NOFX apologizes for mass shooting joke: 'We won't blame it on drugs or alcohol or Ambien'

Rock band NOFX has released an apology for the controversial joke they madewhile performing at the Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival in Las Vegas.

During the show, a band member joked that you only get shot in Las Vegas if you're a country music fan, and said that the mass shooting "sucked, but at least they were country fans and no punk rock fans."

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The full text of the apology reads:

There’s no place to backpedal. What NOFX said in Vegas was shameful. We crossed the line of civility. We can’t write songs about how people in this world need to be more decent, when we were clearly being indecent. Las Vegas has always been a welcoming city to our band, and to make light of the tragedy that occurred there was egregious.

All members of the band would like to sincerely apologize to anyone who experienced loss from the Vegas shooting 8 months ago, and to anyone who was at our show who lost a loved one or a friend, or who had to witness the incredibly senseless violence that night.

We were asked why we didn’t release an immediate apology. Well, we didn’t feel that we could write a sincere apology without reflecting on the actual damage we had done. No press agent was gonna write this for us. That’s why we have struggled with this for the past few days.

We didn’t plan or intend on saying anything so insensitive. It was off the cuff, but just as hurtful. We won’t blame it on drugs or alcohol or Ambien. That’s too easy. NOFX said it, and we own it. We made a tasteless joke. But to be clear, NOFX does not condone violence against ANY group of people, period!

As sincere as we’ve ever been,

NOFX