“We have done a lot of touring over the lifetime of the band,” says lead guitarist and founding member Eric Melvin; in what’s potentially the biggest understatement you’ll hear escape his mouth. “We were wondering where else in the world we could go that we haven’t played yet. If we’re gonna’ go, let’s bring some cameras along and film it. We did some shows in Israel, South Africa, Russia, Indonesia, the Philippines, [and] Korea… We’re the only band I know that’s done St. Petersburg or Moscow; and we played Beijing before any band that I know played there. It was cool to go these places and film it – we were bringing what was happening right to the people that obviously couldn’t be there themselves.”
The second season of Backstage Passport isn’t just a look at the places the band are playing and the shows themselves – it’s a look at everything that goes along with a life on the road. It certainly takes the good with the bad, and isn’t afraid to show when things go sour.
“We played a show in Jakarta, and we were told by the promoter that he’d meet us in the morning after the show before our flight to Manila,” explains Melvin. “He said he’d have the money for the show. The next morning, he didn’t turn up. We had to fly to the next show, but we didn’t know what to do. The guy owed us a lot of money. We got ripped off a couple of times by a couple of people. Luckily, we got it all on film. It’s all out there.”
If that wasn’t enough, plans for the band’s 13th studio album are in motion; with hopes to have it released sometime in the early half of 2015. To top it all off, once you’re done with the new episodes of Backstage Passport and cranking the follow-up to 2012’s Self-Titled, you can take a load off and settle in with a scintillating book, written by NOFX, of course. “It’s an autobiography of the band,” says Melvin. “Right now, it’s about 300 pages in. We’re telling our own story as it goes along. It builds from the beginning of the band, with Mike and me. It’s a pretty good read so far.”
Aside from their music and their bratty antics, NOFX have come to be extremely well-known for their openly liberal politics, as documented in their album The War on Errorism and songs such as Idiots Are Taking Over, You’re Wrong and, perhaps most famously, Franco Un-American. That’s not even mentioning the Rock Against Bush movement the band pioneered some ten years ago. So, does the band maintain the rage? You’d better believe it.
“There’s plenty of stuff to be angry about,” says Melvin emphatically. “Just in politics itself, in the political arena, there’s so many fucked up things that the banks are doing. They’ve been doing them for a long time, as well. There’s big pharmaceutical companies trying to run shit. The agriculture and the food industry are trying to wipe things out. Everything’s just fucking nuts here. President Obama has got a lot on his plate. It feels like now more than ever, the President of the United States has more to contend with, more than any president in the past.”
Of course, when you’ve been around as long as NOFX has, a lot of information tends to build up, particularly from an online perspective, where countless stories and so-called facts fill even the most official of sources, Wikipedia. So, let’s get a few things clear. Born on July 9, 1966? “Yes, sir.” His dreadlocks change every time that NOFX plays a show? “That’s completely false.” He can play the accordion? “Oh, that’s actually true. Listen.” The phone drops, and seconds later the unmistakable creaking noise of an accordion comes down the line. “I can’t say how wellI play, but it’s true.” Guess that one’s official, then. “I’m actually going to be playing some accordion on the next album,” he says. “And I’m gonna’ play some live for the first time ever.”
Lastly: Is it true that a NOFX album from 1992 was originally going to be called White Trash, Two Kikes and a Spic before Melvin’s own mother intervened and threatened to tell his grandfather; the title then changing to White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean? “That’s both true and false, if that’s at all possible,” says Melvin. “It’s true that we said that, but it’s not true that it actually happened.” With that, he’s gone. The cosmic ballet and the hilarious, bizarre enigma that’s NOFX goes on.
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
