people were telling us, don’t change, don’t change, don’t change. Y'know, I’ve been the same guy for so fucking long I don’t need them to tell me anymore. I know who I am.”

“I think we’re the first ones to yell at each other, but we’re also the first ones to be there when the other’s life is totally falling apart.”

“I love what America is supposed to stand for, but I love what a lot of things are supposed to stand for. The message has become convoluted and it’s hard to get people in this country on the same page about things that, quite honestly, you should know when you’re six years old.”

“Billie dropped out halfway through his senior year. He gave a copy of our first album to his English teacher. She gave it back to him with red marks all over it. That record sold over a million copies. Fuck. You.”

“Somebody impersonated me years ago and went home with some girl and stole all her jewellery and credit cards. The cops were trying to prosecute me for six months!”

“When we were kids, we were shits. I remember times when we would walk block after block over the hoods of cars or just roll bowling balls down the steepest streets in Seattle.”

“Every once in a while we’ll be walking through wherever we’re at, Italy or Germany or somewhere, we’ll see a squat and me and Tre’ll stumble in and end up smoking hash with some crusty guys. We can do that because they know we were there before.”

“I saw somebody say the other day, ‘They played a couple of covers when they should have squeezed in some more of their old catalog, but I guess it’s OK since they did 33 songs.’ Fuck you. Who plays 33 songs? Not to mention, some of those songs are seven and nine minutes long. Come on, man.”

“My ex-wife told me she was leaving me the day we finished American Idiot. It was a blessing but just an emotional drain. It was horrible and great. When we mastered the record, I cried through the whole thing.”

“My ex-wife told me she was leaving me the day we finished American Idiot. It was a blessing but just an emotional drain. It was horrible and great. When we mastered the record, I cried through the whole thing.”

“I grew up with my mom hating the white man but loving me – and call me perceptive, but I was able to figure out that my mom loved me and hated other people for political reasons. I was one of those kids who’d walk around the neighborhood and talk to the adults and learn a lot. I’m good with people.”

“There are times when Billie Joe calls Bush an asshole from the stage, and we see a guy throw us the finger - but then they’ll change it into a fist and start pumping the air.”

“Some of the toughest times of our lives were living in squats and being completely unsure about what’s gonna happen next month, let alone next year.”

“We’re like the ultimate motorcycle gang – the only way you can leave is if you kill somebody.”

“I never claimed to be the best—I just want to be the catchiest.”

“At many a party, Tré played on pots and pans and cardboard boxes as well.”

“About 20 years ago, I let a kid play my bass, and he thought it would be cool to smash it at the end. It took everything I had not to knock his fucking teeth out.”

“We still have our anger and shit, but there's a greater good involved here”

“Sometimes you need coffee, and sometimes you need a Bloody Mary.”

“If you start planning too far ahead, the next thing you know you forget you're living today”

“The principal called me in and laughed and said "Mike, no one in this school has more detentions than you."”

“A turtle does come in it's own bowl”

“It's no use analyzing your life the whole time. Those analyses won’t help you when you’re dead.”

“They always say ain't that a bitch. That's why they call them the obitchuaries.”

“I'm gonna be cremated. I don't want to be stuck in any box. Maybe they'll bury me upside down and plant a seed in my ass.”

“All my religious beliefs are based on Star Wars.”

“I have a daughter and she's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. She gives me a good excuse to watch cartoons.”

“Stop throwing shit or I'll jump in there and beat your ass.”

“I'll remember 1994 as the year that ate shit...”

“We write music for ourselves and if other people like it, that's great.”

“Don't blame me for the explosion of punk rock. I didn't know our music was going to get that big.”

“Dogs are gonna take over the world. It's a known fact for those who believe it, kinda like the Bible.”

“Are any of these vegetables magic? I mean, if I rub this bean on my foot will I run faster?”

“Green Day is like sex, when we're good, we're really good, when we're bad . . . we're still pretty damn good.”

“It's the end of the day, I've got my Chinese chicken salad, Mike's a happy boy.”

“Tre doesn't need to use a condom. He has a huge overlapping foreskin. He just ties it in a knot.”

“I always said that the world is a better place because of Joey Ramone”

“If my kid didn't rebel, she wouldn't be my kid”

“Then all of a sudden we got introduced to punk music and it was the coolest fuckin' thing”