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Photo credit: Susan Moss

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Dave
G’day Mike g’day. Okay, so what we’re gonna, what we’re basically going to do, we’re going to rush through some questions, we’re going to have some quick questions, and then we’re going to have a few questions that we, that we probably are going to sort of theme through with different artists. So they’ll probably try and be for shorts or something or other, where we’ll potentially put them together with other artists and all that sort of stuff to try and get a few views from a, from a theme point of view.
Fat Mike 
I’m lost. I’m lost. Lost.

Dave
Okay, so we’ll just go through and we’ll see how we go. All right, so let’s start a pretty basic question, but where, where did it start, Mike? Where, where’s the, where’s the NoFX and the Fat Mike thing all start and join up and, and, and, you know, come together for people that don’t know you?
Fat Mike 
We met at the Café du Grand in 1983. 

Dave
Wow, 40 years.
Fat Mike 
And well, Smelly played drums and I barely played guitar. Oh, we all could barely play. We had to practice. Played four songs at the Cathy Dugan. They had the same three dudes.

Dave
Really? Have you had many line up changes in that time? 
Fat Mike 
No, we had a couple other guitar players, but we’ve had El Jefe since 91, so he’s the new guy.

Dave
Wow, and you’ve got along all that time, or you’ve been killing each other, you know, at different times throughout? 
Fat Mike
We actually never had a fight until COVID. 

Dave
Wowee, wowee. That’s fantastic. And COVID did what? Just because everyone was deciding what to do, what not to do, and… 
Fat Mike 
Yeah. It was like, Oh, where’d my money go?
And what are we going to do? And I’m like, why are you so rich? Well, cause I have a fucking label, dickheads. And I’m, I do other stuff, but no, it’s, it’s very strange. We’re, we’re the anomaly, not the paradigm. We we’re, we’re best friends and my, everyone in my band are, they’re super cool and everything has been great.
So why would we fight about anything? How can you fucking get mad at anything? We’re in a fucking ridiculous punk band that plays, you know, four nights a week, like two months a year. What the fuck is to complain about? 

Dave 
Ridiculous, I’d probably say popular.
Fat Mike 
We’re good. I mean, ridiculously good.

Dave
That’s it. How would you describe your sound? 
Fat Mike 
Well, I don’t know. We have, we’re melodic hardcore, and we have With Beatles chord progressions and chord progressions that no one No one else uses. 

Dave
Always predominantly been the same or, you know, changed throughout? 
Fat Mike 
Our chords?

Dave
No, your sound. Have you always sort of been?
Fat Mike
We’re a punk band, but we’re we’re melodic and we do whatever we want to really. 

Dave
And fans, what do you think fans resonate? What do you think you’ve, you’ve, you’ve pulled so many fans over the long haul? 
Fat Mike
Cause we’re no different on stage or off stage and because our songs, you know honest lyrics, we like to fucking hit the beehive and we’re politically correct.
And people, people like to hear songs that have 16 different chords in each for in versus and eight chords in the courses. And you hear melodies that you haven’t heard before. When people say music, music’s all been done before. It’s all the same. Fuck. I’m a rat that has 54 chords in a row. No, hasn’t been done before.
It’s mathematically impossible. 

Shaquira
And your new album’s just been released. Can you describe its origin and evolution? 
Fat Mike
Oh, my string album. Yeah. I, I’ve worked on strings on some of our albums and I worked on strings a lot on the cokie, the clown album, and they’re just, they fascinate me. And I, what I was just saying, I wanted people to hear how complex our songs are because you can’t really tell when it’s distorted guitars and this fucking aggravating voice, but once all the harmonies and melodies and all the parts are on strings.
You see how how they all work together, like what was it like, like five people in, in the Salem Asylum that are dancing. It’s, people finally get to hear my songs without punk rock. 

Shaquira
And what would you say your signature track 
Dave
would be? Or signature tracks? 
Fat Mike
I like I’m a rat a lot. That’s the song I was just saying.
It’s 54 chords, which is why these, all the songs I picked, the root notes always move. They’re always going somewhere new, which is what classical music is really about. You know, this fucking royal philharmonic. orchestras play a Nirvana album, go fuck yourself. You know, yeah, Nirvana was great, but you’re just playing three fucking chords in a row.
You have fucking 13, 000 players, so it sounds big, but you’re not fucking doing anything. 

Shaquira
And will you be touring this album?
Fat Mike 
Yeah

Shaquira 
What can fans expect from your shows?
Fat Mike 
Well me being drunk and doing mostly stand up, my feeble attempt at doing stand up. And I discuss the songs, because, you know, there’s no lyrics, it’s just strings. So I like to tell them what the songs are about. I have one song called, That Time I Killed My Mom. And, you know, on the Coco album, I describe how I killed my mom.
You know, she asked me to. I didn’t just do it out of nowhere. I came home. What’s for breakfast? No, she was dying. And I just, you know, helped her out. So I tell people about this song and I say it in the middle part, you’ll hear this. And that was when that represents when she stopped breathing. And it gives people more insight and, and it’s so interesting how even if you don’t tell them some of these songs, it makes people sad.
You can make people sad just for music. And isn’t that fucking cool? 

Stream: FAT MIKE GETS STRUNG OUT

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East Bay Ray, Fat Mike

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Shaquira
Now you’re a historic buff. You’ve got your museum there and everything. If you could perform with any music artist dead or alive, who would you choose? 
Fat Mike
The doctor. Actually, I’m starting a new project with some rich people, and I think it’s going to bring happiness to millions of people. 

Dave
Really? Well, can we, can we, you know, steal that now? Can we get the, can we get the…
Fat Mike
Well, thank you. It’s a secret. It’s a secret.

Dave
You know, we can put bamboo shoots under fingernails. It’s hard from here.
Fat Mike
You know what? I have a dungeon in my house, so don’t scare me. Don’t threaten me with a good time. 

Dave 
Well, fantastic. So, it’s a, it’s a breaking bad sort of situation. Just before I go on, just before I go on, where’s the stand up come from? Has it always been there? 
Fat Mike 
NOFX in an hour and a half set, we generally talk shit for 40 minutes because we just talk. And that’s why people like a band. It’s a big reason because they feel like they know us and we don’t have jokes. We just improv. We just, we’re just hanging out. We’re hate. But that’s a performance. 

Dave
That’s a unique performance. 
Fat Mike
No, no, I, I, I heard a I saw a talk show a show on CNN and it was all about comedians bombing.
And I was like, Hmm, I want that feeling. I’ll accept that challenge. So this guy, Doug Stanhope, a comedian, Doug Stanhope, he’s been mentoring me. 

Dave
You like standing on the edge, obviously you like looking over the cliff and you know, I like living life on. 
Fat Mike
I like living with no shame and no pride. Boom!

Dave
Boom! What’s the best thing to about performing to a live audience? 
Fat Mike 
When you, when your set’s done? Whew. That’s the best. Go backstage to a couple lines. Go to a dungeon. That’s the best part. 

Dave
Fantastic. There’s a saying, “I wouldn’t give you 5 cents for simplicity, this side of complexity, but I’ll give you a lot for simplicity the other side of complexity”.
That’s a, that’s a good answer. What’s the career highlight? What, what can you, what can you look back on and say? That was, that was, that was, I’m really proud of that sort of moment. 
Fat Mike 
I think we’ve had one of the best careers of all time. Yeah. Yeah. We never signed major. We put out our own records, did our own merch never did anything we didn’t want to do.
We, our last tour, we booked the whole thing, except for a few agents here and there. It’s all our, we’re the biggest DIY band in the world. And I mean, no one. I mean, we fucking own the bar when we play shows. We just do it all ourself. And with your best friends, just traveling the world for 40 years with your best friends.
And no one ever getting angry, just like, fuck, man, we’re in Korea, we’re playing a show in Korea. That’s unbelievable. We have no regrets, no other bands, they have to work, they have to go to radio, they have to impress their fans. We never even, I mean, this tour we’re practicing, we’re actually better than we ever have been.
But we never practiced. You know how cool it is to be in a band where you can fuck up the whole set and no one gives a fuck. There’s no pressure. Can I say though, business is like a science though. So to do that business out of the course of time, you’re right. Performance or turning up or in the moment.
No problem. I’m all for that. And I think that’s fantastic. But putting the pieces together to make money from something or other usually takes. Some sort of, you know, science is not just a haphazard thing. 

Dave 
So where does that come from? Is that the people around the band or is that the people in the band?
Fat Mike
It’s me.

Dave
Really?
Fat Mike
Well, I mean, I started the label in 91. I was the one that convinced the band never to go to a major. Convinced the band not to go to MTV, no radio. Do you like our career? I was like, guys, are you happy in this band? Y’all have houses. Are you happy? Yeah, this is awesome. So why fuck with happiness?
Let’s not see how big we can get. Let’s not try to impress people. Let’s just have as much fun as we fucking can. And we have more fun than any other band we always have. That’s the secrets. And you know what? I’m not having fun. Like I used to anymore. I’m 56 and it’s like, I love this last tour because I get to say goodbye.
But for the past few years, I like, I don’t want to go on stage. I don’t want to fucking perform. 

Dave
I’ve got to get you, I’ve got to get you again for an hour instead of 20 minutes, cause it takes too long to bloody get to the bottom of some of those questions. Cause 
Fat Mike
I think I’m pretty concise. 

Dave
Well, you might be, but I think it’d be interesting to have you, you know, stumble through some questions and get to a different place.
Fat Mike
Why don’t you give me a tough question? 

Dave
No, no, no, no. Because basically you’ve got to get to a place. It’s a bit like performance. You don’t just, you don’t just turn up and everything starts. You sort of warm up to something. In 20 minutes, you can’t really warm up to that conversation.
I’ll have, I’ll invite you, you can decide or not later, but I’ll invite you again to something and you can say yes or no later on. 
Fat Mike
I’ve already made my decision.why do you ask me when I got my roommate down after he hung himself and I thought he was still alive. Hey asked me about that. 

Dave
I got 20 minutes. So we want to get through something. We’re trying to inform people about trying to give them a pricey in 20 minutes rather than hanging on one question or whatever, but it’s a, it’s an interesting thing. You say, let’s let’s just shoot through those questions. Finally, the quick questions and, then we’ll ask a couple of those last video questions. All right. So I’ve got a couple of quick questions. This is bullshit, Mike. This, this question, the questions we’re going to ask you now. But we want to get a response. Quick questions. Very long, thought out answers. All right. Let’s go.
Fat Mike
No, no, no.

Dave
We want just quick, quick answers.
Fat Mike
Don’t tell me what to do, boy.
I’d love to have this conversation. Let me get my hat on.

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NOFX

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Shaquira
Oh, I love it. All right, let’s go. Favorite album.
Fat Mike
I’ll go with Bad Religion and Suffer.

Shaquira
Favorite artist. 
Dave
All time. 
Fat Mike
Paul Klee.

Shaquira 
Movie.
Fat Mike
I’m going to go with True Romance. No, no, no, The Bad News Bears. Boom. 

Shaquira
A place to visit. 
Fat Mike
Osaka Jail. Ah. It’s an S. M. club

Shaquira 
Your favorite venue to play?
Fat Mike
Oh, I know this one. I know this one. The Milk Vag in Amsterdam.

Shaquira
Your favorite food?
Fat Mike
Drink. 

Shaquira
What do you got in your bottle there, ? 
Fat Mike
I, my favorite drink is vodka and cocaine.

Shaquira . 
Your favorite person in history? 
Fat Mike
Too hard. I probably got one. 

Dave
Boom.Boom. Your favorite person? Well, you know, like someone might say Mandela or the Dalai Lama, or they might say God, or they might say Hitler. They might say anything 
Fat Mike
Really. They might say Hitler. No. I’ll say my daughter. 

Shaquira 
Your daughter’s a good answer. 
Your favorite tattoo on your body?
Fat Mike
My favorite tattoo is this because me and Fletcher for Pennywise.
Ah, and he gave it to me and it’s me and him. He gave me a Jew claw and then I gave him the same one, but he didn’t want to change needles. So he has Jew blood in him now. So 

Dave
Let’s see if we can get through a couple of questions before we have to go best. Or worst advice you ever received, you know, along the way, you must have got something, best advice. In other words, someone’s going to listen to this and say, I’m going down that path. 
Fat Mike
My dad gave me some good advice, even though I think it total fuckhead, total cunty cunterson. But he gave me a couple of good words of advice. He said, Michael don’t worry about what you’re going to do in your life.
Just do what makes you happy. And then he gave me some other good advice. He said, never get a partner. The bank only takes 5%. Partners take 50%. 

Dave 
I like that. That’s very good. That’s very good. 
Fat Mike
He also told me if you ever get an earring, he’s going to tear it out. Cause no son of his is going to be a faggot.
That was bad advice. It was good advice because I didn’t want an earring torn out of my ear, but fuck him. 

Dave
Boom, boom, alright. 
Was there ever an event you remember attending where you were like, this is what I want to do?
Fat Mike 
Oh no, one better advice. My mom told me when I was 15, never smoke pot.
You’re too smart. And she was smoking pot at the time. And I, and I didn’t try drugs. So I was 31 because of that. But when you’re rich and have no boss and you can get really pure drugs. Yeah.

Shaquira 
Why not? 
Fat Mike
Why not? Exactly. I agree. 

Dave
So is there a moment that you ever remember attending where you’re like, this is what I want to do? 
Where did it start? Where did you say? Were you young going somewhere and say, I want to do I want to do. 
Fat Mike
I never wanted to do anything. You know, I went to college and I had a real estate license, but just punk rock kind of kept getting a little better.
And it was it wasn’t like I wanted to be in a punk band. It’s just me and my friends wanted to get laid. And we bought instruments and started a band. I didn’t want to be a musician. That took fucking, like, a decade.
Who would fucking be in a punk band? I’m taking my shirt off. You know why? Why? Because it’s rubber, and it’s hot.
That’s why I’m not wearing much. I walk in closets of latex and leather. Yep. You know what this means? I’m in an interview. You know what that means? What? It means I’m owned by someone. 

Dave 
What do you mean? Well, who owns you? Bill Clinton. 
Fat Mike
No. My, my partner. Look at this. Have you ever seen one of these? 

Dave
If I had time, I’d show you my three. 
Fat Mike 
Avian award, baby. I beat that Snoop Dog. 

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Press Release 21st September 2023 (below) HERE

NOFX’S
FAT MIKE
unveils his latest album
“FAT MIKE GETS STRUNG OUT”

OUT NOW VIA FAT WRECK CHORDS

NOW STREAMING ON ALL PLATFORMS

STREAM: FAT MIKE GETS STRUNG OUT

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AMNPLIFY – DB