“Who the hell is going to come see this stupid movie?” Erik Sandin wondered. Turns out, dozens of Yellowknifers at least.
The movie is 40 Years of F*ckin’ Up, following four decades of the band NOFX, which helped usher punk into the mainstream in the 1980s and 1990s. Sandin is the band’s drummer.
The documentary has already had one screening at Yellowknife bar The Underground with a second coming up at 7pm on Thursday, June 4.
Bassist and lead vocalist Fat Mike virtually attended the first screening for a Q&A, while Sandin joined Mornings at the Cabin on Tuesday to discuss the documentary and the themes it explores.
“As a band, we’ve always been very transparent and honest and open. The documentary is just an extension of that,” he said. “What we’re like as people and the good, the bad, the ugly.”
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Sandin said the documentary explores Fat Mike’s drug use and how Mike interpreted bandmates’ attempts to intervene as punishment. He also described some of the band’s other dysfunctional moments, including a breakdown in communication when the group decided to call it a day.
“I’m starting to understand what we actually left behind,” he said.
“Now I can step back and look at it from a distance, it’s pretty interesting and pretty weird.”
Listen to the interview using the player below (or get the full podcast here). Note that this interview contains explicit language.
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Organizers said the first of the documentary’s two Yellowknife screenings played to a “packed house of enthusiastic YK punkers.”
The night also includes a performance from NO(rth)FX, a NOFX tribute act comprising Brenden MacIntosh, Tyler White-Keyes and Layne Rybchinski.
Merchandise and custom limited-edition posters designed by NOFX especially for the Yellowknife screenings are available at the shows.
