So Long & Thanks For All The Shoes (To The Face): NOFX Say Farewell To Australia

Legendary punk rockers NOFX revealed ahead of their appearance at Good Things Festival last year that they were calling it a day with one final run of shows across the globe. You might assume that their dates Down Under in December for the festival would be their farewell lap of the country, but frontman Fat Mike stresses that wouldn’t be fair to the fans.

“We couldn't leave on Punk In Drublic songs,” the influential frontman begins, referencing the band’s choice to perform the seminal 1994 album in full during those festival sets.

Fatty, as he’s affectionately known by many, or Mike Burkett if you want to get technical, will return in January alongside his bandmates to perform Punk In Drublic in full AND classic releases Wolves In Wolves' Clothing, The War On Errorism, White Trash Two Heebs And A Bean, So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes and The Decline over two nights in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

The band aren’t phoning in their final shows by any means.

“These shows, it's getting to say goodbye and mean it,” he enthuses, “even though we're grabbing money, we mean it. It's so nice to play a great show, and we're rehearsing because we want to be better than we've ever been before. To say thank you to everyone, it feels so good.”

Burkett admits that it’s likely he’s “never coming back to Australia” and that with NOFX’s final shows, they’re “putting a punctuation mark instead of a question mark, and that's cool”.

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“You get to thank people for all the years, and it's like going to your own funeral,” he adds. “You get to say everything you wanted to, and you enjoy it so much more when it's your last [time], and I'm really enjoying it.”

Burkett is excited about these performances and upcoming Australian shows in a way that’s infectious. “In all sincerity, it's really wonderful,” he smiles after joking about being “gangbanged by Kangaroos” on a Perth golf course. “It's a long flight and people throw things at me a lot in Perth,” he cheekily adds as reasons why the band are skipping WA (this fan has seen numerous projectiles collide with the musician over the years, including a shoe to the face).

“[Australia has] the sweetest people in the world, really great people… it's one of the best places in the world. It's the best country. If it wasn't so weird and out of the way, if it was two hours from the US, everyone would move there.”

The end of NOFX won’t free up Burkett’s schedule so much as it will allow him to take a step back, focus on himself a bit more, and continue to experiment with new sounds, projects and other collaborations.

“NOFX never toured that much, but not having to worry about the other guys in the band… I've spent so many years and sleepless nights worrying about them, not Smelly, but the other two [Eric Melvin and El Hefe] because they didn't use their money as well as Smelly, but they're my boys.

“They're my brothers, and during COVID, that was the first time NOFX ever had fights and tension because they didn't know where their money was going to come from.

“But I won't have to. This last tour is so successful, and it is really bringing us together, and they're all happy because we're making good money that we deserve; we're making our own money. That frees me. I don't have to worry about those guys anymore.”

When quizzed on whether or not he thinks it’s fair that someone can put so much into a band for 40 years and still be wondering, ‘What am I going to do? Where's my money coming from?’ Burkett responds with: “The thing is, name a person that spent 40 years working and just having the best time of their life with their best friends, and that's what Smelly said, like, ‘Quit worrying about them. They made all their own choices. You're not responsible.’ But I can't do it. I can't do it. Because they're my brothers. After this tour, everyone is going to be good, I believe.”

Among Burkett’s many new projects – including the recently opened Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas – is his new album Fat Mike Gets Strung Out, a collaboration with Baz The Frenchman described as “a record of (mostly) NOFX songs recast and reimagined as classical compositions”.

Listening to the album really drives home the fact that Fat Mike isn’t a punk rock songwriter; he’s a songwriter who happens to play punk rock. “I've never heard it put like that, and that's exactly why I did it,” Burkett says. “Thank you so much for that.”

The songs take on a new life when presented in this format, with various vocal melodies, guitar leads, bass lines, etc. standing out in different ways from what was presented on the original recordings. Hearing songs that he’s lived with for decades presented in such a way made him “very, very happy”.

“Baz, he took every part of the song, every octave chord and every lead and everything and replaced it on strings, and then we sat there and just had the best time. And you can hear, and just what you said, that made me so happy. What you said is you can hear the songs, you can hear all the parts that you couldn't hear before, and that's what I wanted.

“I wanted people to hear my songs in their purest form, and I don't listen to NOFX records. I'm not like, ‘Yeah, I'm rocking out to my band.’ Because I'm sick of them after I recorded them, but you know what? I do listen to this record. It makes me happy. It makes me calm, and it makes me proud.”