Steve
joins
Back in the day, there was this band called "New Improved
God". Their bass player, Skip, and I had been friends for
years. Skip introduced me to this guy Steve at the old downtown
Scream. I told him NOFX needed a new guitar player and how
Fat Mike would hate his long hair. So about a week later Steve
came out to rehearsal. We ran though a couple of songs that
were written for the "S & M Airlines" album. Fat Mike hated
his long hair and Steve was in the band. "S & M" was recorded
a month later almost to the day. Even before the album was
out, we embarked on a three month tour of the States and Canada.
We were back in town a few months, and then went to Europe
for a month and a half. We came back to the states to rehearse
(rehearse?), and then record "Ribbed". We were actually drawing
a blank on the whole album cover/ name thing, when Steve said
"*@!* it! Let's just have a picture of a huge condom on the
cover!" What a f*king genius. We headed back out on tour,
first the US and then back over to Europe, where we played
with real bands like The Leaving Trains, Bad Religion, and
Mudhoney.
Steve
quits Steve and I were at a Burbank Bar-B-Que,
when he announced to me that he was leaving the band. As usual
we were drunk and stoned, so I thought, maybe me don't hear
so good, but this was not the case. He said it was nothing
personal, he just needed a break from the band. I found out
later that one of the main reasons he left was because of
drug abuse (not his) in the band and that he just couldn't
take it anymore.
El
Hefe joins Now we needed a guitar player again! What
the hell was wrong with us? We were going to practice in San
Francisco and try out guitar players. My friend Rob had a
guitar, so I asked him for a ride to SF. Erik had a friend
named Aaron who played guitar in a band called Crystal Sphere
with a drunk named Mark Curry. This other friend of ours,
Kevin, from Las Vegas, wanted to try out too. He showed up
in S.F. with a NOFX tattoo. By all rights, he should have
got the job, but we tried out the other guys anyway. Aaron
was a really good guitar player. He played the trumpet too.
Definitely too good for us. He was also f*king funny. The
only problem was that we already had two Erix in the band,
adding an Aaron would be just too confusing. So we gave Rob
a try. He was good, but Aaron was the best. We just needed
to give him a new name. Since he was the most qualified musician
in NOFX, we christened him El Hefe.
