Michael John Burkett (born January 16, 1967), known professionally as Fat Mike, is an American musician and producer. He was the bassist and lead vocalist for the

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

band

NOFX NOFX () was an American punk rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1983. Bassist/lead vocalist Fat Mike, rhythm guitarist Eric Melvin and drummer Erik Sandin were original founding and longest-serving members of the band, who have appeared on every ...

and the cofounder and bassist of the punk rock supergroup cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Burkett started out with his first band False Alarm in 1982. He and NOFX rhythm guitarist Eric Melvin were the only band members who remained constant in the band's lineup throughout its existence. Burkett is the owner and founder of Fat Wreck Chords.

Early life and influences

Fat Mike attended college at San Francisco State University and graduated in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in Social Science and a minor in Human Sexuality. According to the book ''NOFX The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories'', Burkett received the moniker "Fat Mike" from "one of the guys from he bandSubculture". He is a Jewish atheist. He credits Joe Escalante of the Vandals for introducing him to punk rock when he was 13 at a summer camp.

Musical career

While attending Beverly Hills High School, Burkett began his musical career with the band False Alarm. After the band split up in 1983, he met Eric Melvin and Erik Sandin and formed the original line-up of NOFX. He has also appeared as a guest-vocalist on a number of other bands' tracks including "Peter Brady" on Screeching Weasel's 1993 album, '' Anthem for a New Tomorrow''. Other appearances include "Beware" by Randy, "Mr. Coffee" and "Lazy" by

Lagwagon Lagwagon is an American punk rock band originally from Goleta, California, just outside Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara. They formed in 1989, went on hiatus in 2000, and reunited several times over the years. Their name comes from the ba ...

. Burkett can also be heard heckling and requesting " Free Bird" at the end of the Lunachicks song, "Missed It," off their 1996 album, ''Pretty Ugly'', which he also produced. He also appears as a guest vocalist on the Dropkick Murphys single " Going Out In Style". Burkett recorded the '' Cokie the Clown'' EP with NOFX, playing Cokie on both the cover of the EP and the music video for the title-track, "Cokie the Clown". In the video, Burkett dresses as Cokie and puts white powder into his squirting flower, which in the song he describes as "my own special blend of X, coke, and K". Cokie then walks around

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

squirting powder in pedestrians' faces, as chronicled in the song itself. The video was shot during the punk music festival Riot Fest. Fat Mike has made several appearances as Cokie the Clown, but one of his most memorable was at Emo's, a popular nightclub in Austin on March 20, 2010, at the

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

festival. He recounted several graphic and disturbing stories about his life, and played several songs both previously released and unreleased. He also tricked several members of the audience into drinking tequila, before showing them a video of himself filling a partially full bottle of tequila to the top with urine to shocked reactions. The stunt was later revealed as a joke on NOFX's website, which showed Fat Mike switching out the urine bottle for an untainted one before making audience members drink it. Burkett has since been banned from Emo's. However, in NOFX's autobiography Burkett claims that the urine was indeed served to the audience. In 2015 Burkett premiered a

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

titled ''Home Street Home'' which he co-wrote with Soma Snakeoil and Jeff Marx. In 2019, Fat Mike released a solo album, in the character of Cokie the Clown, titled ''You're Welcome''. The album features Fat Mike as Cokie as well as Dizzy Reed (Guns N' Roses) and Travis Barker (blink 182).

Codefendants

In 2021, Burkett formed his newest project Codefendants, alongside fellow punk rock musicians Ceschi and Sam King of Get Dead. The group seeks to break

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

barriers and produces a mix of

hip hop music Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music Music genre, genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African Americans, African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide r ...

, new wave, and

Activism

Punkvoter.com

Fat Mike founded the website Punkvoter.com in 2004 in an effort to mobilize the punk community to vote

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

out of office in that year's presidential election. He had never been very active in politics before then, admitting that he never even voted until

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

. However, he was driven into political activism because of Bush, whom he viewed as "the most ridiculous president in the history of presidents." Punkvoter.com targeted 18-to-25-year-old punk fans and other disenfranchised young people and encouraged them to vote Bush out of office. At its peak, the site was getting 15 million hits a day and ultimately raised over $1 million.

Rock Against Bush

As with Punkvoter.com, Mike organized the Rock Against Bush campaign to mobilize punk fans and musicians against President

. Fat Mike's band NOFX, along with many other well-known punk artists including Alkaline Trio,

Green Day Green Day is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Rodeo, California, in 1987 by lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, with drummer Tré Cool joining in 1990. In 1994, their majo ...

, and Jello Biafra, embarked on a tour of American college campuses in the months leading up to the 2004 presidential election. Mike hoped to go beyond just protest and actually educate kids about why they should vote against Bush. At the shows, he would hand out free DVDs of ''Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War'', a documentary that questions the Bush administration's motives in the Middle East. To coincide with the tour, Mike released two Rock Against Bush compilation albums on Fat Wreck Chords featuring new music from some of the bands on the label. The albums sold over 650,000 copies and proceeds helped fund the tour, as well as going toward magazine ads and billboards in swing states.

Personal life

Burkett lives in

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. He and his wife Erin divorced in 2010 after 18 years of marriage. They have a daughter named Darla. In October 2009, Mike appeared in the documentary '' The Other F Word'', an analysis of punk rock fatherhood. Fat Mike formerly owned a gastropub-style restaurant in the

Park Slope Park Slope is a neighborhood in South Brooklyn, New York City, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park and Eighth Avenue (Brooklyn), Prospect Park West to the east, ...

neighborhood of

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

called Thistle Hill Tavern. He has been into BDSM for years: he has had a dungeon in his house. Fat Mike has numerous tattoos, including one on his left arm that features a golfing

dominatrix A dominatrix ( ; or dominatrices ), or domme, is a woman who takes the dominant role in BDSM activities. The BDSM practice is called female dominance, or femdom. A dominatrix can be of any sexual orientation, but this does not necessarily l ...

and her bound caddy. When discussing the

song "Fuck Euphemism", for which he wrote the lyrics, he discussed how he describes himself as

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

: "I live a BDSM lifestyle and I'm a crossdresser, so it did bother me when people were calling me a cis male. I like the whole thing of defining yourself using your own terms, because I'm a punk rocker first, and then a submissive crossdressing male. The transgender community and the gay community are taking a stance on how we want to be known, and I'm going to be known as a certain way." Fat Mike announced his engagement to adult film actress Soma Snakeoil on January 28, 2014. Mike and Soma separated August 2017. He has been vocal about assisting with his terminally ill mother's death, describing the episode in a song called "La Pieta" which is featured in NOFX's audiobook version of ''The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories''. In 2014, Burkett started Fatale, a brand of panties marketed towards men.

Assault incident

On November 5, 2014, at a NOFX show in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, Australia, Fat Mike had complained about a neck injury and had asked the audience not to throw objects at him and grab him while on stage as it caused him pain. While playing the song "Linoleum", a fan climbed onstage and put his arm around Mike's neck, to which Mike responded by elbowing him to the ground and then kicking him in the face. The fan suffered some bruising on his face but had no major injuries. Later, Fat Mike and the fan both apologized via

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

. A video was released of Mike giving the fan a beer and custom T-shirt and letting him kick him with a fluffy slipper as an apology. This incident happened three years after Fat Mike kicked Screeching Weasel off his Fat Wreck Chords record label because of an assault incident involving Ben Weasel and a female fan at SXSW in Austin, Texas. Fat Mike said of the Screeching Weasel incident, "I think it's horrible because he punched someone who's smaller and weaker than him."

Discography

;As Cokie the Clown *''You're Welcome'' (2019) ;With Codefendants *''This Is Crime Wave'' (2023)

References

External links

NOFX official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fat Mike 1967 births Living people 20th-century American guitarists American anti–Iraq War activists American atheists American male guitarists American male singers American punk rock singers American punk rock bass guitarists American rock bass guitarists American male bass guitarists Beverly Hills High School alumni American critics of religions Fat Wreck Chords Jewish American atheists Jewish American musicians Jewish American singers Jews in punk rock Me First and the Gimme Gimmes members Guitarists from Los Angeles Guitarists from San Francisco NOFX members Musicians from Newton, Massachusetts American queer men American queer musicians San Francisco State University alumni Singers from Los Angeles Jewish punk rock musicians