Punk Rock Quotes

Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.

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.

When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.

I would definitely say the Oakland Raiders are the punk rock band of football.

I was in lots of dodgy bands growing up and I always fancied myself in a band. But, you know, I was rubbish at writing music. So maybe one day I'll play a rock star, or punk rocker.

A lot of punk rock is not going to be in the mainstream. It's below the radar. The beauty of it is that you're not supposed to always know. It's subterranean.

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.

I don't blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they'll realize there's more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

I'm tired of being ruled by the Skull and Bones. The only place they belong are on punk-rock albums!

I hated old people as a young kid who thought he knew anything about punk rock. I just thought old people sucked and I thought their opinions sucked.

Wearing shorts is a huge perk. I think it's probably one of the reasons people become mailmen. You also get to drive in that vehicle that should be illegal in the United States, where the steering wheel is on the other side. They have no rules! They are the punk rock of government jobs.

When I was younger, I went through a lot of different phases. One day Id be punk rock, and the next I would be tomboyish, and then I would be really girly. I was so weird. My two best friends and I were just crazy and goofy!

My whole view of music completely flipped over on its head. I grew up listening to punk rock, SST. I liked people that were making music that weren't necessarily very good at their instruments, it was more about the ideas they had than how well they could play and sing.

In high school I was good at math and everybody wanted me to do something with that - mathematics or engineering - which was a nightmare scenario for me. Meeting other artists and going to punk rock shows at that age, there was a feeling of freedom and community that I wanted to partake in.

Emo: e-mo 1. A much-maligned, mocked, and misunderstood term for melodic, expressive, and confessional punk rock.

One of my friends was a stage hand at a Bob Dylan show in the mid-90s and I remember him telling me that somebody crowd surfed during the gig. And this friend of mine was an old punk rock guy - he was totally humiliated by it. But some of Bob's people were there and they said, "Oh, Bob will be so excited! This is the kind of energy we want at his shows." That's where the old school was at.

This is Manchester, we do things differently here.

Punk rock and skateboarding took the 'school' out of living your life, and I related to learning as I went, doing a lot of different things that I liked, when I liked. Consequently, I'm mediocre at all of the above, but still stoked on being a lifetime student of music, skating, painting, writing, etc.

I was starting to play the ukulele at the same time I was having all these conversations with [the late Ramones guitarist] Johnny Ramone, these intense tutorials staying up late and listening to the music he grew up on, and picking up what's a great song and what makes a great song. He was all about lists and dissecting songs, like what's a better song by Cheap Trick: "No Surrender" or "Dream Police"? Sometimes you'd be surprised by the answer. It was an interesting dichotomy between hanging out with the godfather of punk rock and starting to play the ukulele. They came together.

And it's a - it's a term that's based on contempt; it's a term that's based on fashion, style, elitism, satanism, and, everything that's rotten about rock 'n' roll.

I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends. And yes, I am a Republican.

I think I've become more relaxed throughout my career. I don't feel the need to jump up and down and make a big noise to get people to pay attention to me. I don't need to do punk rock gestures or eat a cockroach or do something weird to say I exist.

We weren't straight-A students. We didn't start playing until we were teenagers, and we started playing rock and roll and punk rock - power chords - before we ever thought we would play folk music. So virtuosity was just never in my reach.

There's a punk rock quality to Peter Parker, that I identified with when I read the comics [Spider-Man], and that I really liked. He has this chip on his shoulder.

And all I could do while I listened to this dude tell me how punk rock saved his life was think, Wow. Why did my friend waste all that time going to chemotherapy? I guess we should have just played him a bunch of shitty Black Flag records.

Everybody wasn't always wasted. Why is punk rock about getting wasted? Isn't it punk rock to be sober and change the world? I thought it was about challenging capitalism? How are you going to challenge capitalism if you're wasted?

There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that's what was in our head for 'Get On Your Boots.' But actually, the song is much more punk rock.

I was a punk rocker when I was a teenager. I wanted to look like Nancy Spungen. I had dyed blonde hair and lots of piercings.

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

The whole point was just to be yourself, no matter what that was. You didn't have to fit into a certain punk-rock cliché. Create whatever your compelled to create. People were putting out their own records, and it just seemed natural to put out my own magazine. When I was really young, I started making magazines and little books, just folded-over pieces of typing paper, so when I discovered punk rock, it really blew my mind. I played in bands and stuff, but making my own zines seemed like an inherent part of that scene.

Stray thought for the day: Putting boundaries on how punk should sound/look is the least punk rock thing one can do. Be yourself=Very punk.

Being in love is totally punk rock.

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.

I just think that playing bass, like punk rock bass with a pick, wasn't meant to be done for 25 years.

Punk rock meditation, that's what keeps it going. That's how I let go, you know. It's exactly what I do, I blast it and run around crazy banging my head on the wall.

The Ruts were a great punk rock band from England whose songs were as excellent as their time together was short.

Punk rock really influenced me, the basic metal bands, Zeppelin, Stones and Floyd, and Southern rock bands. I think I was pretty well-rounded.

If girls are ever going to start to be in bands as the norm rather than as the exception. They need to see people up there that have just started playing. That's something that had gotten lost. I think that's why there are so many great girl punk rock bands now. It's like you have to make up your own rules because the old rules don't apply. You just have to start with what you have.

It seems like the powers that be are really trying to separate everything and really divide the genres and divide the trends. If you're metal and you don't sound like Slayer would sound now, then you're not metal. If you're punk rock and you don't sound like and preach about what The Sex Pistols would have preached about back in the day, then you're not really punk rock.

I went to art school and never thought I'd be a musician, but then punk rock came along in the late 70s and kind of ruined my life. So I quit art school to get involved in music and I've been doing it ever since.

When you talk like an asshole and look like an asshole, you're an asshole

They wouldn't play my records on American radio because I had spiky hair. They said, 'Punk rock doesn't sell advertising, it won't make any money.'

Prog-rock and concept records and some ambitious projects were kind of anathema post-punk. They were destroyed with the advent of punk rock. You don't necessarily need to have a degree in music composition to play in a rock band anymore, which is a great thing.

My first passion was running: I excelled at that starting till the end of the high school. I pretty much cover about 20 miles a night on stage. I basically rechanneled all the athleticism and adrenaline, and everything that's exciting about sports into music. That was my secret weapon, because in Ukrainian punk rock scene - where everything was very gloomy - being athletic was not cool. I didn't publicize anything about my sport past, but I rolled in onstage with a background nobody had, and I became instantly recognized as the wildest performer in the punk-rock scene.

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.

Music is music; you can't change rock and say well this is punk rock and this is acid rock or rockabilly.

Punk rock has never really had much patience with musical virtuosity. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that for most of its history, punk has been actively hostile to virtuosity.

I never thought of punk rock as the absolute act of rebellion for the sake of rebellion. There's a lot of that in there, but for me I think punk rock was always about questioning things and making decisions for yourself, which is a great message to pass on to your kids.

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.

The 1970s was probably the most exciting decade to be a teenager, from discovering Little Richard at the end of the 1960s to glam rock to punk rock to electro music. So much happened in that 10-year span. There were so many musical revolutions. Some were happening at the same time. You had disco going on behind punk. You had Michael Jackson. You had the Sex Pistols.