Punk Music Quotes & Sayings

I was part of punk's second generation, so, not the first wave of '70s punk, but the American hardcore scene. I had a really strong love for music prior to that, but punk created a new template. — Bucky Pope

I got out of that immediately was that now, all of a sudden, rock music had become a spectator sport, that corporate labels and their bands were the new establishment, and punk was there to fight them the way the activist hippies must have fought what the establishment must have been ten years before. And it was interesting to see the reactions in different parts of the country. — Jello Biafra

But that's what I love about punk music. It has a sense of humor about itself, doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It's kickass funk with a heavy-metal edge, but with a conscience. Good — Rachel Cohn

It's funny how books can change you. You open up a book and one minute you are who you've always been, then you read some random passage and you become someone else. — Brian Joyce

Here is how the harmful becomes profitable: That which yesterday was reviled today ends up in Urban Outfitters. The critic Rebecca Solnit has summarized it this way: 'Eat your heart out on a plastic tray,' say the Sex Pistols. Now, we know where to buy the tray and what the heart tastes like. — Josh Kun

I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk. — Dean Wareham

I went to school in Gainesville because it was a huge punk and folk town. So I went to class twice a week, and then I went to shows and wrote. I did a lot of music writing before I actually started playing music. — Benjamin Booker

Back in the "leather and lace" eighties, I was the fantasy editor for a publishing company in New York City. It was a great time to be young and footloose on the streets of Manhattan - punk rock and folk music were everywhere; Blondie, the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince were all strutting their stuff on the newly created MTV; and the eighties' sense of style meant I could wear my scruffy black leather into the office without turning too many heads. The fantasy field was growing by leaps and bounds, and I was right in the middle of it, working with authors I'd worshiped as a teen, and finding new ones to encourage and publish. — Terri Windling

Your mother is probably right," Dad said. "Social services frowns on drunk ten-year-ols. Besides, when I dropped my drumsticks and puked onstage, it was punk. If you drop your bow and smell like a brewery, it will look gauche. You classical-music people are so snobby that way. — Gayle Forman

There weren't a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn't have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends. — Dave Grohl

I've never recognized 'emo' as a genre of music. I always thought it was the most retarded term ever. I know there is this generic commonplace that every band that gets labeled with that term hates it. They feel scandalized by it. But honestly, I just thought that all the bands I played in were punk rock bands. The reason I think it's so stupid is that - what, like the Bad Brains weren't emotional? What - they were robots or something? It just doesn't make any sense to me. — Guy Picciotto

Hippies survived Nixon, but punk caved in to Ronald Reagan, know what I'm saying? Punk actually couldn't take a good challenge. — Legs McNeil

You know how they say Black Flag got in a van, and they brought punk rock to the world? The Strokes got on a bus, and they brought "downtown cool" to the world. Along with the Internet, they were changing everything, not just music. They were changing attitudes. The Strokes were making New York travel with them. I saw kids in Connecticut and Maine and Philadelphia and DC looking like they had just been drinking on Avenue A all night. Sixteen-year-old kids in white belts and Converse Chuck Taylors with the greasy hair - hair that had been clean a week ago. Those kids had probably never even smelled the inside of a thrift store before Is This It came out. They found a band that they wanted to be like. They found their band. APRIL — Lizzy Goodman

I made the big turnaround in the early Nineties when I started hearing all the tenth generation punk bands like Green Day and Offspring and all those people. It just made me fall in love with punk again and remember my roots, and since that time I've always wanted to do more of that kind of music again. — Jane Wiedlin

Like punk?" She wrinkled her nose. She could stand a few Dead Milkmen songs, but other than that, she hated Park's punk music. "I — Rainbow Rowell

When I listen to most forms of music, in their most raw and pure, it all has a punk edge to me, like Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Otis Redding or Nirvana. — Langhorne Slim

I can say is our point of reference - and I think that does make us different from some bands and similar to other bands too. But it's just that spirit - it's sort of like a punk spirit - but it's not punk meaning or as in like "I'm here and I'm going to get thrashy and bloody on-stage" - but, we're not going to listen to the rules and the roles already set in place. We just want to make music that is heartfelt and feels good and sounds good to our ears, and hopefully to many other's ears as well. — Theresa Wayman

I change my mind about things - for a while I was punk rocker, and if you weren't a punk rocker you were an apostate. Then I was a dance music enthusiast, and if you weren't a dance music enthusiast, you were an apostate. I was carnivore, and if you were a vegan, I didn't want to talk to you. Then I was vegan, and if you were a carnivore I didn't want to talk to you. — Moby

There are a lot of bands who claim to be punk and they only play the music, they have no clue what it's all about. It's a lifestyle. It's not about popularity and all that crap. — Billie Joe Armstrong

I think most people's record collections are more interesting than radio generally gives them credit for. You're likely to be as interested in the Grateful Dead as Palestrina. It pisses me off how compartmentalised music is. I used to be in a punk band, you know? — Charles Hazlewood

Absolute 80's is three hours of mainstream 80's music. I also do New Wave Nation that is more cutting edge. It is more punk stuff from the 70's to the 90's. — Nina Blackwood

There are moments in our lives that define the people we will become in the future, like a symptom before an ailment, or the catalyst before the cure. — Brian Joyce

Art is sacred.
Punk rock is freedom.
Expression and right to express is vital.
Anyone can be artistic. — Kurt Cobain

One thing that got me started on it was the jean jacket. It's an item that could make you believe you're in the 50s or punk-rock 70s or grunge 90s. I was really focused on timelessness, and I think music is very timeless. — Drew Barrymore

My drawing came out of editorial-style cartoons. Music was one thing and art was another, and there weren't really any standards for my art. My work was just drawings. They weren't done with any aspirations of becoming a part of punk scene. They weren't about punk. They were just collections of drawings, some of which I xeroxed and sold. — Raymond Pettibon

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music. — Kurt Cobain

I've always thought that "punk" wasn't really a genre. My band started in Olympia where K Records was and K Records put out music that didn't sound super loud and aggressive. And yet they were punk because they were creating culture in their own community instead of taking their cue from MTV about what was real music and what was cool. It wasn't about a certain fashion. It was about your ideology, it was about creating a community and doing it on your own and not having to rely on, kinda, "The Man" to brand you and say that you were okay. — Kathleen Hanna

What were we, but kids with apartments and jobs anyway? — Brian Joyce

Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music. — Stanley Crouch

A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees. — Stone Gossard

I'm in a band. I don't go to church every Sunday. I love punk rock music. Sometimes I use swear words a lot. I respect and admire gay men and women. I'm obsessed with horror films. I know what shame feels like. And guess what old man? Jesus is still my Savior. — Hayley Williams

I actually got into music because of art and because of skateboarding: All those graphics and punk bands and fanzines - they were glued together in my brain. — Alison Mosshart

The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that time - would not have been on my agenda. — Alan Rickman

Eventually, that feeling fades, but there is always the memory of those days. When you're young, everything is butterflies. What I mean is - it's all new. I guess he was telling you to still believe, to hold on to your butterflies. — Brian Joyce

Musically, New York is a big influence on me. Walk down the street for five minutes and you'll hear homeless punk rockers, people playing Caribbean music and reggae, sacred Islamic music and Latino music, so many different types of music. — Moby

Punk is not just the sound, the music, punk is a lifestyle. — Green Day

If you ask me, rockabilly has had a raw deal for far too long. People never shunned the blues or jazz the way they do rockabilly. But it's the original punk-rock, and it changed the way people looked at music for ever. — Imelda May

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s. — Jello Biafra

[Country Music] is the final destination for many punk rockers [ ... ] Rockabilly is the mid-point and then [they] end up at Country [ ... ] There's purity to that music and I think that appeals to a lot of punk rock people - the precision, the purity, and the directness of Country Music. — John C. Reilly

I do love dance music. I love Daft Punk. I mean, I was a child in the '80s, so bands like the Eurythmics and just so many great '80s bands were dance bands, but they had the whole soul thing happening, too. — Corin Tucker

When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.' — Robert Smith

All my teenage years my punk was hip-hop - I just hated pop music. — Gustav Ejstes

I love punk rock, The Clash, The Ramones, The Cramps. I love where it all came from, and music for my ears now, it has to have that same electricity, adrenaline and danger. — Imelda May

I see a lot of connections between folk and punk music just because they're both subcorporate music - I mean, traditionally. — Ani DiFranco

You know there was always a confusion that punk was a style of music. — Mike Watt

Punk [rock] seemed like rock 'n' roll music utterly without the music. — Steve Winwood

I live in Nashville, and I don't know how many people there would call me country. I really started in punk and anti-folk, but one of the reasons I originally gravitated towards country music is because most of those songs only use three chords. That was the easiest place for me to start, but I'm always trying to expand what I do. — Caitlin Rose

Punk's influence on music, movies, art, design and fashion is no longer in doubt. It is used as the measurement for what is cool. — Malcolm McLaren

I enjoy punk, the attitude as well as the music, but I don't feel like I have to be a carbon copy of it and invite all this controversy just to be punk rock. — Hayley Williams

Punk is like not about the style, its about the music! — Avril Lavigne

Punk had picked the locks, sluiced out into the grid. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Growing up, I always wanted to be in punk bands, so I'm really enjoying the harder, heavier element. It's always been my dream to have people moshing at my gig, kind of that really feral element of the music coming out more. I love crowd-surfing. — Florence Welch

I was in punk rock bands, heavy metal bands, world music bands, jazz groups, any type of music that would take me. I just love music. — Reggie Watts

Style has always been very important to us. We grew up in the '70s. Music was glam rock, punk rock and a very stylish movement. — Nick Rhodes

In a way, all recorded music is reduced to the same level, no matter what it is. You find it in the store, you put it on and, "Oh, that's not cool. That's gangsta rap. That's white supremacist punk." But in a way, the content is removed from the intention of the people that made it. That's the commercial level of music. — Eyvind Kang

I can play punk rock, and I love playing punk rock, but I was into every other style of music before I played punk rock. — Travis Barker

I started playing guitar at the age of 8 or 9 years. Very early, and I was like already into pop music and was just trying to copy what I heard on the radio. And at a very early age I started experimenting with old tape recorders from my parents. I was 11 or 12 at that time and then when I was like 14 or 15 I had a punk band. I made all the classic rock musician's evolutions and then in the early nineties I bought my first sampler and that is how I got into electronic music, because I was able to produce it on my own. That was quite a relief. — Christian Fennesz

Emos don't dance much to our music. They actually hate snow patrol and Girls allowed. How could anyone hate them? I haven't got any punk or metal stuff they would like but actually, when they'd had some cider they were dancing along happily to 'Mamma Mia' with us, no probs. Even though they're Emos, they are still like human. — Dawn French

That night, he laid in his bed thinking about all the possibilities. They came like waves in his mind. At first they came slow, then gradually built up speed, cresting into full on dreams, until finally, they broke onto the shore with all of their reality. First dreams, then nightmares. — Brian Joyce

I was the only punk rocker at my high school. And there were at least a handful of black kids who liked hip-hop. Both were kind of the new music of the day, and it was lonely being the only punk. — Rick Rubin

Punk-rock gave music back to people. For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16 and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that. Me and [Minor Threat and Fugazi vocalist] Ian MacKaye would go to these concerts, and it was fun. — Henry Rollins

This guy! I plead the fifth. This guy is nuts."
- Eminem
"Dope questions, man. Very insightful, very thoughtful."
- Guru (Gang Starr)
"You like a Psychiatrist or some shit? This shit is just coming out but go ahead."
- Mary J. Blige
"Definitely a real interview! Digging deep up in there, man. Not afraid to ask questions!"
- K-Ci Hailey (Jodeci)
"The Wizard asked me for a copy of your magazine."
- Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Daft Punk)
"You didn't wear your glasses and you haven't carried your hearing aid. What else is wrong with you?"
- Bushwick Bill
"Peace and blessing, Brother Harris. Thank you for inspiring my words. Keep 'yo balance."
- Erykah Badu
"Can I see that pen?"
- Bobby Brown
"What else do you want to know? Talk to me."
- Aaliyah — Harris Rosen

When you're thirteen and listening to punk, the aggressive nature of music can sway you to the dark side. — Dave Grohl

When punk and new wave styles exploded in the late '70s, some established artists were nimble enough to respond to the changes around them. Some grumbled, "What am I supposed to do, forget how to play?", and continued to ride their dinosaurs into extinction, but others willingly adapted to the streamlining and back-to-basics urges of the times, without giving up all they had learned. Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel, for example, or former Yes keyboardist Trevor Horn, continued to produce vital, influential music through the '80s and '90s. Ian Anderson has continued to lead Jethro Tull out of the '60s and '70s and quietly through the decades, making high quality music and finding a large enough audience to continue recording and touring worldwide. — Neil Peart

'Punk rock' is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it. — Iggy Pop

From the beginning, there was so much pressure in the early San Francisco punk scene for everyone to be different than everyone else, to flaunt your intelligence and insights instead of every band sounding alike, like what plagues punk music in particular today. — Jello Biafra

Popularity is like a girl in class that you can't ignore. She give you eyes when no one looks then turns to her friends and laughs some more. — Brian Joyce

If I like hardcore straight-edge punk music, gentle psychedelic folk music, gangster rap, indie-rock with a lot of guitar pedals, and I find inspiration from all these things in different songs of mine, shouldn't I be allowed to make any of this kind of music that I want? And it's the same for the comic books, why should I only make autobiographical stories? Or only political stories? Or only superhero stories? Or only comedy stories? I am a bit creatively desperate, when I sit with a pen and paper I am desperate for ANY idea that makes me excited, I don't care what kind of idea it is! — Jeffrey Lewis

Part of the punk attitude was that you should project your music through your whole body ... show your personality as much as possible. — Billy Idol

I think my style is quite grungy and punky. I love the '90s and the music from that time, and I love punk music. I'm also a fan of mixing vintage with some high fashion, which links back to my musical taste because I tend to mix old music with newer songs. — Chelsea Leyland

I still love it. I love lots of other music, too, and always have, but punk's the soundtrack of my youth. I think you never escape the music you're listening to and seeing when you're seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old. — Elizabeth Hand

People like you are the reason this album needed to be written in the first place. When you've got your salary, and your cosy little ivory tower, you're dead happy to spout off about artistic integrity and us getting there together. But the minute you're asked to back your promises up with some strength of character, you come apart. You say you love good music, but you can't listen to it that carefully if you treat people like this. — Guy Mankowski

When Punk Rock happened, it created an opening in the culture ... it made it ok to think you could play music, even though you had no musical training. — Kim Gordon

Society gets by from the help of its citizens. — Brian Joyce

In music, recording, writing, photography, design, film-making and any other creative endeavour, it may be true that anyone can do it, but it is not quite as true as punk sometimes seemed to suggest that anyone can do it in a way that is appreciated by others. The key point is that, without determination and application, talent and ideas are just unrealised potential. That lesson-there for anyone who wishes to learn it-is perhaps punk's , and the Clash's, greatest legacy. — Marcus Gray

Thank you for the music, Sleater-Kinney. This gang of three was the best American punk rock band ever. Ever. — Rob Sheffield

A lot of punk rock. I listen to various stuff just cuz my friends now listen to a lot of different bands. I listen to a lot of underground stuff like jungle music. — Cassie Steele

Music never leaves you alone, and punk rock will always be there when nothing else will, — Pete Wentz

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it
there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter. — Elliott Smith

I love country music, blues, and punk, and one day I might make those kinds of records. — Kesha

To me, rockabilly music paralleled punk's energy and feeling, but the players were much better. — Brian Setzer

I've been making electronic music for twenty some odd years but, because I grew up playing in punk rock bands, when I started touring, I thought in order to be a viable touring musician I had to do it with a band. I would DJ or tour with a full rock band. — Moby

There's not much music I'll listen to if it doesn't have pretty heavy swing. Rhythm is so important. Punk rock would have more power and feeling if it had swing. — Greg Ginn

For some young people, their first experience ever hearing punk rock music was playing the Green Bay Packers on 'Madden'. — Billie Joe Armstrong

Too much emphasis is put on American roots music when people try and place me. You know, I grew up listening to punk. — Will Oldham

In times such as these, life often begs us to seek answers when in reality there are only questions available. — Brian Joyce

I love a lot of music that's considered folk music, but I also love a lot of music that's considered punk or considered rap. I don't mind being called a folk singer. But it seems a bit limiting. I want to be able to write whatever kind of song I want. — Langhorne Slim

Punk is not really a style of music. It was more like a state of mind. — Mike Watt

I was just a music lover who wondered what it would sound like if Otis Redding strapped on a guitar and played in a punk band. That's it. — Benjamin Booker

People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally. — Jennifer Egan

My music is pretty honest. I can't rap on science fiction. Punk is from the street. — Rick James

My music doesn't sound punk, but I see it as a punk action. — Frankie Cosmos

My music doesn't really sound like punk music, it's acoustic. And it doesn't really sound like folk music 'cause I'm thrashing too hard and emoting a little too much for the sort of introspective, respectful, sort-of folk genre thing. I'm really into punk and folk as music that comes out of communities and is very genuine and very immediate and not commercial. — Ani DiFranco

I used to work at a punk venue in Pennsylvania because I wanted to be near music. — Halsey

The fashion look of teens and twentysomethings -once so cutting edge- is now, like most of the music played on the radio, a matter of routine. Safe, tired, everywhere. — Phil Strongman

Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them? — Beth Ditto

We found that if you played a bunch of punk singles in a row, people would dance like crazy and then get worn out and go somewhere else in the house. And if you played reggae all the time, people ended up leaning against the walls and nodding their head. But if you mixed it up, the floor got more and more packed, and the energy from the two types of music seemed to feed into each other, and the adrenaline from the punk, and the seductive sway of the reggae seemed to fit together. — Dave Wakeling

I guess I would call my music 'blues punk.' There's a lot of influences. — Benjamin Booker

I guess it was only fitting that to them PUNK was a four letter word. However, to people like Dylan and I-punk was our hearts-our souls. We grew up with a lot of uncertainties. To be a teenager isn't always pretty, and our music reflected that. — Brian Joyce

Punk music is rebellious. — Theophilus London