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NOFX Loses Brewing Co. and Festival Sponsor Over Las Vegas Shooting Comments

Home / News / NOFX Loses Brewing Co. and Festival Sponsor Over Las Vegas Shooting Comments

By TheBlast Staff on May 31, 2018 at 1:35 AM EDT

NOFX just lost a major deal in the wake of the band's onstage jokes about the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Stone Brewing, the company that manufactures the punk band's beer and sponsors its music festival – both called Punk in Drublic – is cutting all ties with NOFX.

"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," a company spokesperson said in a statement to The Blast.

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Over the weekend, NOFX sparked outrage when video circulated showing band members making a series of insensitive jokes onstage about last year's mass shooting at the Las Vegas country music festival, which left 58 people dead and 489 injured.

"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."

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The spokesperson added, "Nevertheless, to try our best to make some good come out of these awful comments, we have decided that we will donate all profits of the beer to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation, which provides post Route 91 trauma counseling for officers and other first responders alongside other safety programs, training and funding. We have cancelled any future rebrews of this beer. We apologize to the fans of the beer itself, but know that we make this decision out of respect to all. Punk rock is cool. These callous comments were the furthest thing from it."

NOFX frontman, Fat Mike, joked onstage, "We played a song about Muslims and we didn't get shot." Another band member then chimed in, "I guess you only get shot in Vegas if you are in a county band."

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A third added, “That [shooting] sucked, but at least they were country fans and not punk rock fans."

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