Why NOFX’s Farewell Documentary Will Never Hit Streaming Services: ‘Not Really Gonna Help Us’

Trending on Billboard NOFX‘s “Fat Mike” Burkett “couldn’t be happier” with the life 40 Years of F–kin’ Up, James Buddy Day’s sanctioned documentary about the band and its farewell tour, has had since premiering at South By Southwest Film Festival in March. And he’s glad even more fans will have an opportunity to see it this month. Explore See latest videos, charts and news The film will play on more than 200 screens for two nights, Aug. 23 and Aug. 26. This follows an initial rollout via film festivals and select theaters worldwide, going on through the end of July. “The initial plan was to find independent theaters and cool theaters that have booze and show it once a month kind of like Rocky Horror does,” Fat Mike, who produced 40 Years, tells Billboard via Zoom. “I was hoping our fans would want to see it more than once.” The upcoming theatrical screenings will broaden opportunities to see it — important to the band because there are no plans to take 40 Years to streaming services, ever. “Now that NOFX has retired, I want our fans to have some place to go,” he explains. “There’s a lot of bands who are still playing who would want their movie to be streamed so anyone with a TV or computer can watch it, and maybe they’ll get bigger. But getting bigger right now is not really gonna help us. We’re not playing shows, so how about we do something cool? That’s what we’ve always tried to do.” Director Day — best known for true-crime films and TV series, including several about Charles Manson — adds that the plan is still to maintain in-person screenings only. “Fat Mike’s vision for the movie is that you must experience it with the punk rock community, with friends, with drinks, with partying,” says Day, a NOFX fan who developed an email and Zoom relationship with Fat Mike some years prior to the tour. “It’s something that must be experienced together and shared. There’s a singalong component at one point. It has animation. It has real backstage footage. It has concert footage. We set out to create something you would enjoy in a public space, like a concert. We’re going to expand that and show it in other venues, maybe in places you wouldn’t expect to see a movie play, but our goal is to keep it communal forever and to make this experience last for as long as it can last for.” That is, of course in keeping with NOFX’s specific punk rock aesthetic, which Fat Mike also applies to the Fat Wreck Chords label he co-founded in 1990. “It’s absolutely in line with what we’ve always done,” he says. “Since the movie shows our career and how we were very DIY, doing the movie DIY just makes so much sense. And we’ve been selling out 90% of the shows. Some of the theaters are freaked out — ‘We don’t sell out movies!’ — but we’re doing it.” Some form of documentation was in Fat Mike’s mind when NOFX announced a 2023-2024 farewell tour that culminated in three shows on its home turf of San Pedro, Calif. — at which the quartet premiered a brand-new song, “We Did It Our Way.” “I’ve been wanting to quit for probably 10 years,” Fat Mike explains. “I do other things in my life. When you’re constantly going on the road you don’t do the things you want to so much. I wanted to get to those.” The group self-funded the film and tapped Day to helm. The Canadian-based director used the farewell tour as a framing device to tell the band’s full 41-year history — founded by Fat Mike and guitarist Eric Melvin in 1983, releasing 15 studio albums and establishing NOFX as a punk rock signpost not unlike Fugazi in the hardcore scene. Day assembled an array of archival footage and images along with performances from the tour and revealing interviews with Fat Mike, Melvin, drummer Erik “Smelly” Sandin, guitarist Aaron “El Hefe” Abeyta and others in the NOFX circle. It’s packed with a bit of sex, lots of drugs (and drink) and plenty of rock n’ roll, befitting the large scope of story Day felt he had to cover. “Obviously the story was they were breaking up, this iconic punk rock band,” he says. “In the movie, Milo (Aukerman) from Descendants refers to them as ‘the punk rock Beatles,’ and I think that’s apt. So you have the punk rock Beatles who are parting ways, and they’re gonna do that by going on tour one last time around the world and it’s taking place right in front of you.” However, Day adds, “to me it was always a real-life Spinal Tap — that was kinda how I pitched it to them, and they were really into that idea. So we approached it from that perspective; you had to get to know these four men, and by getting to know them they would bring you into this world and take you on this road trip, which is their final tour. But you also have to go into their backstory and know who these guys were and how they came to be.” Fat Mike — who wrote several new songs for the movie (a soundtrack comes out Aug. 28) as well as an instrumental score — feels that the resulting movie is “like a hug. It just felt so good. I mean, how fortunate we were, what an amazing, fun career. I really believe that our band had more fun than anybody in this business. We always self-managed. We did whatever we wanted to. When you don’t do radio (promotion) and you don’t do video and you have your own label and you still care? It’s just fun.” 40 Years reveals some uncomfortable darkness in NOFX’s world, however. Fat Mike says that watching Day’s interviews with his bandmates “was one of the worst days in my life. They really had a lot to get off their chests about me. All three of them talked so much sh-t about me and my drug use and how that ruined the band and that’s why we broke up…which is not at all the case. I didn’t know they felt that way, and I was so upset I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to take all that stuff out. “Then my wife told me , ‘Michael, don’t take it all out, and do not defend yourself. Just show what you guys did and what you accomplished, and if people don’t like that you do drugs, well, f–k them.'” Fat Mike clarifies that the extreme drug use was reserved for being on the road. “I always clean up between tours,” he says. “I don’t think I’m ever gonna be sober, but what disappointed me about my band was they thought I acted at home like I did when I was on tour. Like, why would you assume that? We live in different cities. How the f–k would you know what I did — and what business of yours, anyway?’” He ultimately reconciled with Sandin, who makes surfboards and snowboards, and Abeyta, who’s pursuing acting; the three are continuing to make music together under a different moniker, though they’ve not formally released anything yet. Fat Mike and Melvin, however, remain estranged after the latter’s attorney sent his bandmates a letter the day after the final show accusing Fat Mike of embezzling funds. (The film specifies that each band member made $2.8 million from the farewell trek, equivalent to 18 years of previous touring.) “That was the thing that broke everyone’s heart,” Fat Mike explains, “that (Melvin) was planning this for months and months and months, that he couldn’t have waited a few weeks — and then he denied it, which is so weird, because we all have the letter. No one in the band will speak to him because of that, really.” Melvin is pointedly not participating in the promotion of the movie, though he’s featured throughout. And Fat Mike sees no chance of reconciling with his old friend. “What I would expect someone to say when it was proven their best friend for 40 years did not do anything wrong is, ‘Oh, what a relief. Mike didn’t rip me off’,” Fat Mike explains. “But, no, he’s still going after me. What’s funny is the three of us — me and Hefe and Smelly — are really closer than we’ve ever been. We talk a lot, and it’s just more fun and natural. We don’t need a new album out now or we don’t need to do this or that. We’re just having fun.” Courtesy Beachwood Part of 40 Years‘ depth is a full-on dose of Fat Mike, an unapologetic portrayal of his eccentricities, fetishes, substance intake and irreverent attitudes. A shared favorite scene for him and Day comes early on when, after chatting while floating in his Las Vegas swimming pool, sporting a latex dress, Fat Mike takes the camera crew through a tour of his closets filled with dresses and other ephemera. “We had somewhat planned it, but the way it turned out was completely spontaneous,” Day recalls. “I did not tell him to put on that dress. I did not tell him to jump into the pool with heels. That’s just what he’s like. I can see why people think, ‘Oh, they’re trying to amp up this guy’s lifestyle,’ but we’re not. You don’t have to. That’s Mike. Ironically it doesn’t really forward the narrative of the movie, but it has to be in there, and in my opinion it’s the best scene in the movie.” Fat Mike feels the same way — and notes that Melvin “wanted to cut it out of the film completely.” He was validated, however, by his 21-year-old daughter Darla’s reaction after 40 Years‘ Los Angeles premiere. “Afterwards she goes, ‘Dad, that scene of you in your closet…I know you wear dresses, I’ve seen you wear dresses on stage and stuff, but I’ve never seen you feminine before, and I got to see you in a way I’d never seen you. I understand you better now’,” he says. “And, oh, I just started tearing up, and she was tearing up. It was the greatest gift I could’ve gotten from this whole thing.” As 40 Years makes its rounds, Fat Mike remains busy in the wake of NOFX’s farewell. During January the band released a one-off single, “Minnesota Nazis,” in the wake of ICE’s killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis; Fat Mike says the band also has six songs in the can for what was to be a final album. “They may come out,” he predicts, “but I just kinda got soured (by) that Eric Melvin situation so I feel weird about it.” He recently produced a new album, Lifers, with the band Codefendants, launched a Fatty’s Bottom Shelf vodka brand and is playing professional poker in Las Vegas. He’s also produced a song for his daughter that Fat Mike says “will surprise everybody. It’s certainly not punk.” Meanwhile, he’s nearly 200 pages into a book, How to Write a Punk Rock Song in 67 Steps, which he describes as “a music theory book with a lot of my opinions. I don’t think anything like it has ever been written. I’m just doing all these things that make me happy,” Fat Mike says, “that make me a lot happier than performing the same songs on stage every night.”