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.
In 2023 the trio recorded their first album, This Is Crime Wave, at Baz The Frenchman?s studio in Echo Park. The first single was "Fast Ones,? a bullet of a song featuring The D.O.C., Death Row royalty back from the crypt, lending his voice to the chaos for the first time in two decades. Codefendants took the chaos on the road, from the punk-soaked shores of Punk Rock Holiday and Bay Fest in Europe to the sunbaked concrete of Rhymefest in Los Angeles, where they shared the stage with legends like Xzibit, Dilated Peoples, and DJ Quik, to supporting NOFX on their recent farewell tour.
2026 will be a monstrous year for the punk trio as they gear up to release their sophomore studio album, LIFERS, on April 3rd and continue to tour around the world. (Text: Presseinfo)
