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  Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. A Diva is a force to be reckoned with. A powerhouse singer with an overwhelming, powerful  attitude to match. A Diva is likely to get their own way, no matter what the cost. Regardless,  a true diva can shape significant portions of the cultural landscape of popular music.  It’s a fitting theme for the Avengers-esque  punk rock powerhouse of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. The band is known  for its general infighting and party time attitude, while taking popular songs and crafting them into their own songs.  Those powerhouses who  form Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have always been Joey Cape (Lagwagon) mixed with the might of Chris Shiflet (Foo Fighters/No Use For A Name) with the added prowess of drummer, Dave Raun (Lagwagon/RKL) and the almighty Fat Mike Burkett (NoFx/Fat Wreck Chords) on the bass centered around the majesty of singer, Spike Slawson. Each generation has their own Diva to look up to and call their own. In the punk rock world we have Fat Mike.  Hours before he heads to Japan for a week-long Gimmes tour, we speak with Mike from his San Francisco home. Mike sounds tired when he picks up the phone and explains that he had spent the day at the beach riding bikes with his daughters. What we get is a Fat Mike who is very open and honest about his feelings towards the project, the newest album and his past feeling about Divas.  In my head I associate Divas with the 70’s. You grew up in the 70’s, and do you have any memories of the then Divas scene? Well, My mom and my dad divorced when I was four. They only had two records. They weren’t music listeners. They just had a stereo and when they had people over, they would put on a couple of records. They only had two. One was Barbara Streisand. I grew up with very little music in the house. I knew Second Hand Rose by Streisand for sure. That’s not why we did Divas. We like to come up with a theme and this way we could play popular songs of the past five decades.  What I like about Divas is that you guys cover a little from every decade with this record. Is there something about these songs you choose? We just listen to a bunch of the songs, and it’s surprisingly hard to do a Gimmes album. With the country album we went through about a hundred songs to get twelve good ones. People don’t really think about that.  People are all the fucking time [telling me], “Hey Mike, Why don’t you do this cover? That would be a really good one!” I’m just like, “Shut up. You have no idea how hard it is to do a song that sounds good in punk rock style.” We went through every Britney Spear song. We couldn’t find one. We couldn’t find one that was good. There is nothing for chord progressions. They are all dance songs. We tried it with Beyonce and Pink. The only Pink song we liked was the Tim Armstrong one and it’s kind of lame to do that. [Editor’s note: Rancid’s Tim Armstrong co-wrote and produced songs for Pink’s 2003 Try This album. The song “Trouble,” a Rancid outtake was reworked for Pink and won a Grammy. The song was later recorded by Tim Timebomb And Friends in 2012] It’s really hard to find good songs.    When you go in to make a record like this, do you think to yourself anything along the lines of, “What would Celine Dion do?” Yeah, we don’t take it that seriously. We just try to get through it. What’s cool about the Gimmes now, we get to record at the Foo Fighters studio for free. They have a HUGE awesome studio now, the 606. It’s with the board from that movie, Sound City, came from. So we go there, hang out and go over songs. We just try to knock them out. So we’re not really thinking. I was wasted the whole time. Joey [Cape from Lagwagon] wasn’t there. We don’t really like recording with Joey. We argue too much. He comes in and does his parts, but he is on his own.  What are the tours like? All you guys have such big personalities, how do those personalities fit on the same bus?We have a good time. We are all interchangeable, which is kind of cool. We’ve done tours without everybody, well everybody except for Spike. Spike is the only person that we really need. It’s just easier that way. Chris [Shiflet] is in the Foo Fighters. He only plays three or four shows with us a year. His brother [Scott Shiflet, also of Face To Face] plays with us too. Brian Baker [Minor Threat & Bad Religion] has been in the Gimmes and Warren [Fitzgerald] from The Vandals has been in the Gimmes. Some people from  RKL [Rich Kids on LSD] and some people from Screw 32. Nowadays if we are going to replace any of us, we have to replace them with somebody who is kind of popular.  Do you get jealous when these people are out on the road in place of you?Oh no, not at all. I’m busy doing other stuff. I was kind of bummed that this last European tour was our most successful tour ever. So that was kind of a bummer. It’s nice to know that after twenty or so years,  our tours are bigger than they ever have been before.  Are the tours bigger thanks to the internet making you guys more accessible?I don’t know if it’s the internet. The internet doesn’t help some bands, and it hurts other bands. The Gimme Gimmes are one of those bands that nobody loves, but … Read moreMe First and The Gimme Gimmes // Fat Mike interview about DIVAS. (New Noise Magazine Cover Story #09 – April 2014)