Band takes heat after joke about shooting
In the same week that television personalities Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee were swept up in a wave of social media outrage, a Bay Area punk band with a long history of behaving badly has found itself in a swirl of controversy in a new socially conscious era.
NOFX is facing backlash after making an offhand joke during its set at the Punk Rock Bowling and Music Festival in Las Vegas on Sunday, May 27, referencing the mass shooting in October at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, also in Las Vegas, that killed 58 and injured nearly 500.
“We played a song about
Muslims and we didn’t get shot! Hooray!” frontman “Fat Mike” Burkett said in low-resolution video clips from the performance that were shared on social media. His bandmate Eric Melvin replied, “I guess you’re only getting shot in Vegas if you’re a country band.”
“I mean, that sucked,” Burkett added. “But at least they were country fans and not punk rock fans.”
Following the incident, the group lost a sponsorship deal with a California brewery, was dropped from a music festival bill in Ohio and is facing a radio station boycott in Nevada.
Stone Brewing was the first to react, pulling out of its Punk in Drublic sponsorship deal with the band, which included a collaboration beer and numerous nationally touring music and beer festivals.
The Escondido (San Diego County) brewery, which has an outpost in Napa, said Wednesday, May 30: “We respect punk rock, and the DIY ethos for which it stands. To us, it means standing up for things you believe in, and fearlessly committing to what’s right. And it is for that reason that Stone Brewing is immediately disassociating ourselves from the band NOFX.”
Along with NOFX, the band Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies — also fronted by Burkett and on the Burkett-founded label Fat Wreck Chords — was dropped from the Camp Punk in Drublic Festival in Ohio scheduled for Friday and Saturday, June 1 and 2.
Las Vegas radio DJs Dave Farra and Jason Mahoney, who first shared a video of the incident, said on Twitter, “We will never support anything involving this band ever again.”
By Thursday, May 31, Burkett posted an apology to NOFX’s Facebook page: “I can’t sleep, no one in my band can. What we said in Vegas was s— and insensitive and we are all embarrassed by our remarks. So we decided we will all get together to discuss and write an in depth, sincere, and honest apology because that’s what the people we offended and hurt deserve.”
NOFX has a long history of courting controversy. In March, it marked the death of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking by releasing the song “There’s No ‘Too Soon’ if Time Is Relative.” At the band’s 2010 South By Southwest set, with Burkett performing as his alter-ego Cokie the Clown, NOFX debuted a song called “Drinking Pee,” while the singer appeared to relieve himself into a Patron bottle and then distribute shots of urine to fans. And the cover art for the group’s 1996 album, “Heavy Petting Zoo,” featured a painting depicting bestiality.
“I’m kind of torn because NOFX’s comments on the Vegas shooting were tasteless and offensive, but on the other hand that’s been their schtick for years,” said the author Ferrett Steinmetz on Twitter. “They’re punk rockers. I literally expect them to piss me off regularly.”
But at a time of several socially conscious movements and in light of the rampant mass shootings across the nation, it appears the band finally crossed a line.