Why NOFX’s Farewell Documentary Will Never Hit Streaming Services: ‘Not Really Gonna Help Us’
Categoria: Musica
Fat Mike talks about the iconic punk band's swan song and his rift with guitarist Eric Melvin.
Por Billboard | 31/07/2026
NOFX ‘s “Fat Mike” Burkett “couldn’t be happier” with the life 40 Years of F–kin’ Up , James Buddy Day’s sanctioned documentary about the band and its farewell tour, has had since premiering at South By Southwest Film Festival in March. And he’s glad even more fans will have an opportunity to see it this month. The film will play on more than 200 screens for two nights , Aug. 23 and Aug. 26. This follows an initial rollout via film festivals and select theaters worldwide , going on through the end of July. “The initial plan was to find independent theaters and cool theaters that have booze and show it once a month kind of like Rocky Horror does,” Fat Mike, who produced 40 Years , tells Billboard via Zoom. “I was hoping our fans would want to see it more than once.” The upcoming theatrical screenings will broaden opportunities to see it — important to the band because there are no plans to take 40 Years to streaming services, ever. “Now that NOFX has retired, I want our fans to have some place to go,” he explains. “There’s a lot of bands who are still playing who would want their movie to be streamed so anyone with a TV or computer can watch it, and maybe they’ll get bigger. But getting bigger right now is not really gonna help us. We’re not playing shows, so how about we do something cool? That’s what we’ve always tried to do.” Director Day — best known for true-crime films and TV series, including several about Charles Manson — adds that the plan is still to maintain in-person screenings only. “Fat Mike’s vision for the movie is that you must experience it with the punk rock community, with friends, with drinks, with partying,” says Day, a NOFX fan who developed an email and Zoom relationship with Fat Mike some years prior to the tour. “It’s something that must be experienced together and shared. There’s a singalong component at one point. It has animation. It has real backstage footage. It has concert footage. We set out to create something you would enjoy in a public space, like a concert. We’re going to expand that and show it in other venues, maybe in places you wouldn’t expect to see a movie play, but our goal is to keep it communal forever and to make this experience last for as long as it can last for.” That is, of course in keeping with NOFX’s specific punk rock aesthetic, which Fat Mike also applies to the Fat Wreck Chords label he co-founded in 1990. “It’s absolutely in line with what we’ve always done,” he says. “Since the movie shows our career and how we were very DIY, doing the movie DIY just makes so much sense. And we’ve been selling out 90% of the shows. Some of the theaters are freaked out — ‘We don’t sell out movies!’ — but we’re doing it.” Some form of do