Blink-182‘s Mark Hoppus has paid tribute to Green Day‘s Mike Dirnt, who he said would always be “the beating heart of the low end”.
Last night (January 23), Dirnt was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Bass Magazine Awards, where Hoppus gave the crowd gathered at Santa Ana’s The Observatory a glowing ode to the musician.
“I feel like everyone here has their own origin story about how they fell in love with this bassist and this band,” his speech began. “And while they’re all very different, I’m willing to bet they’re fundamentally all the same. So I want to tell you my story.
“In the early ’90s, I was going to community college and playing bass in a garage band, and had dreams of one day actually going into a studio and recording a song – maybe even a demo or a single,” he recalled. “And at that time, one of the bands that I couldn’t get enough of was this East Bay stoner trio called Green Day.
“They were awesome. A friend of mine loaned me ‘Kerplunk’, and it was like, Ramones meets Descendants, meets some kind of fucking weird, Gilman Street shit that I didn’t understand, but I loved.”
@kroq @blink-182’s @Mark presented @Green Day’s Mike Dirnt with @Bass Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award #blink182 #greenday #music #bassplayer
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He praised their songwriting and melodies, as well as Dirnt’s efforts on the 1991 record, saying that throughout it all, “the beating heart of the low end was this fucking killer bassist”. Hoppus then reflected on moving to San Diego and meeting Tom DeLonge and forming Blink-182, who, in their early days, “were still learning how to write songs and practising our punk rock jumps in front of the mirror”.
“We went to a club called Soma to watch Green Day in a 1,200 cap club,” he continued, describing that night as “sweaty and shitty and fucking awesome”.
“They started songs, and tore through them, and broke them down, and went off script, and improvised, and the whole time, the beating heart of the low end was this fucking killer bassist,” he said.
His love of Dirnt’s sound also can be heard on Blink’s ‘What’s My Age Again?’, the riff for which Hoppus came up with after attempting the intro Green Day’s ‘J.A.R’ and playing it wrong.
Hoppus then looked back to the release of Green Day’s seminal album ‘Dookie’, saying he raced around San Diego searching for a copy in 1994. “‘Dookie’ blew my mind,” he said. “It was no surprise to me that the song that broke through and made punk rock mainstream success was ‘Longview’, which, of course, starts with Mike’s iconic baseline.”
Several years later, Blink-182 and Green Day toured together on the ‘Pop Disaster Tour’. “That tour was one of the highlights of my life,” Hoppus continued. “Mike was awesome from day one, at the photo shoots, at the press events, throughout the tour, and beyond.”
“When I was sick with cancer a few years ago, Mike texted me all the time to check in and see how I was doing. And also, he sent me a hot pink, Mike Dirnt signature Telecaster bass to lift my spirits.”
Rounding off his tribute, he summed Dirnt up as “kind of rockbilly, kind of punk rock, kind as hell, unapologetically himself, a master craftsman, and a great friend. And always, the beating heart of the low end.”
Last year, Hoppus spoke to NME about his band’s past rivalry with Green Day, which dated back to the aforementioned 2002 tour. Speaking to us about the strange competitiveness that the two bands felt towards each other during the tour, he said, “That was very strange because I grew up listening to Green Day. I literally waited for the day that ‘Dookie’ [1994] came out, and I was in line waiting to buy it.
“I was a huge fan, then we’re touring with them, but it was a weird thing where Green Day were dipping at the time, and Blink were ascendant. We were billed as co-headliners, but Blink were closing every night, and that was a strange sensation for us. Headlining over your idols is a little strange.”
At the time, Blink-182 had released their breakthrough album ‘Enema Of The State’ (1999) and its chart-topping follow-up ‘Take Off Your Pants And Jacket’ (2001). Green Day, meanwhile, were in the gap between 2000’s ‘Warning’, their worst-performing major label effort up to that point, and the resurgent popularity that would come their way with the huge ‘American Idiot’ album in 2004.
“We showed up, we thought we were cool, we had a Number One record [‘Take Off Your Pants And Jacket’], we were the first punk band to ever have a Number One record, Green Day were on their way down for a little bit,” Hoppus added.
“We walked in thinking we were hot shit, and Green Day walked in ready to fight – musically, of course, they were super cool to us the whole time.”
Our chat with him followed the release of his memoir Fahrenheit-182, in which he explored his impact on pop culture, run-ins with many of his contemporaries and his battle with cancer.
