Green Day's Mike Dirnt gets his own Epiphone Grabber signature bass
Green Day's Mike Dirnt now has a signature bass built around the 1970s Gibson Grabber he made his own. We love Green Day, so here is the bass, the rig, and the strings that hold up his P-bass thump.
By Lowe, Bass Desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Billie Joe ArmstrongEpiphone has given Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt a signature Grabber G-3: a double-cutaway maple bass with a 34-inch-scale three-piece neck, black abalone dot inlays, three Gibson G-3 pickups, and a Leo Quan Badass II bridge, offered in two finishes. 'I've been willing this to happen forever,' Dirnt told Guitar Player. His documented strings are Fender Super 7250 in a .045 to .105 gauge, the thump behind Dookie and every Green Day record since.
Dirnt's Grabber, made official
Epiphone has given Mike Dirnt his own signature bass, and it is the one longtime Green Day watchers would have guessed: a Grabber. The Grabber G-3 is built on a double-cutaway maple body with a 34-inch-scale three-piece neck and black abalone dot inlays, and it carries three Gibson G-3 pickups into a Leo Quan Badass II bridge. It ships in two finishes.
The bass means something to Dirnt. "I've been willing this to happen forever," he told Guitar Player. "I thought it was never gonna happen. And now, here we are." Which tracks with his story: born in Oakland and raised in El Sobrante, he started out on guitar next to a kid named Billie Joe Armstrong, whom he met at Carquinez Middle School when they were ten, before he ever picked up a bass.
The strings behind the thump
A signature bass is fun, but Dirnt's tone is not really about the body wood. It is about a P-style bass, a pick, and a consistent set of strings. His documented set is Fender Super 7250 roundwounds in a .045 to .105 gauge, and he runs the same gauge on every bass he owns. That consistency is a real part of why Green Day's low end sounds the same, punchy and articulate, from Dookie to Saviors.
You do not need the signature Grabber to chase that sound. A standard .045 to .105 nickel roundwound set is the whole trick, and a comparable option like the Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Bass lands in the same medium-heavy lane on any P-style bass. Match the gauge, play with a pick near the bridge, and you are most of the way to the tone. The full sourced rig lives on Dirnt's CYS profile.
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