Punk Rock Trivia: How he became “Fat Mike”

Every once in a while the punk rock geniuses here at Dying Scene like to unleash some punk rock trivia to enlighten and enhance the minds of you, the readers. Today’s trivia is about the skinniest fat person in punk rock: Fat Mike.

Anyone remotely interested in NOFX has probably noticed that frontman/bassist Fat Mike really isn’t all that fat. In fact, he even says so in the lyrics to “Theme from a NOFX Album” on the band’s 2000 Epitaph release, “Pump Up the Valuum”. So just where did he get that name? In a 1997 interview with Flipside, here’s what the chubster had to say:

“I was a hundred and thirty pounds and I went to college and they give me this little food card.  […] You could eat whatever you want and I gained thirty-five pounds in one school year. I went on tour the next year and every city we went to, people went, “Fuck, you put on some pounds, didn’t ya?” Everywhere we went, everybody started calling me Fat Mike.”

So there you have it, right from the fat man himself.