March 2021

Hailing from the Junction, and citing influences like Wilco, Kurt Vile, and Cage the Elephant  – the band is a fully collaborative endeavour of Toronto music stalwarts Damian Coleman (vocals, bass), Edmund Cummings (vocals, keys), Craig Keeney (lead guitar), Phil Skot (drums) and Dave Suchon (vocals, guitar). Dripping guitar tones, billowing keyboard melodies, and defiant bass / drums all contribute to the textured sound of The Sarandons. Songs are bittersweet, rich with nostalgia and tell stories that are familiar but just out of reach.   “This past year has been the ultimate test of whether familiarity breeds contempt. When you’re marooned at sea together, all sorts of things start to creep in. More insidious than contempt, the people we’re locked in with start to become another piece of furniture in our lives. Days are on repeat and it’s the struggle against these enemies that we tried to capture in this song.” – Dave Suchon (The Sarandons)

“NOFX Los Angeles punk veterans’ latest record tackles everything from drug addiction to mortality.” – COS

“If you think you’ve heard it all before from the veteran punks, this record begs to differ.” – Kerrang!

“NOFX’s Fat Mike on His Sobriety, Sexuality: ‘I Think I Came Out of the Closet Even More’”– SPIN

“Single Album a reflection of Fat Mike’s time with drugs and as such majority of the songs are quite intense” 8/10 Wall Of Sound

“Fat Mike’s evident enthusiasm for this collection–and newfound sobriety doesn’t mean sacrificing any of the band’s existing and beloved characteristics” Hysteria

“Fat Mike returns bearing the gift of his wisdom, sharing pocket sized tips that we can carry around throughout the day on our own pursuit of happiness”  Blunt Mag

Fat Wreck Chords and longstanding California punk band NOFX are thrilled to present Single Album, the band’s 14th full-length studio album, out now. As frontman Fat Mike explains, “Single Album was initially supposed to be twice as long, as I wanted to make a perfect double album, and I didn’t accomplish that, so I decided to just make a single album, hence the title.”

Single Album is available to stream on all platforms, with the physical product on hand via FAT’s Web Store.

Check out the music video for “Fuck Euphemism”
View the music video for “Linewleum”

Nearly 40 years in, what else is there to say about NOFX?

And aside from the occasional negative headline, how can one of the pioneers of SoCal punk—a style hardly known for experimentation—surprise anyone these days?

The answers lie on Single Album (Fat Wreck Chords, Feb. 26), NOFX’s 14th full-length studio album. There’s the nearly six-minute post-hardcore opener (“The Big Drag”). The meta sendoff for the band’s best-known song (“Linewleum”). The reggae-inflected song about a mass shooting (“Fish in a Gun Barrel”). Even a piano ballad (“Your Last Resort”).

It is, as frontman and bassist Fat Mike repeatedly describes, “a dark album.” That wasn’t the original intent. By early 2020, NOFX—which includes guitarist El Hefe, guitarist Eric Melvin, and drummer Smelly—had written and recorded enough songs for a planned double album to be released that fall. Like so much about 2020, those plans changed.

“When you write a double album, you write differently,” Mike says. “I was writing really different songs, and some fun songs, but you have to make a double album interesting enough to listen to the whole way. I wanted to make a perfect double album, and I didn’t accomplish that. So I decided to just make a single album, hence the title.”

Recorded at Motor Studios in San Francisco with Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore (Rise Against, Alkaline Trio, Teenage Bottlerocket), Single Album pares down the roughly 23 songs NOFX tracked. “I just kept adding songs,” Mike says. “I was maybe a little out of my mind.”

How so? “I was pretty high on drugs that year,” he adds. While fans may wonder what else is new, Single Album casts the frontman’s habits in a surprisingly harsh light. While “Grieve Soto” eulogises beloved Adolescents founder Steve Soto, it takes a meta turn when Eric Melvin warns Mike to be “cautious, more respectful, less obnoxious.”“Birmingham” has what people in recovery call “a moment of clarity,” when he realised he was an addict.

“That was a clarity moment in my life when I was by myself, and the sun’s coming up, and I’m scraping cocaine off the floor, like, ‘Eww, gross. I shouldn’t be doing this,’” Mike says. “So what did I do? I ordered more.” After being hospitalised with a bleeding ulcer—a terrifying experience that caused him to vomit blood—Mike entered rehab in fall 2020. He promptly wrote another new album while there and has been sober since.

Unsurprisingly, Single Album represents his most personal work to date. Heartbreak permeates “I Love You More Than I Hate Me” and “Your Last Resort.” “Fuck Euphemism” dives into Mike’s sexuality for a “pronoun bar fight.” “Doors and Fours” is a grim look into the early ’80s LA punk scene, when dozens of people—many of them Mike’s friends—overdosed on a prescription drug combo. “The Big Drag” is a personal vow to make the most of life, even when it undeniably sucks. “It’s one of my favourite NOFX songs ever. I don’t get sick of listening to that song,” Mike says of “The Big Drag.” “No measure is the same length. Every time a new chord change happens, there’s a different rhythm to the guitar. The bass never stays on one note. You’re not sure when the chords are going to change because they always change at a different point.”

In other words, it’s unpredictable—just like NOFX. Turns out there is a lot to say about them, even after all this time.