After 40 years spent as one of the most influential and controversial acts in the history of independent music, legendary Californian punks NOFX are calling time on their storied career.
They will not be going gently into the good night though, they are far too spirited to do that. Instead, NOFX will say goodbye to the only life they’ve ever known in the only way they know how, by taking to stages around the globe and taking things a little too far, one last time.
For their dedicated fans down under, the farewell is set to be epic, with the band set to hit the east coast of Australia in January for a series of shows that’ll see them perform an incredible 40 songs per night, including three full albums, rarities and whatever else they feel like as they seek to make good on a promise never to repeat a setlist.
It’s a bold undertaking for a band at any age, let alone one with an average age of 57, but NOFX built their career out of defying convention. Formed by guitarist Eric Melvin and bassist/vocalist Mike ‘Fat Mike’ Burkett in 1983, the band came of age against the violent backdrop of the Californian hardcore punk scene, fighting their way through to become one of the most celebrated punk rock acts of all time and one of the highest selling independent artists of all time.
When skate-punk exploded to prominence in the early-mid ‘90s, it was NOFX at the coalface, pushing hard and fast against the commodification of punk-rock culture, doing everything they could to keep punk-rock elite. They did it so successfully that the impact on not just the sound of modern punk, but the way business was done within the scene, became undeniable.
As the frontman of NOFX, and owner of the iconic Fat Wreck Chords, Fat Mike has been at the centre of this unlikely success story for 40 years. During that time he has been many things, a magnet for controversy, a hero of the counter-culture, a political activist, and an entrepreneur. A fiercely sex-positive, drug-taking, rule-breaking, self-made multi-millionaire, with a devil-may-care attitude, he has forged a life not even he could have dreamed of by breaking with convention at every turn.
Prior to Fat Mike gearing up to join bandmates Eric Melvin, Erik Sandin and El Hefe for their parting kiss down under, we caught up with the icon himself for an interview that turned out to be a very wild time to be alive.
NOFX Interview Title
Maniacs: Mike, you’re winding up NOFX, a band that has been a major component of your life for 40 years, how are you processing saying goodbye?
Fat Mike: “I've been getting emotional, but I really love being able to say goodbye to all these people in the cities that have been there for us for so long. What a great way, to actually do your final tour and to mean it, to say goodbye with an exclamation mark, not a question mark. Not a lot of bands get to do that. “
How did you make the decision on which records to play?
“We threw darts. Not actual darts, but I invented this game called ‘Dartchery’, it's a crossbow that fires darts. We’re playing our records that we haven't played that much of. There are so many songs on Wolves In Wolves Clothing and So Long and Thanks For All The Shoes that we’ve never played before. We had a practice and it’s cool to play songs that people have never seen us play. We’re not playing our new albums because some people don’t have them, even though our new albums are fucking good. I wanted to do Self-Entitled but that band was like ‘No one wants to hear that!’ So that’s how I decided and they said ‘Okay’.”
You’re playing 40 songs a night! That puts you into Foo Fighters’ territory!
“They play for three and a half hours sometimes, and that’s tough when you have four good songs. I watched the Foo Fighters play a set for an hour, then we played a set for an hour, then when I came back I saw the Foo Fighters play for another hour. I mean, Jesus, who wants that? So 40 songs is the NOFX equivalent. We have short songs, as you know, so it’s 40 songs for 40 years, that’s what it is.”
Between your autobiography and those Backstage Passport DVDs, you’ve done a terrific job of chronicling the band’s touring exploits. Is there anything that stands out to you about your previous tours to Australia?
“One time Mistress Tokyo put me in an iron lung and then put an Elastrator, the thing that you castrate bulls with on my nipples and beat me to a bloody pulp. Or all the weird dungeons I’ve been to, people don’t know about that. Also, I’ve played a lot of golf in Australia.”
“Tasmania, I wish I hadn’t made all those jokes onstage in Tasmania, but Tasmania go fuck yourself. We’ve been to a lot of lovely places around the world, but that was one of the lowlights of it. It’s like Darwin but horrible. We never saw any naked people in the pit in Darwin, see you in the pit bro, not wearing any clothes bro, that dude was from Tasmania. So weird.”
Maniacs is predominantly a metal publication, so it is rather fitting that one of the last times that I personally saw you play wast at No Sleep ‘Till with a bunch of metal bands and you spent most of your time on stage paying out on them. So do you have any new thoughts on metal?
“Oh my god, Megadeth! We had so much fun with them because they did not know we were making fun of them the whole time. We were in first class together. ‘Hey Dave, what are you reading there?’ ‘Oh it’s about Nazi bases on the moon, you wouldn’t believe what’s going on on the moon, well, at least they’re not in Germany anymore, at least they’re on the moon.’
“Wow, I mean seriously, he cried during the Metallica movie ‘They kicked me out of the band’. I don’t understand Megadeth. He drools when he sings, I’m against drooling while singing, and they spelt death wrong. It’s death, not deth, they’re so dense. That’s what you get for doing heroin. Fucking metal, have you read the lyrics? Jesus. Metal. Wow. Let’s play music that makes everyone grumpy and unhappy.”
I think we’ve found your new calling, when you finish up with NOFX, you should just critique records on YouTube.
“No, I’d be too mean, I really don’t like music all that much. I like Ride The Lightning, that’s a good metal record.”
Do you think that you’re underrated as a bass player?
“No, I think people think that I’m pretty good. I think the job of a bass player is to play lightly and around notes that make the guitar sound good. Once in a while, you can kind of do something cool. But people don’t understand the bass guitar. They play it badly and they make the band out of tune. Do you know that you should never record the bass first after the drums? And do you know who does that? Metal bands. You can’t tell if the band is out of tune, everyone plays it sharp with their stupid big picks. Stupid Cliff Burton, wrong place, right time.”
The bands that got to work with you at Fat Wreck Chords over the years, were in the right place at the right time. Has that been one of the best parts about being in a band of your stature? Being able to make these things possible for other people?
“Yes, honestly, one of the highlights of my life has been calling a band out of nowhere and saying ‘Hi, it’s Fat Mike, I want to sign your band’ and they don’t believe me. It’s so fucking fun and I’ve got to do that probably 40 times. It’s so great to put out a band on your label and see their career fizzle, no I’m really proud of my label and all those bands that we’ve played with. One of the benefits of signing with Fat Wreck Chords is that you get to tour with NOFX. That’s been fun. ”
Have you ever taken a band out on the road and they’ve made you regret it?
“Yes, Frenzal Rhomb. The Real Mackenzies, Get Dead, Strung Out. Actually, we’ve had such a wonderful time, that’s where you build real friendships, is on tour. I remember Against Me! We took them on tour for four days, and they said that was the longest month tour we've ever done because you know these kids can't keep up with the big boys.”
“Did I mention that I like metal? I like to touch big shiny things and to be touched by big shiny things.”
Are you going to continue playing in Me First and The Gimme Gimme’s as well as your solo projects, once this final NOFX tour is done?
“Yeah, we have like three albums in the can. I’m going to do Codefendants, and my solo stuff, and my strings and some stand-up. This is the end of the line for NOFX, no more meat pie. You look like a man who’d enjoy a meat pie. Who is your favourite metal band? Is it Slayer?”
That depends on how you classify metal. Do you consider Suicidal Tendencies to be metal?
“Not when I was seeing them play in backyards, no it was punk, but yeah, they turned metal. I used to get stabbed by them, that was pretty metal, literally. I met Mike Muir when I was 16, and he actually knocked someone unconscious for no reason, someone had a VESPA, so he was like ‘There’s a fuckin mod’ so he just knocked him out. That’s metal.”
You’ve said previously that Bad Religion changed what you thought was possible with punk rock, that they perfected it and it inspired the band that you went on to be with NOFX. Has anyone said something similar to that to you about NOFX?
“Yeah, except bands usually say that we changed their lives for the worse. I’m very proud of NOFX, what our legacy is and that we’re going out having a lot of fun, and we’ve never taken ourselves too seriously, and no shit no lie, we've had more fun than any other band that I know of that I know for sure. Like Pat Smear from Foo Fighters, Nirvana, or The Germs, he was on our bus and he saw my makeshift dungeon in the back, he took a look out there and said ‘It looks like you guys have more fun than I’ve ever had, and I’ve been in a lot of cool bands, but we don’t have fun, we play the show, then we get something good for dinner.’ Now, Taylor, he had fun, but that’s what you get.”
How have you avoided that kind of tragedy personally?
“What becoming a hippie?”
No, like having someone check out permanently so-to-speak from all the partying?
“Because I’m smart, I’m not gonna fucking OD. I’m actually very responsible. I don’t want to OD, and I do jest, coz Taylor was a rad dude, and that’s a shame. But now they’ve got Josh Freese! So now they have five punk rockers in the band. That’s pretty cool.”
“You know our song ‘Whoops I Od’d?’”
Yep, I’m familiar with it.
“Do you know what that song is about? It’s about Taylor Hawkins the first time he overdosed.
He woke up and he couldn’t read or write anymore, but he could still play drums. I wasn’t supposed to know that story, but I heard it, but Jesus fucking Christ man, learn from your mistakes, you know?”
“Want to see a cool hat?”
(At this point in the interview, Fat Mike puts on a cowboy hat and a gas mask-styled bondage mask).
“This is how I practised for the tour. I learned how to play without being able to see, so I can look at the crowd when they throw their fucking boomerangs at me and didgeridoos.”
NOFX Final Tour:
40 Years
40 Cities
40 Songs Per Night
Saturday 20 January - Sydney, Hordern Pavilion
Wolves' In Wolves Clothing / Punk In Drublic / The War On Errorism
Sunday 21 January - Sydney, Hordern Pavilion
White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean / So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes / The Decline
Tuesday 23 January - Brisbane, Fortitude Music Hall
Wolves' In Wolves Clothing / Punk In Drublic / The War On Errorism
Wednesday 24 January - Brisbane, Fortitude Music Hall
White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean / So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes / The Decline
Friday 26 January - Melbourne, Festival Hall
Wolves' In Wolves Clothing / Punk In Drublic / The War On Errorism
Saturday 27 January Melbourne, Festival Hall
White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean / So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes / The Decline
NOFX - Double Album is out now
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