Codefendants are a genre-smashing punk collective blending alternative, hip hop and rock to create a sound they call Crimewave. Formed by Fat Mike (NOFX), Julio ‘Ceschi’ Ramos and Sam King (Get Dead), the band fuses raw punk aggression with sharp lyricism, dark humor, and street-level honesty. The Codefendants—three dangerous bastards with criminal records and musical ambitions—landed like a Molotov cocktail through the window of an industry built on lip-syncers and safe bets.
Meet your suspects: Sam King, a punk-rock lifer with ink-stained fists and scars from a thousand wrong turns, and Julio “Ceschi” Ramos, a poet, ex-con, and underground hip-hop ghost who once sold weed to pay rent in a world that charged interest on dreams. Both born of Bay Area chaos, they met in the hallowed, graffitied walls of 924 Gilman St.—a punk rock church with no pews and plenty of sinners.
Both had extensive rap sheets—felonies, court dates, and enough bad decisions to fill a Netflix docuseries. Fat Mike, by comparison, once spent 24 hours in Disneyland jail for causing a scene—hardly hardened, but criminal enough for punk rock credentials. It was a match made in legal hell, but the chemistry was undeniable.