
NOFX is a punk band from California, sometimes referred to in the underground music press as "the funniest band in rock and roll." They were formed in 1983 by high school-aged "Fat Mike" (real name Mike Burkett), Erik Sandin and Eric Melvin in Los Angeles. The root of their name is commonly attributed to the Boston punk band Negative FX
They released their debut EP NOFX on Mystic
Records in 1984,
which later resurfaced in 1992 on
the Maximum
Rock and Roll CD.
They recorded Liberal
Animation in 1988 with Brett
Gurewitz from Bad
Religion. The album was re-released in 1991 on
Gurewitz's label Epitaph
Records. NOFX had signed to Epitaph by 1989,
releasing the album S&M
Airlines.
By 1991 there had been a lot of changes to the band however the original three
members had reunited and Aaron Abeyta (aka El
Hefe) joined to round out the present line-up.
It was not until the 1994 release
of Punk
in Drublic that the band had a popular breakthrough. The album went
gold in
the same year pop-punk entered
the mainstream with The
Offspring's Smash and Green
Day's Dookie.
NOFX never matched the popularity of other punk bands, and are among those
who achieved popular acclaim in the mid-1990s and still kept their hardcore
punk fanbase who reviled other bands that were perceived as sell-outs.
Since 1994 they have consented to very few interviews and have made only few
music videos. However, Fat Mike once did an interview for Guitar World in 2003
giving his opinion on the pop punk bands rising at that time. Fat Mike was
also interviewed by Australian radio station Triple J in 2004. Their official
website features a Q&A section, where they answer questions sent
in by fans. Updates have not occurred to the Q&A section, but the archives
can still be browsed. NOFX has continued to release independent records throughout
their career. An extensive, nearly 20 page interview was done for a 2003 issue
of AMP magazine. The band released The
Decline, a fiery and pessimistic
social commentary, in 1999.
Having a duration of 18 minutes and 23 seconds it may well be the longest punk
song by any artist to date.
In 2003, NOFX
released a CD entitled War
on Errorism, an album of snarky political songs. It became the start
of their anti-Bush campaign
and a rallying point for liberal punks. Since the CD's release, Fat Mike organized
the website Punkvoter.com, compiled two chart topping "Rock
Against Bush" CDs on the Fat
Wreck label, and kicked off a Rock
Against Bush nationwide tour. Their emergence on the political scene has
not faded after the election.
The band has also released many EPs (Fuck
the Kids, The
Longest Line) on Fat Mike's own label Fat
Wreck Chords. In February of 2005 they launched the NOFX 7" of the
Month Club, a subscription based service which will see the release of
one new EP every month from February 2005 to January 2006 (a total of 12
releases.) The cover art for these 7-inches were chosen from fan-submitted
entries, from which the band selected one submission for each month's record.
Billed as "A year long documentation of their songwriting process," the
first 3000 subscribers to the club will receive all of their records on
coloured vinyl.