Punk band NOFX is no longer feeling so funny after comments made about the Route 91 Harvest Festival massacre.
During its performance at the Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival in Las Vegas Sunday night, the band made a series of jokes about the sniper attack on the Route 91 Harvest Festival back in October, held just outside of Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip. It is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history that left 58 dead and over 500 injured.
The result? The band has been kicked off the Camp Punk in Drublic festival lineup and lost its Stone Brewing Co. beer collaboration.
The band’s comments came to light when a video of the performance was posted by TMZ.com on Wednesday showing vocalist and bassist Fat Mike saying, “We played a song about Muslims and we didn’t get shot.”
The band’s members continued to push the issue, as guitarist Eric Melvin added, “I guess you only get shot in Vegas if you are in a country band.”
Fat Mike then added: “That sucked, but at least they were country fans and not punk rock fans.” When the audience began to show its disgust with the comments, he continued: “You were all thinking it.”
The video and social media backlash prompted Stone Brewing Co. to cut all ties with NOFX.
Last year, the popular San Diego-based brewery released its first-ever band collaboration beer with the Punk in Drublic Hoppy Lager. The 5.8 percent alcohol, heavily dry hopped brew that got its name from the band’s fifth studio album was at first only available during the Punk in Drublic Craft Beer & Music Festival tour, produced by Orange County company Synergy Global Entertainment in partnership with Brew Ha Ha Productions.
The beer is now available in stores like BevMo and Total Wine and Stone Brewing Co. was also a sponsor of this year’s Punk in Drublic Craft Beer & Music Festival tour as well as Camp Punk in Drublic, headlined by NOFX and featuring the Vandals, Rancid, Pennywise, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and more, which is scheduled for June 1-3 at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio.
Festival producers announced on Thursday morning that NOFX and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (which features Fat Mike) would not be performing at Camp Punk in Drublic in Ohio. Instead, the Descendents will replace NOFX on Saturday, June 2 and the Vandals have been added to the Friday, June 1 kick-off party in place of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.
“While NOFX is known for their dark, uncomfortable humor, the festival producers of Camp Punk in Drublic are shocked and disappointed by the band’s recent statements about the Route 91 Harvest Festival victims and country music fans,” an emailed statement sent Thursday morning read. “These statements do not reflect the feelings or views of the Camp Punk in Drublic festival, its staff and its sponsors. The festival producers support fans of all music genres and take safety very seriously at all of their events.”
The statement also indicated that out of respect for Route 91 Harvest Festival victims and their families, Camp Punk in Drublic would be making a donation to the fund benefiting those affected by the mass shooting.
Fat Mike issued an apology via Instagram on Wednesday. “I can’t sleep, no one in my band can. What we said in Vegas was sh**** and insensitive and we are all embarrassed by our remarks. So we decided we will all get together to discuss and write an in depth, sincere, and honest apology because that’s what the people we offended and hurt deserve.”
In a statement issued to entertainment news website The Blast, a spokesperson for Stone Brewing Co. said, “We at Stone Brewing are aware of NOFX’s insensitive and indefensible statements this past weekend. As a result, we are severing all our ties with NOFX, including festival sponsorship and the production of our collaboration beer.”
“We respect punk rock, and the DIY ethos for which it stands,” the statement continued. “To us, it means standing up for things you believe in, and fearlessly committing to what’s right. And it is for that reason that Stone Brewing is immediately disassociating ourselves from the band NOFX. Stone had a sponsorship deal for this summer’s Punk In Drublic festivals. Emphasis ‘had.’ That sponsorship is now canceled.”
Last year at the Punk in Drublic stop in Huntington Beach, where the fest was renamed Punk ‘N Brew, Ethan Anderson, Stone Brewing Co.’s vice president of marketing, was excited about the NOFX collaboration.
“Stone Brewing has always had a history with music, we’re inspired by music and our founders are musicians,” he told us at the festival in October. “Fat Mike came and helped us brew the beer – well, actually we like to say he just kind of got in the way. It was just a great collaboration because of the alignment of the two philosophies, that anti corporate, stick-it-to-the-man type of mentality, all those things Fat Mike stands for, Stone stands for as well. We’re furiously independent and into doing things the right way, with the utmost integrity and perpetuating this idea of really upending the status quo and challenging convention and Fat Mike and NOFX is the epitome of all of that.”
NOFX was the latest group of celebrities to feel the backlash after a “joke.” Roseanne Barr sent a racist tweet that referred to former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett as a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes” that prompted ABC to cancel the reboot of her show “Roseanne.” And Samantha Bee, the host of TBS comedy series “Full Frontal,” issued an apology Thursday for using foul language to describe Ivanka Trump, saying, “I crossed a line.”