NOFX / Frank Turner – West Coast vs Wessex

Legendary punkers NOFX have teamed up with English folk hero Frank Turner for a one of a kind split collaboration.  When you have front man Fat Mike’s legendary status in the punk scene, I imagine it isn’t hard to get a “yes” when reaching out to artists for a split on your label.  As the story goes, even Frank Turner, arguably one of the biggest international folk artists to come out of the UK in the past decade, admitted to being a little star struck when Fat Mike first pitched the idea.  The result, West Coast vs Wessex, consists of five tracks a piece, with NOFX and Frank Turner curating and covering a handful of each other’s favourites.

The bands have opted to reach into one another’s back catalogue, with Turner opting to go for songs mostly from NOFX’s early years on Epitaph Records, and NOFX predominantly drawing from Frank Turner’s first two albums.  The result is a unique honouring of time tested tracks that reinvigorates classic songs through a modern lens.

The album opens with NOFX taking a stab at covering some of the most memorable folk punk tunes of this generation.  In an interview, Fat Mike was quoted as recognizing that in order to rise above the shadow of Turner’s work he aimed to infuse his own creative footprint into each song to uniquely define them against the original.  In this regard, NOFX achieves their goal, transforming Turner’s breezy acoustic tunes into fast, hard, and edgy punk tracks.  Opening with “Substitute,” NOFX showcases a willingness to play with the source material, infusing a minimalist ska-flavoured upstroke for about the first minute before launching into the speedy display of 90’s melodic punk they’re known for.  It’s the type of song that, with the repeated chorus, “music is my substitute for love,” reflects any career artist’s love for their craft.  Similarly, “Worse Things Happen at Sea” takes one of Turner’s less memorable and very soft spoken tracks and completely re-energizes it, while “Ballad of Me and My Friends” takes a crowd favourite and makes it a special celebration of one of the tracks that first put Turner on the map.  

“Glory Hallelujah” is the odd man out, laying down all sorts of old timey piano, renaissance organ and a classy, casual sway that would feel more at home on a Fat Mike side project like Home Street Home than under the NOFX banner.  That being said, it’s a fantastic cover unlike anything else the band has released, and depending on who you are, might even stand out as the strongest NOFX track of the five offered here.

On the other side, Turner seems to have combed through the NOFX back catalogue for songs with messages that still ring true twenty years later.  Frank Turner kicks off his side with “Scavenger Type,” which thanks to a fast tempo and Turner honing in on his Million Dead days, feels like a true dose of punk rock, albeit of a different breed than the original.  It’s a stroke of genius when you consider that the original track served as an acoustic album closer for the now classic Punk in Drublic.  The story of a homeless street performing protagonist named Bill matches the intimacy synonymous with Frank Turner’s style.  The same can be said of the story of the washed-out, liver-failing protagonist in “Bob,” but this time doing the more obvious step of transforming the infamous ska-punk tune into a rustic folk ballad.  

Turner’s next two covers pivot from the personal to the political, serving up a double course of hegemonic rebuke.  “Eat The Meek,” a classic metaphor of corporate fat cats feasting on an overpopulated and impoverished world, is transformed into a dark, brooding bass heavy exposition that highlights Fat Mike’s insightful song writing.  “Perfect Government” remains particularly powerful in light of the George Floyd protests, speaking of systemic power structures rooted so deep in society that the White House and corporate office become blurred.  Taking the form of a breezy acoustic tune, Turner’s light style mirrors the blind, blissful ignorance of the masses, willfully compliant in their own subjugation.

West Coast Meets Wessex is an energizing collaboration between two icons that traditionally occupy opposite ends of the stylistic spectrum. Yet, these reciprocal covers reveal how ideologically linked a punk-rock band like NOFX and a folk-focused artist like Frank Turner really are.  The song selections are top notch (although I would have selfishly loved a cover of Turner’s iconic “Photosynthesis,” but perhaps some things are best kept sacred), with the appreciation and respect for one another’s music coming through in each song, and each artist making one another’s songs uniquely their own while preserving the magic of the originals.  West Coast Meets Wessex is a once in a lifetime indulgence that NOFX and Frank Turner fans will want to tune in for.