Brisbane’s pop-punk upstarts Two Times Shy are soaring lofty heights as they let loose their …
It’s been a long climb for Fat Mike. Literally. Never mind the 30 plus years the dude has fronted NOFX for. Or his time as head of one of the world’s biggest independent record labels, Fat Wreck Chords. Bro has just walked up a gnarly flight of stairs right before our interview. “I’m almost 50, dude … I just walked up a couple flights of stairs,” Mike says as he catches his breath.
In those almost 50 years, Mike has learned a thing or two about the world. This is a dude who created a multi-million dollar empire out of nothing by writing punk rock records, scores to fetish porn, full-blown musicals and T-shirts that say ‘not my president’. All of this is fresh in his mind because preparing his band’s biography, NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories, got Mike all reflective about the whirlwind of craziness that has been the vast majority of his adult life. When he regains his puff, the front man keeps on with that reflective vibe as he discusses the book, NOFX’s next record, and what the world looks like when you’re Fat Mike.
WHAT IT’S LIKE WRITING A BOOK ABOUT YOUR BAND WHEN SAID BAND IS STILL RELEVANT (UNLIKE MÖTLEY CRÜE):
“For years, reading other band biographies, I would think to myself that NOFX’s story is one that nobody has heard before. Because there were so many years where nobody cared about us. We didn’t even care about us. We spent so many years hardly doing anything. Touring, but you know, not getting anywhere. And that’s the point where bands would get fed up, but we didn’t at all. That was just normal life. We were playing in a punk band, no one likes us. Who cares?”
“There’s nothing left in my life that’s a secret. And it’s awesome. Like cross dressing or doing BDSM, I just don’t have any secrets anymore and that feels very freeing. I live exactly how I want. I do whatever the fuck I want, and I don’t have pride or shame anymore. Because they’re useless. Pride and shame will fucking slow you down …
“The guy who organised it for us Jeff [Penalty, co-author], he interviewed us for … I don’t know … it was a long time because we’re always fucking off on tour. But we had to make a time where we cut it off because otherwise it would go on forever. And I’ve been sober for a couple of months and the writer really wanted to end it with me being sober. But I said no, because I can be sober for a week or so here and there but I don’t want to be sober … That’s the thing, the whole book is the truth. The deep, dark truth. So we weren’t going to make up an ending.”
CONFRONTING ALL THE DEMONS REQUIRED BY A ‘TELL-ALL’ BIOGRAPHY:
“There’s nothing left in my life that’s a secret. And it’s awesome. Like cross dressing or doing BDSM, I just don’t have any secrets anymore and that feels very freeing. I live exactly how I want. I do whatever the fuck I want, and I don’t have pride or shame anymore. Because they’re useless. Pride and shame will fucking slow you down … Everyone talks about shame but pride is just as bad. I’ve always hated pride, when you think of things like white pride, of course everyone thinks that’s bad, or pride in your country … that’s fucked up, too. It’s all stuff that you have nothing to do with. The only thing you can be proud of is something you’ve painted, or something you’ve done for society. But you start having pride in that then you just look fucking arrogant. It’s better to get rid of pride altogether. And shame. Just don’t fuck with them.”
