Pat Smear (the original guitar player in the band), who ultimately became a member of Nirvana, Foo Fighters and many other bands, was the music producer for the film. With the exception of Phillips, who played guitar (but not bass guitar), and West, who had experience as a singer, none of the other cast members had ever played musical instruments. Intent on making the music in his film sound authentic, Grossman asked Smear to help his actors learn to play their instruments. Smear rehearsed with the band and produced all the pre-recordings that were used in the movie, utilizing the other original members of the Germs; Bolles and Doom. The new band of actors slowly came together. Pat Smear said: "These kids will be as good as we were when we were bad… which is good enough". Smear went on to affectionately refer to the cast as the "Baby Germs". The music in the film was recorded during pre-production, used by the cast as synch tracks during production, and finally married with West's live vocals, which were recorded on-set. Pat Smear also produced the recordings of the other bands that perform in the movie—the Mae Shi performed as The Screamers, and The Bronx performed as Black Flag.