Music, Lyrics & Book
Nothing you think you know prepares you for the sentence: Fat Mike from NOFX wrote a musical. So pretend you don’t know anything and think about this guy.
Educated in San Francisco with an undergrad degree in Social Science and Human Sexuality, this dude sings, plays guitar, bass, and keyboards, forms a band that sells a bunch of records, tours the world, writes a ton of songs, gets invited to record with a bunch of other bands, and starts a record label. That leads to gold records and a New York Times best selling book.
A music seems like a natural fit. The part that’s fucking with you is also what makes the musical more raw and authentic than any you’ve ever seen. An alter ego, cross dressing, drug use, militant political activism, BDSM & dungeons & submissive sexual expressions, starting a bar and a male panty brand, and all the other punk rock moments of his life and resume.
The source material for this project, Home Street Home, was born out of this resume, this past experience, and a desire to push into new artistic territory. Fat Mike is going to keep fucking with your ideas about how to tell stories. Gutter Punk is his next step in artistic collaboration and disruption to speak the greater truths found in the places most people would rather forget.
The Band
If you haven’t heard of NOFX, you weren’t supposed to.
NOFX have spent nearly 4 decades somehow staying off the mainstream radar, all the while managing to achieve Gold records in both the US and Canada, publish a New York Times bestseller, and touring to fans in over 38 countries. The band created the acclaimed unscripted series NOFX: Backstage Passport for Fuse Network. They have sold over 6 million records worldwide. All without ever having a music video on any major music network or any corporate radio play. NOFX has created a 38 year award winning career – without ever having to answer to anyone…by their own design.
They call it being in a punk band.
“If you never have to worry about what will sell, you get to make records and write songs that make you happy.”
NOFX will never gonna have a hit song singing about sex workers rights, but singing about real life is what they are interested in doing. Music is poetry if done right, even though not everyone is going to like (or understand) even the best poetry. Fat Mike and the band have always been interested in changing peoples view of the world – not just entertaining them.
Additional Lyrics
Jeff Marx is a Tony Award winning American composer and lyricist. He is best known for collaborating with Robert Lopez on the smash hit Broadway musical Avenue Q.
Marx grew up in Florida and trained to be a lawyer before turning to musical theatre. He was a member of the Men’s Glee Club at University of Michigan before attending the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and passing the New York State Bar examination. Marx met Lopez while attending the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City.
They devised Avenue Q after working together on the Muppet movie, Kermit, Prince of Denmark. Avenue Q won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2004 and Marx/Lopez also won the Tony Award for Best Original Score. Marx has continued to collaborate with Lopez, writing songs for shows on the Disney Channel, a musical episode of the TV comedy Scrubs, and the animated series, Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World.
Marx began collaborating with Fat Mike of the punk band NOFX on the Broadway musical Home Street Home in 2015. HSH premiered at Z Centre in San Francisco, and subsequently at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Centre.
Additional Book
Soma Snakeoil is an artist, writer and activist. She spent much of her life immersed in the BDSM and sex positive community. She works on the street with another tribe of miscreants, activists and artists with a group called The Sidewalk Project. She advocates for sex workers and their rights because she is a former sex worker. Likewise Ishe stands with drug users as a former drug user, and the houseless community as one who has repeatedly been unhoused. Everything she creates is part of her own personal healing and for connectivity with others. Soma believes in art, love, compassion and passion as a community experience to heal and elevate. “We’re better together. We’re happier together. Happiness grows as it’s shared”.
Soma also believes we need more sex and intimacy. People are afraid of each other and becoming more and more alienated. The cultural effects are deeply damaging. “Go make out with someone you care about! Get laid! Get consent, then spank a friend. It’s good for your brain.” No judgment, no shame, or compassion for all, is a personal mantra. She hopes there’s a whisper of that philosophy under everything she creates.
Soma likes to think of what she does as “trauma art.” The bootstrap kind. “As in, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps regardless of trauma. Overcoming our shit. Rising above”.
Founded in 2013 by Christopher Lemole and Tim Zajaros, Armory Films creates, develops, produces, and finances high concept and commercially viable content in both the film and television space.
Armory is currently in postproduction on Charlie Day’s directorial debut EL TONTO, starring Day, Kate Beckinsale, Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, Adrien Brody and Ray Liotta. Other recent highlights include THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON, starring Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson, which received rave reviews and the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award at its SXSW premiere. The film was acquired by Roadside Attractions and made over $23 million at the box office, one of the biggest indie releases of 2019. They are currently in pre-production on Robert Nathan’s STONECLIFF and deep development on the sci-fi comic book series THE DARK AGE.
Armory produced and fully financed Joe Penna’s ARCTIC, starring Mads Mikkelsen which made its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival where it was acquired by Bleeker Street. Additional notable productions include: Dee Rees’ lauded feature MUDBOUND (Netflix) which Armory produced and financed, starring Carey Mulligan and Garrett Hedlund. The film rose to critical success following its premiere at Sundance, and went on to receive a record breaking four Academy Award Nominations, a milestone in Netflix; and genre feature MOM AND DAD, starring Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and secured world-wide distribution.
Lemole received both his undergraduate degree and J.D from Villanova University; Zajaros graduated Magna Cum Laude from Western Michigan University with a Bachelors of Business Administration, emphasis in Finance. Both partners began their careers at UTA, in the Business Affairs Department and agent training program.
Chemically Altered was founded by 3 time Emmy nominated Producer Zachary Halley with Producing partners Michael Lazarovitch and Steven Tylor O’Connor. Collectively, CAP has delivered over $100 million dollars of television in addition to projects in the feature space. Halley produced 6 seasons of “Drunk History” on Comedy Central (CBSViacom) for Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s company. Current projects include “The G-Word” with Barack and Michelle Obama’s company Higher Ground (Netflix). Lazarovitch, originally from Toronto, Canada, has been working in entertainment since 2005. Notable projects include feature films and scripted content for television for Europe’s largest network France’s TF1, A&E/Lifetime and Super Channel. O’Connor is an multiple Artios award winning Casting Executive and Producer, who’s body of work includes banner projects for Disney, Netflix and NBCUniversal.
CAP Partner’s previous projects of note include “South Side” (HBOMax/Comedy Central), “13 Reasons Why” (Netflix), “The OA” (Netflix), “Five Points” (Facebook) and Elijah Wood’s “Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss” (SpectreVision). Collectively, pilots both scripted and reality, include projects for CBS, NBC, ABC, Nickelodeon, MTV, TNT, CMT, Bravo, Lifetime, Oxygen and Logo. Feature film work includes projects for Lionsgate, Mark Gordon Company, Weinstein, BBC and Sony.
CAP has properties in development with leading networks and production companies in Canada, the United States, UK and Europe. Most recently, CAP entered into development on multiple projects with Executive Producers Lisa Oz and Dr. Mehmet Oz (Oz Works/CAA), Ileen Maisel (20th Century Television/Amber Ent), Christopher Lemole (Armory Films), Clement Virgo & Damon D’Oliviera (ConqueringLionFilms), MaiaGlikman (MSM/Tollin) and 2x Emmy nominated and Golden Globe winning show runner Eileen Conn. Zachary completed his honors degree at the Drama School at Carnegie Mellon University; Lazarovitch completed his BFA Honors undergraduate work at Ryerson and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (CAP21). They are members of the Producers Guild and Canadian Academy respectively, as well as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. CAP maintains offices in both Los Angeles, California and Toronto, Canada.
