Fat Wreck Chords – March-December 2020
Nice pandemic escapism for NOFX completists
In March of this year, NOFX announced they were making a new album, only a month after their latest release “Single Album”. Better yet, this time they put camera's everywhere and willing fans can watch the whole process through their Patreon. Since this project is a couple of months in, I thought it was a good idea to explain what you can expect if you decide to join.
It seems to me that over the last decade NOFX is really killing it with their releases outside of their studio albums. Backstage Passport was great. Their book was amazing. This inside look into their studio recording process is another instance of these kind of releases and again they really found a unique way to present their band. Both the quality of the audio and video are really good, and better than most livestreams I've seen in the last few years.
So what do you get? Fat Mike wrote about fifty songs in the last few months and he is now bringing those songs to the rest of the band to work on them. In their practice space, there are cameras on every band member, as well as the engineer Jon Graber, with a live video tech guy switching camera's every now and then.
These practice sessions take about 2 to 3 hours where they work on one song, play some golden oldies and answer questions in the chat. It's quite fun and relatable to any person who was ever in a band- playing the same song over and over again, making it better every time, confusion on how a song is structured, frustations when somebody doesn't understand what the other guy is saying… Every band goes through this. Since I havent seen the inside of a practice room since November, this was a good alternative.
When the song is pretty much written, we switch to another location where the song is actually recorded. This is really a unique insight to anybody who is into recording and wants to know more about studio stuff, audio gear and mic setup. So far they have pretty much only recorded drums and it's really cool to see Smelly play. That guy is probably the best drummer who can play the standard skatepunk beat and it's quite amazing how fast he can put down a song. I am looking forward to see the other instruments being recorded.
What happens between playing and recording songs is where we find the really good bits. It's probably not a secret that a few months before these sessions began, tensions in the band were high. Fat Mike wasn't sober and the other band members forced him into rehab. Eric Melvin even stated he wasn't sure the band would continue. But Fat Mike is now sober and things seems to be clearing up between the band members: and this is all on camera! The band seems to aware of the camera but don't seem to care. Banter, making fun of other bands, rumours, you really are a fly on the wall. Almost every session ends with a Q&A where people who are watching live can ask questions to a band member or Jon Graber.
So is this all worth it? If you are into recording music or song writing, definitely. If you are a NOFX completist, you are probably already a member. As a member I can tell you that is quite fun to watch this and all the songs so far are really good and have a So Long…, Pump Up The Valuum, Self-Entitled vibe; with a lot of octave chords and fast beats so that's something to look forward to.
Quirijn's primary focus for TGEFM is on album reviews and band interviews. When he's not writing for the site, he can be found mixing sound at Fiction Studio, mixing up beats for as one part of hip-hop duo Breekpunt, or playing guitar for punk quartet Ink Bomb.