Jul. 05, 2006 - Issue #559: Bestest of Edmonton 2006

Distant Replay

Drunken Jay Pollock discusses NOFX's Punk in Drublic

Most bands rehearse and rehearse in the hopes of getting better. But not Edmonton's Leftnutt; these clown princes of punk revel in the fact that the are “the worst shitty ass fucking band in this history of shitty ass bands.”

Those words are culled directly from the band's bio. Really.

But, to be fair, going to a Leftnutt show shouldn't be a shitty time. In fact, the band's reputation for drinking, having fun and not caring who they will offend has made them one of the hottest properties on the local punk scene. The band is working on a new still-untitled album, due out later this summer, which will be released on Dead Bunny Records.

Given the band's devil-may-care attitude, it's not really a surprise that Leftnutt's Drunken Jay Pollock picks NOFX's Punk in Drublic as the album that most influenced his musical career.

Released in 1994, Punk in Drublic was one of the key albums that defined the pop-punk sound of that decade. And while Green Day crossed over to the mainstream and the Offspring never recaptured the success of their peak in the mid-'90s, NOFX stayed in the underground.

While “Don't Call Me White” can still be heard in bars on Whyte Avenue on a regular basis, Punk in Drublic is still very much an underground album. Its strength was the band's sense of humour, its refusal to take punk seriously. With tracks like “Jeff Wears Birkenstocks,” “Reeko” and “Punk Guy,” NOFX showed that it could find a niche by being silly.

“It's an album that [fellow Leftnutt-er] Matty [Fucker] and me talk about a lot,” says Drunken Jay. “It's an album we both grew up on—It's our favourite punk album of all time.”

Despite the humorous bent, Drunken Jay marvels at how technically sound the band was.

“Some of the stuff that sticks out is the drumming; it's so fast.

“On a lot of punk albums, the drumming tends to get sloppy, but NOFX keeps it tight. And the vocals aren't perfect, but they're clean. You can hear what is being sung. That's a pet peeve of ours—you go to a punk rock show or listen to a punk record and you can't make out the words.”

After Leftnutt finishes the record, Drunken Jay and company plan to do a lot of shows across small-town Alberta, get drunk a heck of a lot and act as silly as possible.

“Our motto is: stay focused on not being focused,” he laughs.

NOFX would be proud. V

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