Can You Retire if You Never Had a Job? NOFX Will Try.
After 40 years, the punk band NOFX is walking away with a farewell tour that is nothing short of a victory lap.
When they were teenagers, the group developed an extreme do-it-yourself ethos. They had no interest in working for anyone else.
As “the Grateful Dead of punk rock,” they played more than 3,000 shows, and sold more than seven million albums, without ever having a radio hit or much mainstream attention.
And now they are ready to say goodbye — and unlike other bands they promise there will be no reunion tours.
Can You Retire if You Never Had a Job? NOFX Will Try.
The punk rock pioneers chose freedom — and chaos — over major labels. Pulling the plug while things are still working is one final act of rebellion.
By James H. Martin
Photographs by Max Slobodda
June 18, 2024
“It’s like going to your own wake.”
Mike Burkett, known exclusively in the punk rock world as Fat Mike, was talking about the farewell tour for his band, NOFX, during which the group is traveling to 40 cities, with 40 songs per concert, celebrating their 40 years as a band.
The tour started a year ago in Barcelona and will end where it all began for them, in Los Angeles, with three shows from Oct. 4-6. Fat Mike, 57, along with Eric Melvin, Aaron Abeyta and Erik Sandlin are, collectively, experiencing the feels.
“This is it,” Fat Mike, the band’s singer, songwriter and bassist, said of the prospect of touring again after this. “We aren’t Kiss, or Black Sabbath, or Mötley Crüe. This is the end.”
“It’s kind of sad, saying goodbye,” said Mr. Abeyta, 58, the group’s guitarist and trumpet player, who goes by the nickname El Hefe. “We’re family. We’re basically brothers. We’ve lived on the road together, on a bus, sometimes in the same bed.”
“It’s weird, it’s uncertain, it’s scary,” said Mr. Sandlin, 57, the group’s drummer who was nicknamed Smelly for the drug-fueled flatulence of his earlier days. (He’s been sober and clean for years.) “I feel like I’m losing a leg.”
