Fat Mike attended college at San Francisco State University and graduated in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in Social Science and a minor in Human Sexuality.

Burkett can also be heard heckling and requesting "Free Bird" at the end of the Lunachicks song, "Missed It," off their 1996 album, Pretty Ugly, which he also produced.

In the video, Burkett dresses as Cokie and puts white powder into his squirting flower, which in the song he describes as "my own special blend of X, coke, and K".

Fat Mike has made several appearances as Cokie the Clown, but one of his most memorable was at Emo's, a popular nightclub in Austin on March 20, 2010, at the South by Southwest festival.

The stunt was later revealed as a joke on NOFX's website, which showed Fat Mike switching out the urine bottle for an untainted one before making audience members drink it.

[13] Fat Mike founded the website Punkvoter.com in 2004 in an effort to mobilize the punk community to vote George W. Bush out of office in that year's presidential election.

Fat Mike's band NOFX, along with many other well-known punk artists including Alkaline Trio, Green Day, and Jello Biafra, embarked on a tour of American college campuses in the months leading up to the 2004 presidential election.

At the shows, he would hand out free DVDs of Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War, a documentary that questions the Bush administration's motives in the Middle East.

[16] To coincide with the tour, Mike released two Rock Against Bush compilation albums on Fat Wreck Chords featuring new music from some of the bands on the label.

Fat Mike formerly owned a gastropub-style restaurant in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City called Thistle Hill Tavern.

[citation needed] He has been vocal about assisting with his terminally ill mother's death, describing the episode in a song called "La Pieta" which is featured in NOFX's audiobook version of The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories.

[23] On November 5, 2014, at a NOFX show in Sydney, Australia, Fat Mike had complained about a neck injury and had asked the audience not to throw objects at him and grab him while on stage as it caused him pain.