Interview by Kris Peters
What better way to celebrate forty years of blood, sweat and beers in the music industry than to announce your final ever tour?
While some may brush it off as a clever marketing strategy, those who have followed punk stalwarts NOFX for the duration of their career will know and understand the gravity of the situation, because when Fat Mike says something, you can pretty much put your best pair of Doc Martins on it!
Known affectionately by their fans and revered by others as one of the world’s most controversial and significant punk bands of their time, NOFX simply don't, nor have they ever, given a shit.
They are punk to the core and have never failed to wear their music on their sleeves, surviving four decades at the forefront of a genre that refuses to cater to trends and smells out imposters quicker than you can pogo.
They are, in all aspects of the word, a punk rock institution, spawning classic tracks such as The Longest Line, Cokie The Clown, Soul Doubt, Seeing Double At The Triple Rock and Linoleum to name but a few.
But all good things invariably come to an end, and NOFX are planning to go out in style, playing two consecutive nights over three capital cities as part of the NOFX Final Tour 40 Years, 40 Cities, 40 Songs Per Night Tour which hits Australia in January 2024.
The final tour will see the band perform songs from their classic releases, Wolves In Wolves’ Clothing, Punk In Drublic, The War On Errorism, White Trash Two Heebs And A Bean, So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes and The Decline over two nights in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, offering fans two completely different shows back to back.
Bassist/vocalist Fat Mike sat down with HEAVY to talk all things NOFX.
"We're very excited to do our final tour in Australia," he beamed back at us. "I mean, who wouldn't be? We will be there in January."
We mention the challenging effort of playing three different albums over two nights and what a herculean task the band have set for themselves.
"It's way too much work," he smiled, "but, you've gotta work hard once with 40 years of being in a band, it might as well be now. We're not doing Punk In Drublic, we already did that last year. That was a mistake so don't count on that."
We ask Fat Mike if it is difficult playing full albums considering when they were written the thought of playing them in full one day would not have been on the playing field.
"Some of the songs are very difficult," he nodded, "which is why we don't do full albums. Fuck that shit. It's not because the songs are difficult. We're doing a lot of hard ones, but it's more it becomes kind of boring. I don't wanna be bored. So we're playing most of those albums."
In the full interview, Fat Mike talks more about what to expect from the shows, if they plan on having any guest artists join them on stage, how emotional playing these shows will be, if he will miss touring, their reputation as being a controversial band, the most significant changes in punk music over the last 40 years, how he thinks punk music will change in the future, whether he will stay involved in music and in what capacity, a message to Australian fans and more.