Fat Sells Catalog to Hopeless, Keeps Trademark, Pays Off Artist Debt

It’s the end of an era… and perhaps the beginning of a new one. Fat Wreck Chords, one of the most influential independent record labels ever, the who launched or at least solidified the importance of dozens of punk bands including Nofx, Lagwagon, Bad Cop/Bad Cop and Good Riddance, the label that garners almost unprecedented levels of fan loyalty, has sold a significant portion of its operations to Hopeless Records.

As of today, Hopeless Records now owns the Fat Wreck Chords back catalogue as well as the operations of the record label aspects of the company. Quite notably, Erin Burkett, current president of Fat, and Fat Mike of Nofx, co-founder, still own certain aspects of the Fat business. Erin ands Mike retain ownership of the Fat Wreck trademarks (though the mark is licensed to Hopeless in connection with physical and digital releases). Similarly, Erin and Mike plan to throw Fat Wreck Chords shows, perhaps throw some Fat Wreck Chords festivals, and will continue to appear at other festivals (Punk in the Park, Punk rock Bowling) as Fat Wreck Chords. Perhaps other Fat Wreck Chords ventures will be created.

Certainly, as you know, for the past 35 years, Fat Wreck Chords has been a bastion of what you might call modern punk. Embracing some aspects of the original grit and grime of the early LA scene as well as the post-Green Day poppy punk sheen, Fat offers a type of punk that is more subversive than what you might hear on the radio, but not something as sonically threatening as Throbbing Gristle or even Discharge. That is, it’s punk, but not scary punk- Fat is more of a “join the party” type label than “you’re not invited to the party” type label, which might be why they earned so much more many than most of their contemporaries.

A massive part of Fat is its identity, as mostly linked label co-founder “Fat” Mike Burkett, who created the label with Erin Burkett (the two were married for a long time but have been divorced for years). Fat Mike, who is often seen on the Golf Course or in high stakes casino games or drinking two dollar PBRs at whole in the wall punk venues, curiously was able to weld “self-starter who made lots of money in music” and “punk rock icon who wrote hundreds of songs, staged a musical, loves BDSM and talks about it publicly, and takes lots of drugs” into a single, non-contradictory entity. Even more impressively, despite the dozens or hundreds of bands on Fat, it’s difficult, or even impossible to find a band that says they had a bad experience on the label. It’s tough to find anyone that’s says Fat didn’t pay them. It’s tough to find anyone to say that Fat didn’t promote their KP properly. It’s tough to find anyone that says Fat meddled in the band’s recording process. That’s basically unheard of.

Erin says, “I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Mike is in a band and he knows what it is like when you are on a label and maybe the label treats you a certain way. It’s very much like we are on a team and treating the bands like they want to be treated. We sign bands where not only do we like their music, but we like the people- that was always a deciding factor.”

Meanwhile, the new owner of the catalog, Hopeless, doesn’t have quite the same homogenous identity. Whereas Fat fans are fans of the bands as much as the label itself, Hopeless is arguably, more contemporary in their fan base, with their fans being perhaps more dedicated to individual bands on the label than the label itself. Meanwhile, the thematic connection between Fat bands and Hopeless bands is vast. The style and way of doing things between say Lagwagon and Good Riddance really isn’t that far. But, try to fine the line connecting Fame on Fire and Destroy Boys.

That being said, Hopeless itself does have a Fat connection. Hopeless Founder and President Louis Posen started his career working with Fat. One of Posen’s first credits is filming a Lagwagon video. He adds, “I was in the studio with Propaghandi when they recorded their first album. For me, high points of Fat include Nofx The Longest Line, Lagwagon Duh and that Propaghandi album. Those were the start of my career and my passion for this community. I feel like it was also an important time in Fat Wreck Chords. Those were the records that sold really well nd helped define what the future was going to look like.”

Now, the future is the concern of a lot of bands signed to Fat. To that end, A key aspect of the sale of the catalogue is fairly unique in the field of record label acquisition. As part of the sale, all bands on Fat that are “in debt” to the label, will have their debt wiped out. That is, if a band had an advance that was not yet recouped, that balanced owed is zeroed, so that if the band sells a single royalty at Hopeless, they will begin earning royalties immediately. (Often when a band signs with an independent label, the expense of record production is granted as an “advance.” When the band’s music earns money, the money earned is first counted against the advance. So, a band usually does not earn any money until the advance is paid back through royalties earned on record sales).

Even more interesting is that Erin and Mike essentially paid off the debts themselves. That is, say the cost of Hopeless buying Fat was valued at $100. In this sale, Hopeless only paid $80 to Erin and Mike, due to the fact that Erin and Mike required that band debt be wiped out upon the sale. As far as record label sales, this is a rather monumental and magnanimous move on the part of Erin and Mike. In fact, the debt forgiveness cost Erin and Mike about $3.5 million.

Further, Hopeless has agreed that no new bands will be added to the Fat Roster and bands that are currently on Fat are guaranteed a spot on the label post sale. With a few rare exceptions, Fat has only ever done one album contracts, as opposed to multi-album deals.

Yet, the sale did not come without bumps. In October 2024, “news” broke that Hopeless had purchased Fat. It caused massive discussion and ripples in the punk rock world. One of the bastions of modern punk would be no more. Yet, that news was incorrect. At the time, Punknews reached out to Fat directly and learned that the “news” was not true. At the time, Fat and Hopeless were in discussions, but the details of a potential sale had not been hatched out and no contract had been signed.

“I was extremely upset about that, because it was inaccurate,” Erin says. “We were in negotiations but the deal was not finalized. What was actually posted as inaccurate. It basically said ‘Fat Mike and Erin sell to Hopeless’. That was not the deal that was structured. It was really upsetting to me. When you see a headline that says ‘Fat sells to Hopeless’ you are not getting all the details. You don’t know how important it was to Mike and I that our bands were taken care of. We started thinking about this years ago and the number one priority was the bands. There are some bands that have never put out a record anywhere except Fat- Lagwagon, Good Riddance. So, if we were to just sell to anybody, they would have no home. There would be no guarantee that they would be on Fat, they would not be treated like family, that they could be dropped. That was upsetting to me.”

Hopeless taking on a label like Fat, which has such a unique presence in the punk scene, as well as a unified sound to a degree, could be seen as a challenge. For instance, there’s the fierce brand loyalty Fat has garnered from its fans. Fat means a specific sound, a specific visual look, and specific party-and-politics vibe, and maybe even a certain type of lifestyle. Is Hopeless nervous? “I think Erin and Mike picked us because they know I’m nervous about everything,” Posen says. “I want to do the right thing. I have built a company that care about the artist and everything they do, down to the package and the liner notes. That’s part of it. I’m enjoying this responsibility that has rewards and difficult parts associated with it.”

According to Posen, fans from the outside looking in might not see much of a change. Future Fat releases will have the Fat logo, but no Hopeless logo (even though Hopeless is now the parent entity). Album art and production style isn’t expected to shift. And of course, no new bands will be added to the roster but bands already on the roster will release new material- Nofx is releasing the first part of a three part rarities trilogy. Bad Cop/Bad Cop have a new record coming out.

Posen says, “We are hoping to take our resources and infrastructure and elevate the label and do some larger initiates on what they’ve released and what they’ve meant to the punk community for the past 35 years. We already know about some releases in the planning stage, though some releases have not been announced.” Other than that, Posen was rather general about what can be expected from the new Fat in 2026 and 2027.

Meanwhile, Erin and Mike are retaining two Fat Employees. Fat label manager Bart who has been with the company for years, will still work for Fat, though he will also do some work in conjunction with Hopeless. Also, long running employee, “Pat from Fat,” who you likely have seen at music festivals where Fat makes a physical appearance, will continue running Fat’s festival appearances and operations.

Though, Erin herself seems a little unsure about what her exact next steps will be. When asked exactly what she’s going to do next, and how she’s feeling, she replied. “I am obviously very happy. As to my feelings, it’s definitely is a mixed bag. I’m excited about the future. I’m excited to let Louis take this over. It’s been my pride an joy for 35 years. There is a little bit of sadness because this is what I’ve done for 35 years. These bands are family truly. I’m not as sad as I might have been because I will still be involved. If Mike and I were just walking away, that would be very sad. I’m going to be very involved and Mike can decide how much he wants to be involved. A lot of this started because Mike said, ‘I’ve worked my entire life. I’m getting older and I want to take a little bit of a breather. Mike can go off and enjoy his retirement if he likes and I’m still going to participate.”