Interview: Fat Mike of NOFX on the ragtime soundtrack for Rubber Bordello

 

NOFX ringleader Fat Mike has put together quite the professional résumé during his thirty years in the punk business. He’s sold millions of NOFX records, released and sold even more records through his label, Fat Wreck Chords, opened bars, published magazines, created a political awareness group and dabbled in the lodging industry. Now Mike can add another feather to his Manic Panic-stained cap: composer of porn music. Along with Mad Caddies keyboardist Dustin Lanker, Fat Mike wrote and recorded a ragtime soundtrack for Rubber Bordello, a BDSM fetish film penned by his girlfriend, the dominatrix Soma Snakeoil. (He also makes a cameo in the movie: “I am a client. I’m a judge, actually.”) “I’ve never done anything like this,” he says. “It’s totally different from what I’m used to. It’s also the first time my girlfriend, Soma, wrote and directed a movie. And it’s the first time I ever scored a movie. It was very exciting for us to do.” AP recently caught up with Mike to discuss this project, the upcoming NOFX album, debauchery in general and his biggest regret in life. (Hint: It involves a certain kind of sport.)

Interview: Michael Dauphin

I know you wrote much of this album, but did you perform on it as well? I don’t hear too much bass?
I didn’t actually perform any of it, but I wrote a lot of it. The first song (“Shedonistic Society”) was totally mine. And the other songs were a collaboration between Dustin Lanker and myself.

I know Lanker is a member of Mad Caddies and Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. Who else is on the album?
We had a couple local horn players from San Francisco. And we had Ralph Carney, who plays with Tom Waits. It was really fun, because I wrote a lot of the horn parts. You can tell on the album when someone’s riffing and doing leads; that’s them. But the actual written horn lines, those are mine. And the horn guys liked it that way. They like direction.

On the final track, “Sleep Tight,” I thought the horns turned out particularly cool. There’s an interesting effect on the trumpet.
That’s the thing: I’m happy with how it really sounds like it was from the era. It doesn’t sound modern; it sounds very authentic.

Did you see the movie prior to writing the music, or did you write these songs based on the idea?
The movie was filmed, and then it was edited. After that, I took the movie to the studio and Dustin and I looked at the scenes. I did a lot of work beforehand, and the music you hear kind of depends on the scene. So if it’s a rope bondage scene, we have one number that comes in for all the rope scenes. It’s a number that’s piano-based and it speeds up with the scene. So we scored it. We watched the scene and then made the music that fit the scene.

What were some of the most challenging parts that you really didn’t budget for in your mind?
The most troublesome thing was… You know, it’s not like watching a regular porn movie. There is no talking in this film. So it’s not like writing songs that kind of get it out of the movie. This music has to carry half of the film. So when there’s a ten-minute scene of strap-on sex, you have to keep the music interesting. For the soundtrack, we edited down the songs between two to four minutes. But some of them go on much longer in the film. And I’m used to writing two-minute punk songs.

 

Something tells me that while this may be the first time you have taken on a project like this, it’s not the first time you have let images of bondage and sex inspire your writing.
[Laughs.] I have been writing songs about BDSM for years, but people probably didn’t know that’s my actual lifestyle. I sang “Cool And Unusual Punishment,” and in 1989 I wrote “S&M Airlines.” It’s something that I’ve always done in my life, but people think most of the stuff I write about is bullshit. “Oh, he must have made that up because there’s no way a Japanese dominatrix put out cigarettes on his nipples.” Yep, that actually happened. We probably have thirty hours of footage that didn’t make it onto Backstage Passport and it’s of me getting beat up in Japan by Japanese doms. That’s a double feature right there.

Outside of your song “Buggly Eyes,” ragtime music doesn’t seem to have a huge influence on NOFX’s sound. Is ragtime a genre you have always wanted to explore?
I bought The Sting soundtrack back when I was in college, and I have been listening to Scott Joplin ragtime my whole life. But I’d say I have listened to more jazz like Herb Alpert and Louis Armstrong. NOFX has done quite a few jazz songs with trumpet. I think a good song’s a good song. And switching styles gets difficult. That’s what would happen with this. I’d write a song on the guitar and show Dustin, then he would transpose it on his piano, and we’d go from there. And he wrote plenty of songs, too.

With NOFX, you are primary songwriter. Was it a challenge to take on more of a collaboration approach with Lanker?
It wasn’t a challenge, it was great. Dustin would come up with stuff and some of it was great right off the bat, and some of it we worked on a bit. And the same goes for my songs. We’re going to do more work in the future, I’m sure.

Last time I spoke with you you told me that, in regards to your hard-partying lifestyle, you would encourage your daughter to take the same approach to life as you: wait until she’s thirty years old and makes her first million dollars, then start experimenting with drugs. Now that you’re immersing yourself in the erotic industry, do you have to alter your approach any?
You know, you don’t have to shelter your children from that, because they don’t want to know anything about your sexuality. It’s like walking in on your parents having sex: You don’t stand there and watch, you fucking bail. If she wants to search the internet and find something about her dad, she could. But she won’t do that because it’s fucking gross. [Laughs.]

NOFX is entering the studio in April. Should fans expect your ragtime influences to spill over into the next NOFX album?
No. There’s not going to be any ragtime. All my good ragtime is right here on this soundtrack. But BDSM will play a part, for sure. I already wrote a song called “I Believe in Goddess” [in reference to Goddess Soma, his girlfriend]. Also, my ex-wife is dating a cop now. So I wrote a song from my daughter’s point of view called “My Step-Dad’s a Cop and My Step-Mom’s a Dom.” It’s funny because I was recording that song and this German kid in the studio was like, “How do you come up with this shit?” I’m like, “You can’t make this shit up. It’s my life!”

You’re also an avid golfer. Is there any chance we’ll see you playing in one of these celebrity pro-am tournaments with Bill Murray and all those guys?
Not any time in the near future. I’m like a 16 handicap, so I’m not great.

Have you ever been paired up with any interesting foursomes—on the golf course, that is?
[Laughs.] You know, I probably have. I had a foursome lined up with [PGA golfer] Mark Calcavecchia once. It’s a long story, but I didn’t make it, unfortunately. We were in Phoenix and we had a 6:30 a.m. tee time. But our driver took our tour bus for the night, which had my glasses and golf clubs in it. I couldn’t play and missed the round. It’s actually the biggest regret of my life. alt