Fat Wreck Chords
Fat Wreck Chords is a punk - music label from San Francisco , which by NOFX singer / bassist Mike Burkett aka Fat Mike was established in the early 1990s. Fat Wreck, like the befriended label Epitaph Records , is primarily known for a certain style of skate punk , but also has ska punk and hardcore bands under contract. Lagwagon was Fat's first band after NOFX, and Fat also had a German band with WIZO . Between 1994 and 2002 six editions of the Fat Music compilation appeared, a counterpart to the Punk-O-Rama series from Epitaph Records. Fat Wreck is also known for the Punk Voter campaign , which campaigned against George W. Bush before the last election in the USA and was intended to persuade young punk music listeners in America to vote. The Rock Against Bush series was also released in 2004 .
A significant difference to other labels is that Fat Wreck basically only concludes contracts with its bands for a single album. On the one hand, the band is no longer tied to the label if they become more successful (e.g. Rise Against after two albums on Fat Wreck) and on the other hand, if sales of one album are poor, the label is not forced to release another. With many other labels, contracts for three albums are typical, which are occasionally completed with live or B-side albums.
Until September 2007 the label had a European office in Berlin-Kreuzberg .
Sub-label
For a time, in the late 1990s to early 2000s, Fat Wreck made several releases on the Honest Don’s and Pink and Black Records sub-labels . The former specialized mainly in Poppunk like Nerf Herder and Bad Astronaut , while the latter published bands with mostly female members. In the meantime, the websites of both sub-labels are no longer active and the records of the previous bands are now published directly via Fat Wreck or by other labels.
Bands at Fat Wreck Chords
The following bands have released albums and / or EPs on Fat Wreck so far: