Nofx - Punk Rock Élite

“Raised on NOFX”. This was a fairly common phrase among young punks, teenagers between the late Nineties and the early 2000s. The claim wasn't accidental, nor the product of some fleeting fad. In fact, the “NOFX generation” within the contemporary punk scene maintained an absolute dominance for a good decade, and even today it holds onto a kind of noble rank that's hard to dislodge. That alone would be enough to show NOFX's impact in shaping the army of millennial punk rockers.

But perhaps it's better to stop here and start from the beginning.

The early Eighties, and California is the undisputed epicenter of the hardcore scene. On the stages of Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, some relatively big names are already doing the rounds; a few years earlier, Darby Crash's Germs had paved the way for that new way of conceiving punk-rock, while Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Adolescents, Social Distortion, Bad Religion, Descendents, T.S.O.L., Vandals, Circle Jerks (just to name the Californians) are already bands with huge followings, objects of real veneration. So the kids getting their first taste of rock'n'roll in those years of full-blown ferment can't help but pass through the gauntlet of hardcore; many are inevitably struck by lightning, and new bands start popping up like mushrooms.

The same thing happens in 1983 to two teenagers from Berkeley, named Eric Melvin and Michael Burkett (later better known as Fat Mike). Amid a frantic lineup turnover, they're soon joined by drummer Erik Sandin (who, due to a family move, will leave the fold almost immediately).

Burkett and Melvin, bassist and guitarist, backed by a succession of comrades-in-arms on drums and second guitar, without even having decided yet who should be the singer, christen themselves NOFX, start playing in every possible venue while touring around in a beat-up station wagon, and begin churning out a string of demos and EPs, first with the support of Doug Moody's Mystic Records (the self-titled release and “So What If We're On Mystic!”, sharing the label with Scared Straight -- later Ten Foot Pole -- and Rich Kids on LSD, a band much loved by Fat Mike) and then self-released (“The P.M.R.C. Can Suck On This”) on a label founded specifically for the purpose, Wassail Records.

Overall, these records (now impossible to find, aside from the unauthorized compilation “Maximum Rocknroll” put out by Mystic, which gathers together the tracks released under its banner) show a raw, unpolished hardcore band with confused ideas.

Meanwhile, NOFX find their first stable lineup, with Fat Mike settling permanently into the vocalist role, Erik Sandin returning behind the drums, and second guitar duties handed to Dave Casillas. The hardcore community keeps growing in numbers and popularity; NOFX manage to carve out a small space for themselves within it and start wanting to get serious.

In 1988, buoyed by the decent fame they'd earned on the underground circuit after five years of misadventures, Fat Mike and co. finally manage to record their first full length. They do it at Brett Gurewitz's West Beach Studios — Gurewitz being the guitarist of Bad Religion and head of Epitaph, just relaunched with the release of "Suffer" the previous year (to be followed in 1989 by the masterpiece "No Control").

The freshly delivered album is called Liberal Animation, and Gurewitz offers to put it out through his own Epitaph. The band, however, prefers to keep its independence via Wassail, and, with hindsight, this won't turn out to be much of a loss for Epitaph. Liberal Animation is in fact a rather poorly blended jumble of screams and clumsy riffs, which, put like that, might sound like a perfectly normal description of a hardcore record — if only it didn't repeat itself in such a redundant, grating way (and above all without any real bite) across all thirty minutes containing the album's fourteen ramshackle tracks. Fat Mike himself would later have no qualms about calling it the worst NOFX album.

By the second half of the Eighties, hardcore punk had evolved and matured. After all, even an attitude that had built its foundations and its very identity on blind, scorching fury couldn't go on relying solely on that forever. To keep up with the times, there were basically two possible paths: head toward a post-hardcore maturity (Fugazi, Hüsker Dü), or veer into more melodic territory, following stylistic and lyrical blueprints that were sometimes adult in tone (Bad Religion), in other cases post-adolescent (as the Descendents had already been teaching since the start of the decade). NOFX would position themselves more or less right between these latter two.

"The first time I saw the Descendents, they were the fastest band I'd ever seen," Fat Mike would sing, fittingly enough, in 2003 on "13 Stitches," a track from "The War On Errorism" in which he draws up a romantic, nostalgic list of his influences as a young hardcore kid in the Eighties. The first line closes with a none-too-subtle nod to "Milo Goes To College," which Burkett has called his "all time favourite record."

It's precisely from the Descendents that the new blueprint emerges, one destined to shape the future look of pop-punk aesthetics; the sing-song tales of everyday teenage angst in the Ramones mold find new form in the fifteen supersonic hardcore ballads of "Milo Goes To College," which becomes the absolute reference point for the new strand of punk inclined to flirt with melody, breaking away from the tribal rituals of nihilism and collective rage around which the era's hardcore dynamics revolved. The Descendents' lesson is exhilarating, and NOFX realize it's time to make it their own.

Meanwhile, despite the undeniable mediocrity of Liberal Animation, the band wins over further fans, largely thanks to a punishing live schedule that for the first time also takes them to Europe.

Once the various tours wrap up, guitarist Dave Casillas is let go, replaced by Steve Kidwiller. NOFX start working on new songs, substantially reworking their formula. In no time, the four put together enough material for a second album, titled S&M Airlines. The recording sessions once again take place at Brett Gurewitz's studios; this time Fat Mike gives in to his courting and decides to sign with Epitaph.

On S&M Airlines, the seed of what will become the "NOFX sound" emerges for the first time; melodies reminiscent of the Descendents are set within even more markedly uptempo rhythms, reaching dizzying speeds that until then only Bad Religion had touched. The songwriting and performances, while still "unruly," are noticeably more "polished" and mature compared to the debut. Fat Mike's vocals are slightly cleaned up, though still keeping a high, piercing pitch, and are now flanked by choral interjections, also borrowed from Bad Religion. The guitars follow the lead of the rhythm section, with more effective, structured riffs, climbing up and down scales played on octave chords — something that will become a trademark of the band.

"Day To Daze," "Five Feet Under," the title track, "Drug Free America" and the slower "Vanilla Sex" stand as the best moments on an album that doesn't leave much of a mark, paying the price for the inexperience of a transformation still in progress (if not barely begun), but which sets the course for what's to come, starting to coin a style that will later be recognized as melodic hardcore or skate punk. Not coincidentally, those same years see the birth of bands that will go on to lead this trend: Offspring, Pennywise, No Use For A Name, Lagwagon.

The story continues in an even more fully realized form with Ribbed, from 1990. NOFX sharpen the sound already sketched out on S&M Airlines even further, also attempting for the first time to venture into clear thematic departures, with results that aren't exactly unforgettable ("Food, Sex And Ewe," "Together On The Sand"). This album features the first true classics in the NOFX catalogue ("Green Corn" and especially "The Moron Brothers," their first real anthem), and above all it's here that the band's grotesque, humorous streak starts to come through, both in the lyrics (the titles of "New Boobs" and "Gonoherpasyphilaids" alone make the point) and in the music, which partly drops the fairly serious shield of the past in favor of a more light-hearted approach, bringing them closer once again to the Descendents, albeit still at double speed and with more intricate phrasing built around dizzying stop 'n go breaks.

Something is still missing, though; while the Descendents had, quite some time before, already managed to build strength from a coherent, pleasantly sentimental post-adolescent narrative, leaning on songwriting skills well above the average of many of their peers, NOFX still find themselves caught between angry outbursts that are somewhat an end in themselves and a newly acquired goofball streak that's still too naive.

With Ribbed, the first chapter of NOFX's story comes to a close, representing in a sense their apprenticeship years. The band's popularity had nonetheless grown considerably, to the point that pressings and repressings of S&M Airlines and Ribbed (and even of Liberal Animation) had promptly sold out, and the NOFX name was being regularly listed on the bills of the most renowned punk festivals and stages.

This is the crucial moment, the turning point in life and career that, if you fail to seize it to make that fateful leap in quality, risks condemning you to being forgotten. NOFX reach this step when they're little more than twenty years old and already have three proper albums behind them, but in a complicated period of transition. The band members had become particularly devoted to excess, which is why Steve Kidwiller decides to walk away. A certain Aaron Abeyta is recruited in his place, a musician of Hispanic descent known by the stage name El Hefe. The swap will turn out to be the greatest stroke of luck the band could have asked for. This is where everything changes.

El Hefe brings major improvements in terms of technical level and creativity; a guitarist more gifted than the hardcore punk average, equally capable of handling solos and intricate riffs, he quickly becomes the band's lead guitarist (with Melvin shifting to rhythm) and makes an immediate impression with a charismatic, flamboyant, clownish personality that fits perfectly with the goofball spirit NOFX had already been cultivating. He also plays trumpet and trombone and brings with him a varied musical background, with influences ranging from jazz and swing to, above all, ska and reggae (which, from his arrival onward, NOFX would explore extensively — far from chasing the apocalyptic extremes of Bad Brains, they would go on to play a significant role in the expansion of ska-core sounds).

With the arrival of El Hefe, NOFX finally lay the last bricks in the construction of a strong, recognizable identity of their own, refining their melodic approach and gaining a greater ability to handle both sheer aggression and speed.

Meanwhile, Wassail changes name and purpose, turning into Fat Wreck Chords, a proper record label launched by Fat Mike together with his wife Erin. The honour of inaugurating the label falls, in 1991, to a NOFX EP, The Longest Line, which also marks El Hefe's official debut.

The growth is evident in the songwriting, in the playing, and in the lyrics. Across the EP's five tracks, the best ideas of their past work finally find an organic, personal shape. The riffs are sharp and effective, giving weight and substance to rhythms that are (mostly) still cranked up to full speed. The lyrics become more layered, more thought-through narratives. There are doo-wop harmonies piled on top of distorted walls of guitar, tempo changes, bridges and outros shifting in pace and harmony. The title track becomes a small pop-punk standard, while on "Kill All The White Men" NOFX start dabbling in reggae, with a self-mocking edge that oozes from El Hefe's farcical vocal delivery (he also plays the trumpet lines).

Some rough edges and inconsistencies are still clearly visible, but it's safe to say that with The Longest Line the NOFX saga truly begins to take shape. But this is only the warm-up.

The real, long-awaited leap in quality arrives a year later, in 1992. NOFX release White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, once again with the faithful Epitaph.

The album opens with a blistering one-two-three: "Soul Doubt", where El Hefe's guitar flair gets free rein, "Stickin' In My Eye", an all-out assault that stands as the perfect handbook of skate punk and melodic hardcore, and "Bob", a fizzy slice of pop-punk with a spot-on ska interlude (horns included) that will remain, for life, one of the most beloved and celebrated songs in the band's entire catalogue.

These three tracks alone would be enough to push NOFX firmly into the pantheon of punk-rock that matters, as indeed will happen. But White Trash... doesn't stop there; despite a few obvious filler moments, the record showcases a sound that has finally found its own unmistakable dimension within the punk landscape. There's anger, there's goofing around, there's hardcore drive and pop melody; NOFX, after countless attempts, while still very young, establish themselves as masters at blending these elements. White Trash... also features pure comic relief (which will never be in short supply on NOFX records), such as "Johnny Appleseed", "Buggley Eyes" and "Straight Edge" (a swing-flavoured parody of the famous Minor Threat song that gave its name to the homonymous movement, whose ideology the members of NOFX clearly have very little affinity with). Fat Mike shows off his skills as a punk-flavoured storyteller ("Liza And Louise") and as a comic wordsmith ("Please Play This Song On The Radio"), on two tracks where he once again takes command of pop-punk with flair and charisma.

White Trash... becomes a massive success within the underground of the early '90s, ranking among Epitaph's best sellers up to that point, alongside Bad Religion's albums (who had meanwhile also jumped to a major). All this happens during a fairly charged period for the punk scene; little remained of the hardcore world of the previous decade, and the already-mentioned split between those who had pushed on into post-hardcore territory and those who had instead taken the pop turn represented a genuine dividing line. The bands (or offshoots of them) belonging to the first camp had delved into the evolving, restless undergrowth of the various forms of alternative rock (which 80s hardcore had played a decisive role in shaping). Those belonging to the second group (NOFX among them), mostly young and still standing, found themselves instead on the front line of the so-called punk revival, ready to explode before long in a more or less mainstream form, though its boom could already be strongly felt in the air.

Mainly, the whole new community revolved around three labels: Epitaph, obviously, Lookout! (home to Screeching Weasel, Queers, Mr. T Experience, and birthplace of Green Day and Rancid – the latter first in the guise of Operation Ivy), and indeed Fat Wreck Chords (No Use For A Name, Lagwagon, Good Riddance, Propagandhi); it's worth noting that NOFX would continue releasing albums with Epitaph for a long time, using Fat Wreck instead to churn out a long string of EPs, live albums and B-side collections.

The first big commercial hit comes in 1993 with Pennywise's "Unknown Road", with which Epitaph racks up two hundred thousand copies sold (an apparently outrageous figure for that world, though still nothing compared to what would happen just a year later). Punk bands start climbing onto the stages of top-tier festivals, no longer confined strictly to the scene's own circuit. There's a delicate balancing act between giving in to mainstream fame and preserving a certain orthodoxy that everyone is expected to respect; some will end up giving in to major-label offers (first and foremost Green Day), others will try to hold on to the last scraps of hardcore status. Among the latter, NOFX, who declare they categorically refuse, now and for the future, to sign with a major, and likewise refuse to air their videos on MTV or other commercial channels. Epitaph still guarantees adequate promotion and distribution, and meanwhile Fat Wreck itself had also grown rapidly, turning Fat Mike into a leading figure (not to say, in his own way, a "power") within an ever-expanding punk community.

With these premises, we arrive at 1994, the year of no return. The "traitors" Green Day, "guilty" of having signed with Reprise (a Warner subsidiary), sell ten million copies of "Dookie". In response, Epitaph plays a royal flush, starting with its own cash cow, "Smash" by the Offspring, which matches "Dookie"'s numbers, smashing every past and future sales record for an album released by an independent label. Keeping "Smash" company in Brett Gurewitz's stable are "Let's Go" by Rancid and, above all, Punk In Drublic by NOFX.

In Punk In Drublic there are no chart-topping singles like on Smash and Dookie. Partly because of this, the album sells far less than its two "rivals", though over the years it will go on to surpass a million copies, a staggering result (leaving aside Smash, which stands as a statistical outlier) for an independent release. And yet, far more than the other two, Punk In Drublic will leave an indelible mark and stand as the primary, unavoidable influence on all punk and pop-punk to follow in the years ahead, for better or worse (yes, including Blink 182 and Sum 41 – and this writer isn't filing them under "worse").

This is how the "NOFX generation" begins to take shape; that fast, pounding, catchy, fun, pissed-off sound will become the most widely used (and abused) formula in pop-punk. Truth be told, NOFX had certainly developed a genuine melodic, pop-leaning talent, but that's about as far as the term goes; they never had the attitude, nor, strictly speaking, the stylistic approach that goes with it. Before, during and after Punk In Drublic, NOFX have rarely followed the typical traits of the radio song format or the hit-parade album structure. So, pop almost against their will, we might say, since they've always kept a safe distance from pop aesthetics proper.

The fact remains that with Punk In Drublic they line up seventeen punk-pop-skate-melodic-hardcore-or-whatever-you-want-to-call-it anthems. However you choose to label it, the result doesn't change. And whether you love this strain of punk-rock or hate it (or, more commonly, snub it), there's no arguing that Punk In Drublic is its magnum opus.

"Linoleum" opens the show and will forever remain their monument; an intro that builds like an epic charge before spilling into a lightning two-minute whirlwind, no chorus, the briefest pause to catch a breath, then straight into the final stadium-sized sing-along. You hear it once and it never leaves you. This is NOFX. "Linoleum" is the master class (quite literally) in how to write a pop song (pop in the sense that it's unforgettable from the very first listen) while breaking every single rule of pop songwriting (but... who's that screaming? What's all this racket? And where's the chorus?). "Linoleum" will also go on to become the most covered and most tributed punk song of the last twenty-five years, especially live.

Throughout Punk In Drublic you're catapulted into a whirlwind of memorable tracks, where weak moments are hard to come by. The lyrical side also grows sharper and more self-aware. Fat Mike proves himself an excellent, intelligent songwriter, whether describing episodes (nonsense ones included) of punk life (“Linoleum,” “Dig,” “Leave It Alone,” “Fleas,” “The Brews”), telling stories both serious (“Lory Meyers,” “Happy Guy”) and goofy (“Jeff Wears Birkenstocks,” “Punk Guy”), or launching socio-political broadsides, biting in “Don’t Call Me White,” “Dying Degree” and “Reeko,” and closer to platitude in “Perfect Government” (actually a cover of Mark Curry, a modestly successful American singer-songwriter who had been a bandmate of El Hefe's in the '80s). “Don’t Call Me White” rises to the rank of a great classic, “The Brews” apes Oi! and street punk in an amusing, amused choral performance, while “Dying Degree” (opened by a metalcore prelude in “The Quass”) and “Lory Meyers” (sung as a duet with the late Kim Shattuck of the Muffs) are gut punches, powerful in both music and lyrics.

“Reeko” opens like a reggae ballad, eases into a smooth folk solo, and unleashes fury in the final verse. It's followed, closing out the record, by “Scavenger Type,” a mournful sob of acoustic guitar and voice. Incidentally, it's not widely known that these last two tracks would, a few years later, end up on the soundtrack of “Nirvana,” Gabriele Salvatores's cyberpunk dystopian film.

Fat Mike nails the combination of volume and pitch in his voice, Melvin shouts raucously an octave below in the background, El Hefe lets loose on his riffs (finding his inevitable clownish moment in the Caribbean sway of “My Heart Is Yearning”), and Sandin pounds away like a war machine. The style is varied, no longer tripping over tired redundancies.

With Punk In Drublic, NOFX finally arrive fully aware of their own potential, delivering the cornerstone record for a new generation of punk-rockers.

Hardcore punk is no longer the domain of outcasts rejected by society and forgotten by some god or other; instead, it's living through its era of mass popularity, full of those melodic nuances that purists see as undermining its essence but which act as a vehicle to reach the masses. The mainstream, in its strictest sense, will increasingly drift toward something ever catchier and more adolescent, but there's also a thriving undercurrent of bands that (at least on the surface) retain some blurred connection to the independent philosophy of the founding fathers. Among these, NOFX are by now the acknowledged leaders. This is also due to Fat Wreck's ever-growing relevance within the scene. It's with Fat Wreck itself that NOFX release, in 1995, I Heard They Suck Live!, their first live album, with a title that ironically stigmatizes the band's supposedly poor live chops; something that's more or less true, for that matter, given the new main-stage standards set by the big festivals, but which nonetheless signals a continued allegiance to a vision still deeply rooted in punk's worldview — one that, even now transplanted into mainstream contexts, still favors raw energy and contact with the audience over flawless execution.

Among Fat Wreck's releases, the numerous EPs and B-sides churned out over the years alongside the proper albums actually prove more interesting, scattering a myriad of tracks in which NOFX give free rein above all to their grotesque, politically incorrect humor (“I Wanna Be An Alcoholic,” “Timmy The Turtle,” “Drugs Are Good”).

It's with the prank of “Hobophobic” that 1996's Heavy Petting Zoo opens. Judging by the opening track, and above all by the irreverent cover art (which would lead to several instances of censorship), one might easily assume NOFX had definitively set their course toward a cynical, sarcastic tone. Instead, the album turns out to be the darkest in Fat Mike and co.'s entire catalog. Perhaps sated after the colossal bender of Punk In Drublic, the four decide to shift the mood; far more bloated, oppressive sonics prevail this time, with little to nothing given over to pop sensibilities.

The album is met with a mixed reception: skepticism from most, approval from those looking to see at least a partial return to hardcore roots. The truth actually lies somewhere in between. Heavy Petting Zoo is a natural transitional record following a “great binge” (not unlike what happened to Green Day with “Insomniac”). A few tracks are undoubtedly interesting (“Hot Dog In The Hallaway,” “What’s The Matter With Kids Today?” and especially the melancholy closer “Drop The World”), and the album as a whole manages to find its own reason for being. Still, it doesn't mark a new direction and remains, as noted, a purely transitional stop.

An important new chapter in NOFX's discography arrives in 1997 with So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes, its title borrowed from “So Long And Thanks For All The Fish,” the Douglas Adams novel (the one from “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,” to be clear). NOFX let loose completely, pulling together everything they'd accumulated up to that point and producing the most fun, most flamboyant album of their career. It kicks off headlong with “It’s My Job To Keep Punk Rock Élite,” in which, with a touch of satire, Fat Mike seems to be justifying the mainstream crossover of punk-rock that he himself had, after all, helped bring about, while still staking a claim to a certain radical stance. “So Long…” winds its way through leftovers from Heavy Petting Zoo (“Kids Of The K-Hole,” “Dad’s Bad News”), peaks of pure pop-punk (“All His Suits Are Torn,” “Quart In Session”), countless bits of tomfoolery (“Monsyllabic Girl,” “I’m Telling Tim,” “Flossing A Dead Horse” and the puerile anarchist jape of “Murder The Government”). Notably, on So Long… ska core (“180 Degrees,” “All Outta Angst,” “Champs Elysees”) and reggae (“Eat The Meek”) become load-bearing pillars rather than mere digressions.

The “punk rock élite” status that Fat Mike invokes certainly remains tangible in terms of attitude, but musically the result is, more than ever before, varied and at the same time geared toward easy listening. That doesn't change the fact that So Long… stands as one of the most enjoyable releases on the punk-rock scene of its time, with several tracks that would go on to become among the most beloved in NOFX's catalog and in the wider scene around them. So Long… also closes out the band's Epitaph saga, as from then on they'd rely exclusively on Fat Wreck, with Gurewitz's label in some cases handling only U.S. market distribution.

And yet, around that time, it seems that very spirit of “punk rock élite” was starting to be called a bit too much into question. NOFX had by then become an untouchable totem, but with the advance of a commercial machine ready to swallow punk whole in its poppier form, even on a cultural level (precisely where that “punk rock élite” had still managed to put up resistance), and with a recent record behind them that was brilliant but perhaps too “easy,” Fat Mike and his bandmates found themselves needing to send a strong message of identity, to avoid being swallowed up (however unwillingly) into a melting pot whose mentality they would, despite everything, continue to share nothing with.

To do this, the surest path was to bring punk back to a social and political dimension; it wasn't plausible, however, to think of taking refuge in the anarchic, nihilistic howls of the founding fathers of punk and of the previous generation's hardcore. That would have been hopelessly out of step with the times and utterly unconvincing. By now there was no revolution left to wage, no system left to overturn; it was simply the right moment for a reckoning.

NOFX pull off this ambitious goal with a 1999 EP, The Decline, an eighteen-minute act of punk-rock glory, unrepeatable in the history of the entire genre. Fat Mike's indictment steers clear of cheap “fuck authority” rhetoric, doesn't waste effort identifying good guys or bad guys, doesn't declare itself for or against pre-set targets, doesn't sing of uprising, doesn't seek redemption. What emerges is a portrait of social unease that's powerful yet also resigned, populated by a sense of frustration and by marginalized characters. His politicized poetics sit somewhere between the erudite approach of Greg Graffin and the reasoned subversiveness of Jello Biafra; it differs from both, though, in being more allusive and hagiographic, focused on what Fat Mike does best: telling stories. The narrative unspooled across the nearly twenty minutes of The Decline makes it a hymn to the hypocritical, alienated, disillusioned decline of American society, drowning in armed moralism. Musically too, the work put into The Decline is remarkable; the atmospheres thin out and condense, and this alternation is masterfully measured, the shifts in scene perfectly calibrated, all of it matching the theatricality of the story, moving between breakneck accelerations, moments of reflection and claustrophobic interludes.

The acclaim is unanimous, and NOFX reveal themselves to be in a state of grace, reasserting their distance from punk's ever-faster metamorphosis into the mainstream.

A few months later, in June 2000, the release of Pump Up The Valuum reinforces the terms of that statement. NOFX drop any ska, reggae or similar ambitions and produce an album of pure skate punk/melodic hardcore, straightforward, driving and free of frills, as if underlining yet again, for the umpteenth time, their true nature and origins. Despite the still-fresh buzz around The Decline, Pump Up The Valuum has no political overtones whatsoever, and NOFX don't give up their satirical, grotesque streak either, particularly on “My Vagina,” the stellar pop-punk of “Thanks God It’s Monday,” or the closing “Theme From A NOFX Album,” which alone is worth the price of admission; half drunken polka, half dizzying boogie-punk, in which the four of them take sarcastic, self-deprecating stock of being punk-rockers who are by now a bit agée (because in punk-rock, you already are at thirty).

Perhaps it's precisely this awareness, defused through laughter, that actually betrays a certain degree of disorientation: does the scene still have anything to say, anything to tell? Probably not. And Pump Up The Valuum is the album that embodies exactly this. An excellent melodic hardcore record, well written and well played, but one that -- save for a few passages -- struggles to offer genuinely interesting ideas, for the simple fact that it draws on a genre by now incapable of proposing anything attractive. Artistic experience gives way to a mannerism that's by now well established, but rather bland.

Despite everything, NOFX are at the peak of their fame. They'll remain there for the whole first half of the 2000s, together with the entire "punk revival" wave, which had by then partly and fully embraced pop culture in its broadest sense with the explosion of Blink and Sum 41 (and countless, far more embarrassing imitators); something from which the slightly more orthodox Epitaph and Fat Wreck wing -- with NOFX leading the charge -- had in turn benefited, between cameo appearances on the soundtracks of Tony Hawk Pro Skater and more or less regular slots on the major American, European (and even Asian) festival bills.

At the same time, the turn of the millennium had opened up a politically turbulent period: the collectives born in the wake of the Seattle protests were building barricades against capitalism and globalization, the tragedy of September 11th tore a deep wound into the West, and conflicts in the Middle East flared up again. In pop and rock circles, a rush toward politicization had begun (sometimes sincere, in other cases opportunistic), between support for the no-global movements, anti-militarization and "no war" rhetoric, and a renewed vocation that showed (or often simply claimed to show) attention to civic and social issues, with George W. Bush Jr. (recently installed as US President) serving as the preferred target. Even the punk-rock scene, though on one hand fully immersed in its new, carefree guise as never before, couldn't remain indifferent: Green Day themselves would find new life and relaunch their career in 2004 with a "political" album, "American Idiot".

Fat Mike doesn't just sit back and watch, but develops a morbid obsession with Bush that spills over into a bland kind of political posturing. He launches the admirable Punk Voter project, aimed at bringing young people closer to politics and countering the pronounced voter abstention in the United States that had historically always favored Republican conservatives. He does so above all through a series of Fat Wreck compilations, "Rock Against Bush", bringing together the punk elite of the era (among others, Offspring, Green Day, Pennywise, Alkaline Trio, Rise Against, Anti Flag, Sum 41, Against Me!, No Use For A Name and of course NOFX themselves) in an attempt to mobilize an anti-Bush campaign ahead of the 2004 elections.

More or less at the same time, in 2003, NOFX release The War On Errorism. Beyond the context in which the album is placed and the cover art (depicting an illustration of a Bush-clown against the backdrop of the American flag), which drags the good intentions down into a rather childish exercise, the record actually contains few markedly "political" moments; in these, however, the capacity for analysis, invective and social critique that Fat Mike had always demonstrated in the past (reaching its peak in The Decline) runs aground in writing marked by an overbearing populism that defines the "protest" tracks on the album ("Re-gaining Unconsciousness", "The Idiots Are Taking Over", "American Errorist" and the power-pop single "Franco Unamerican", which doesn't shy away from name-checking Chomsky and Zinn).

The narratives of borderline characters that had always been the backbone of Fat Mike's most engaged songwriting (including The Decline) are replaced by attempts at banal, simplistic propaganda. After all, punk in itself as a tool of propaganda proves neither effective nor particularly compelling.

As mentioned, however, The War On Errorism isn't a strictly political album. Musically it marks a return to the blueprint of So Long..., reviving its stylistic variety (including the ska streak) but failing to replicate its irresistible, anthemic refrains.

In particular, a new element emerges for NOFX: nostalgia. An unmistakable sign of a past that has by now definitively run its course and is making its weight felt. There are tributes to fellow travelers in the form of "projects for old age" ("Mattersville") and to the inspirations of the previous hardcore generation (the already-mentioned "13 Stitches" and "Two Jealous Again"). Above all, there's the bitter admission of "The Separation Of Church And Skate", which opens the album with a warning that the circle is closing (“When did punk rock become so safe?/ When did the scene become a joke?/ The kids who used to live for beer and speed now want their fries and coke”). It's a song of surrender, perhaps held back for too long already, carrying within it a half-admission of complicity: despite strenuous attempts to preserve an attitude at least conscious of its own roots, NOFX acknowledge that the punk party is now over. With The War On Errorism they try to enjoy what's left of it, at least in terms of popularity. Although the album is generally not very exciting, it represents, in a sense, NOFX's swan song.

In line with expectations, the punk scene (or what was left of it) would fall apart within a few years. NOFX would remain in the saddle, but by now aware that they could only aspire to the role of godfathers, no longer standard-bearers of a movement with no charge left, except in relation to the nostalgic impulses of those who had been part of it between 1994 and 2004.

The output between 2006 and 2021 (Wolves In Wolves Clothing, Coaster, Self Entitled, First Ditch Effort and Single Album) doesn't really add anything to the conversation; by now it's all a mere copy of itself, reduced to tickling the adolescent and youthful memories of those who find themselves grown up, bourgeois and with kids.

From this point of view, a few recent initiatives celebrating the band's legacy are worth appreciating. Among these, the orchestral performance of The Decline, the split album of crossed covers with the English singer-songwriter (former voice of Million Dead, as well as a great admirer and friend of the band) Frank Turner ("West Coast vs Wessex", which follows the same format already adopted with Rancid on the split promoted by the label B.Y.O. in 2001), and the charming joke of "Linewleum", a revisitation of their most famous song (included on Single Album from 2021) in collaboration with their friends Avenged Sevenfold, in whose video NOFX put together a collage of hundreds of performances of "Linoleum" (including some very amateurish ones) uploaded to YouTube, offering a touching and heartfelt gift to their fans.

NOFX's historical importance cannot be disputed in any case. First of all, because Fat Mike and his bandmates contributed -- more than any other band of their generation -- to defining the aesthetic (musical and otherwise) of skate punk, the dominant core of the entire 90s revival movement, exerting a decisive influence on the evolution of the genre that was felt even as it reached the most commercial shores, beholden to the imagery of the pop and rock star system -- which, although it led to the materialization of punk's ultimate heresy, nonetheless represented a cultural and commercial phenomenon that was anything but negligible. And just as this was happening in the early 2000s, the encounter with NOFX became a fundamental rite of passage in the formation of young (aspiring) punk-rockers: an entry point into a scene that (however already crippled) still maintained a certain countercultural pride and a healthy claim to independence and radicalism, a necessary transit station on the way to understanding the punk of the sacred monsters of two decades earlier. The most common mistake, which often leads to underselling the value of NOFX's work, is measuring it against what hardcore was in the 80s rather than what punk-rock became (for better or worse) in the 90s and 2000s. To ignore this means failing to recognize a substantial chunk of the punk saga, which -- debatable or not -- nonetheless existed and held considerable relevance, if nothing else as an initiation for those who had just been born in the 80s.

Judgments of merit aside, NOFX managed to keep their concept of "punk rock elite" alive, perhaps on one hand keeping it on life support longer than it deserved, but with the ability (and the merit) to let every millennial have access to it.

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