A conversation with Fat Mike of NOFX
During the past two decades, NOFX frontman FAT MIKE has been responsible for bringing you loads of the punk you’ve come to know and love, not only with his band but with his label, FAT WRECK CHORDS. November 24 is a special day for the label, as Mike and the folks at the Fat Wreck office in San Francisco are gearing up for the release of the box-set, Wrecktrospective, a three-disc affair featuring hits, unreleased demos and more from the Fat Wreck Chords vault. On the same day, NOFX will release their EP, Cokie The Clown, a companion to the band’s most recent full-length, Coaster, and the 7-inch, My Orphan Year. LUCY ALBERS managed to tap into Fat Mike’s mind for an insight into both releases and why it is that Cokie The Clown looks an awful lot like him.
Why did you decide to release Cokie The Clown?
Well, we had 19 songs and we made an album with the songs that we thought would be better. A lot of these songs are better than the ones on Coaster. It’s not really a B-sides thing; it’s not outtakes. A record has to have a good feel. Coaster was already 30 minutes; we were happy with it and all the songs had their place. Cokie is still a pretty strong EP, and some of the people who have heard it say it’s better than Coaster. We always do too many songs. You have to live with the songs for a while and then decide which ones you want to put on the record. We also did an EP, Never Trust A Hippy for [2006’s] Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing. And that EP is definitely better than the record. It just happens that way sometimes.
Where did you come up with the name for the album?
Cokie is a drug addict clown. He’s basically a real mean clown. It’s just kind of my alter ego. It was my Halloween costume last year, actually. He’s just this mean clown who had a bloody nose and would throw flour at people and, you know, get in trouble; basically just a real asshole clown. We actually just shot a video for it a few weeks ago in Chicago. I had a squirting flower, but it was attached to a CO2 canister, and I had a bunch of flour. So I’d go up to people’s faces and just throw the flour and blast them in the face so a whole shitload of white powder would go up their nose and stuff. I got some good people, too. I got Tim [McIlrath] from Rise Against, Matt Skiba [from Alkaline Trio], Teenage Bottlerocket, Teen Idols, Street Dogs… I nailed so many bands in the face. [Laughs.] It’s basically just me walking around being an asshole. Not everyone got pissed off, but most of them did. It will probably be released in the next couple weeks.
Do you think the songs on Cokie have the same feel as Coaster?
I couldn’t say. I mean, they were recorded at the same time, but they have a different feel. I think any of these songs would have sounded weird on Coaster. We actually had to cut seven songs. One was a cover and the other didn’t get finished. I tried finishing it and I couldn’t do it. It just wasn’t working. And then we covered Avenue Q’s “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist.” We actually do that song every night after our show. We don’t actually play it, we just sing along and do a dance number onstage. People don’t really know what to make out of it. It’s disturbing is what it is.
Are there a lot of NOFX songs out there yet that nobody has heard?
There are some. We released a B-sides record a few years ago [2002’s 45 Or 46 Songs That Weren’t Good Enough To Go On Our Other Records], so most of them are on that. I don’t think there are a lot of outtakes or anything, though. If we don’t think it’s going on the record, we generally don’t bother recording it. If we’re going to spend eight to ten hours recording a song, we think it’s a good song. But a lot of bands just work hard to put together 12 songs to make a record and they’re not really cohesive. You need more to choose from. That’s what I tell all the bands I sign. When you’re ready to record, you’ll have 18 or 20 songs and pick the best 12.
Why did you guys decide to release a box set, as well?
Well, [Fat Wreck Chords] has been around for 20 years, so we decided to do some sort of retrospective. It just gives a taste of what I really like. People keep getting it wrong; it’s not a rarities CD. It’s original demos of the bands before we signed them. It’s like the demo tapes that we received. You get to hear the original versions instead of the album versions and a lot of them are really different. I think that CD is really interesting to listen to.
Did you handpick all of the songs that went on it?
Me and [some of the people at] the office went over it all and put it together. The first CD is from our favorite bands who we think are most representative of the label. I think the second disc is the most fun to listen to. It has “[It’s My Job to Keep] Punk Rock Elite”, which was originally recorded for the Fuck The Kids 7-inch, but it wasn’t good enough, so we put it on our Epitaph record [So Long And Thanks for All the Shoes]. But the original version is pretty funny to listen to.
Do you think Wrecktrospective is the definitive representation of the label?
Well, it spans more than 20 years. I think it’s a really good representation of how we’ve been a punk rock label. At no point did we sign any flavor-of-the-month bands. There were the ska bands when that was popular, then the emo bands and the metal bands, but we’re pretty much just punk rock. The whole idea was that I was just going to sign bands that I liked. And I’ve totally stayed true to that so far. alt
