Biography
Cokie the Clown serves as a stage persona for Michael John Burkett, the veteran punk figure from Southern California better known as Fat Mike, the NOFX frontman and founder of Fat Wreck Chords plus additional ventures. He first unveiled the melancholy clown figure on a NOFX EP in 2009 and later committed to a complete album under the Cokie name in 2019.
After NOFX delivered their 2009 album Coaster, the band followed with a five-track EP drawn from those same recording sessions and titled Cokie the Clown; its artwork presented a portrait of Fat Mike wearing the unsettling sad-clown makeup. Roughly five months afterward, he took the stage at Austin’s South by Southwest Festival wearing the complete Cokie the Clown makeup, performed several acoustic numbers, and wove in bleak personal anecdotes that frequently turned deeply unsettling; he then screened footage of himself filling a partially empty tequila bottle with urine, the same bottle that had circulated among audience members throughout the set. Music outlets extensively reported on the unsettling show, which also appeared on TMZ.
Nine years after that performance, Burkett brought the persona back to life and cut a full-length record as Cokie the Clown. Issued in April 2019, You’re Welcome sustained the emphasis on troubled episodes from the vocalist’s history and included contributions from Travis Barker of blink-182, Dizzy Reed of Guns N’ Roses, and additional musicians.
After NOFX delivered their 2009 album Coaster, the band followed with a five-track EP drawn from those same recording sessions and titled Cokie the Clown; its artwork presented a portrait of Fat Mike wearing the unsettling sad-clown makeup. Roughly five months afterward, he took the stage at Austin’s South by Southwest Festival wearing the complete Cokie the Clown makeup, performed several acoustic numbers, and wove in bleak personal anecdotes that frequently turned deeply unsettling; he then screened footage of himself filling a partially empty tequila bottle with urine, the same bottle that had circulated among audience members throughout the set. Music outlets extensively reported on the unsettling show, which also appeared on TMZ.
Nine years after that performance, Burkett brought the persona back to life and cut a full-length record as Cokie the Clown. Issued in April 2019, You’re Welcome sustained the emphasis on troubled episodes from the vocalist’s history and included contributions from Travis Barker of blink-182, Dizzy Reed of Guns N’ Roses, and additional musicians.
Albums
Singles
