Irrespective of how much you already know about NOFX, this punk rock documentary is riveting from go to whoa.
Fetishism, latex and BDSM? Tick. An abundance of cocaine-snorting footage? Yep. And that’s just in Fat Mike’s scenes.
40 Years Of Fuckin’ Up establishes its self-deprecating tone from the get-go by opening with Howard Stern’s famous diss (“‘No Talent’ is the name of that band”), which became a ‘hidden ending’ for “Falling in Love”, closing out NOFX’s seventh album, So Long And Thanks For All the Shoes (1997).
During this doco, Fat Mike declares, “You don’t have to be good to play in a punk band.” NOFX themselves admit they were terrible, and many talking heads confirm. One of the most memorable talking-head disses: “I’d rather listen to silence”.
Moments into the opening scene, Fat Mike reveals he was diagnosed with diabetes two days ago and needs to clean up his act. Sick of being judged, he doesn’t want his band to know. Mike also doesn’t want to perform anymore. He doesn’t know how to go on stage sober, bemoaning, “I can’t pretend to rock out to songs I’ve been playing for 40 years.”
Intriguingly, Mike didn’t do drugs until he was 31. We later see him racking up on a table covered in tiny holes, announcing, “My band think I have a drug problem”. During another scene, Mike cautions his housekeeper: “Don’t touch my coke!”
When Fat Mike first met Eric Melvin, the pair became fast friends, skateboarding and playing music together on the reg.
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During his interviews, Melvin starts telling stories before admitting he can’t remember the rest, then doubting whether the first part of the story even happened – much to the delight of the audience at this particular screening.
Erik “Smelly” Sandin admired Mike’s Black Flag skateboard from afar. Then, when the pair met in East Hollywood, he was brought in as drummer.
The band’s founding members – Fat Mike, Melvin and Smelly – first toured when they were in their late-teens, before they’d put any music out, in Melvin’s dad’s station wagon with plastic duct-taped where the back window used to be.
Mexican-American musician/actor Aaron ‘El Hefe’ Abeyta joined in 1992, three days before NOFX went on tour, and learned the songs of the fly.
NOFX were definitely not a radio band; they were an underground, word-of-mouth punk-rock phenomenon. They made a decision not to make videos for MTV and stopped doing interviews for eight years. The band put out their own records, made their own rules and prioritised enjoyment throughout their career.
Green Day, The Offspring and Nirvana used to open for NOFX.
The entire purpose of NOFX’s final tour, according to Mike, was to make enough money for the other members to retire on. “No one could offer me enough money to where I’d do it again,” he states.
Watching Mike and Melvin’s friendship unravel throughout is heartbreaking. The story goes that Fat Mike texted Melvin: ‘You broke my heart,’ and that he’d never speak to his former-bestie again after the tour. In Australia, Mike also told Smelly and the band’s manager, Kent Jamieson, that Melvin’s wife “can’t be on stage” while he’s playing.
40 Years Of Fuckin’ Up is brilliantly edited, especially when perspectives on the same topic are presented back-to-back: after Melvin says Mike seems to think he and his wife are out to get him, we cut to Mike: “They’re kinda out to get me!”
Towards the end, footage of an early NOFX tour’s debrief is interspersed with the same stats – including gas money expenses, profits on T-shirts and daily average earnings – from the band’s final tour.
According to NOFX: 40 Years of Fuckin’ Up, each member of NOFX made $2.8 million from the farewell tour, which is equivalent to 18 years of previous touring for the band.
Here is what we learned and some key takeaways from the film.
Fat Mike’s fetishism: “Don’t dream it, be it”
Mike started cross-dressing when he was a teenager. One of his forearm tats – “Don’t dream it, be it” – is a Frank-N-Furter quote from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
After walking us through one of his spacious walk-in wardrobes – containing a plethora of Latex outfits, masks, thigh-high boots and bondage gear – Mike shares an early memory from preschool: getting wrapped up in a plastic Twister mat when he was about four years old and kinda liking it.
Mike allows himself to be completely vulnerable in scenes explaining how cross-dressing changes him, because he wants to encourage viewers to discover their kinks.
The intervention that saved Smelly
Smelly’s moment of clarity arrived when the band threatened to get Richard ‘Bomer’ Manzullo from RKL – his hero – to play on their next album. He went to rehab and got clean.
What it took to get Fat Mike to rehab
Two days into his sober vacation at M. Shadows’ Palm Springs house, Mike started haemorrhaging from both ends. Three cleaning companies refused to touch the scene. There were multiple cleaning bills, Mike spent a month in rehab and stayed sober for ten months afterwards. Trigger warning: there’s actual footage as well as graphic animation of Mike’s near-death experience.
NOFX’s career-wide DIY approach
Mike’s explanation of how much money corporations such as Live Nation or AEG make from touring bands – often controlling ticket sales, owning the bar, taking all the parking money and a percentage of merch sales – is sobering to put it mildly. He worked alongside Cameron Collins to put together NOFX’s final tour, staying true to the band’s career-wide DIY approach. Mike proposed that by setting up their stages in parking lots, campgrounds or fields – and fencing these areas off – the band could keep 60% of the bar and the ticket sales plus all the merch and parking money.
“We did it our way”
While in rehab, Mike wrote NOFX’s last-ever song “We Did It Our Way” – a statement of gratitude for fans – which documents their four-decade-long history.
The band had never rehearsed ahead of a tour before, but were forced to learn this new song Fat Mike wrote to perform as their literal swansong.
Pack tissues for NOFX’s final-show performance of the autobiographical “We Did It Our Way”, with Mike singing way more tunefully than he has to date.
The rollcall of premium punk-rock stock who joined NOFX on stage for their last-ever show – in San Pedro, California on October 6, 2024 – speaks volumes: Brett Gurewitz, Jay Bentley and Greg Hetson from Bad Religion; Tim Armstrong (Rancid), Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters); Dexter Holland (The Offspring); Mike Herrera and Tom Wisniewski (MxPx); Fletcher (Pennywise); plus representatives from Sum 41, Rise Against, Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, The Vandals, and more.
While NOFX reckon they typically gave 60% at their early gigs, final tour crowds undoubtedly witnessed them at 100%.
40 Years Of Fuckin’ Up’s only bummer is some corny underscore choices (eg. lamenting strings during intervention scenes and banjo pluckin’ during cheeky bits).
Where are they now?
Fat Mike lost weight and doesn’t have diabetes anymore. He’s been songwriting, surfing and doing standup, produced a Codefendents album (Mike’s new musical project alongside Sam King and Ceschi Ramos) and staged his punk-rock musical project, Home Street Home.
El Hefe’s acting career has taken off.
Eric Melvin is an electronic producer/DJ under the Melvinator moniker. He’s also a life coach.
Smelly continues to record music and runs a custom surfboard-shaping business called Pickle Stix.
Update: Melvin has denied claims that his lawyers served Fat Mike with legal papers the morning after NOFX’s final show in October 2024, accusing him of “legal financial malfeasance”. He took to social media to set the record straight in his own words: “I never sued Fat Mike, NOFX, or served anyone in the band legal papers.” Melvin asserts he actually sent a letter requesting financial records he had been seeking for years, alongside a request for certain behaviour to cease.
According to the film’s website, 40 Years Of Fuckin’ Up will never be streamed, only screened.
