NOFX Issue Apology for Las Vegas Shooting Comments: ‘We Crossed a Line of Civility’
NOFX have faced quite a bit of backlash this past week after making tasteless jokes about the Las Vegas shootings at the Route 91 Harvest Festival that took place last fall. Footage of their comments at the Punk Rock Bowling festival made national headlines, with the band losing their beer sponsorship and having to bow out of this weekend's Camp Punk in Drublic festival. While they initially posted about their regret and dismay about what was said, they also revealed that a sincere official apology from the group as a whole was coming. That apology has now been released by the band.
In a social media posting, the group revealed that part of why it took so long for the apology to come was that they were crafting the statement as a whole rather than have a press agent write one for them. They admit to crossing a line of civility, offer their sincere apology to anyone who lost someone at that event or had to witness the violence and state that they will own their poor choice of comments rather than blaming it on anything else. Read the full statement below.
There’s no place here to backpedal. What NOFX said in Vegas was shameful. We crossed the line of civility. We can’t write songs about how people in this world need to be more decent, when we were clearly being indecent. Las Vegas has always been a welcoming city to our band, and to make light of the tragedy that occurred there was egregious.
All members of the band would like to sincerely apologize to anyone who experienced loss from the Vegas shooting 8 months ago, and to anyone who was at our show who lost a loved one or a friend, or who had to witness the incredibly senseless violence that night.
We were asked why we didn’t release an immediate apology. Well, we didn’t feel that we could write a sincere apology without reflecting on the actual damage we had done. No press agent was gonna write this for us. That’s why we have struggled with this for the past few days.
We didn’t plan or intend on saying anything so insensitive. It was off the cuff, but just as hurtful. We won’t blame it on drugs or alcohol or Ambien. That’s too easy. NOFX said it, and we own it. We made a tasteless joke. But to be clear, NOFX does not condone violence against ANY group of people, period!
As sincere as we’ve ever been,
NOFX
After finishing a song about Muslims, Fat Mike joked about finishing the track without getting shot, to which a bandmate replied, "I guess you only get shot in Vegas if you're in a country band." Doubling down on the tasteless humor, one of the other members stated that "at least they were country fans and no punk rock fans."
In all, 58 people were killed and nearly 500 injured at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
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