NOFX

Say what you will about pop punk and its mostly lamentable impact on the music landscape (hey, it's at least partially responsible for giving us emo, right?), but you have to respect a band that has stuck around as long as NOFX has. The San Francisco-by-way-of-L.A. punk band was formed all the way back in 1983 by singer/bassist "Fat Mike" Burkett, guitarist Eric Melvin, and drummer Erik Sandin. To put that in punk rock perspective, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols was only six years old in 1983, Travis Barker was in elementary school, and the first Hot Topic was still five years from opening its doors. In the ensuing quarter-century-plus, NOFX has released dozens of albums and EPs, played countless gigs around the world, and made fun of fundamentalist Christians young (Underoath) and old (George W. Bush). They've also sold more than 6 million records worldwide, despite negligible radio airplay and an almost masochistic opposition to commercial success. Even as Green Day and the Offspring became MTV darlings, NOFX rejected major-label offers and eventually left Epitaph to start their own label, Fat Wreck Chords. In a time when "DIY" has become an overused music cliché, NOFX actually walks the walk.