Punk Quotes
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I was about 16 when punk started to happen... It felt like you had this naive idea that you could change things just by wearing something.
Boy George Culture Club -
Punk is the way of those who are unable to express themselves, but they aren't dangerous; at worst, they may kill their audience.
Mike Oldfield
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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?
Kathleen Hanna Bikini Kill -
A lot of people think that punk rock musicians don't know what they're doing.
Travis Barker Blink-182 -
When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian.
Gregory Walter Graffin Bad Religion -
We really try not to spend too much time thinking about what we're supposed to be a punk band, or whatever. We do the exact same thing today that we been doing for years and years and years.
Mark Hoppus Blink-182 -
I was always embarrassed because my dad wore a suit and my mother wore flat pumps and a cozy jumper while my friends' parents were punks or hippies.
Shirley Ann Manson Angelfish
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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 don't listen to punk any more, unless it's right before I play. Not that I don't like it, it's nostalgic. But, it's for kids and it should be it's not art, it's expression.
Tom DeLonge Blink-182 -
Punk rock really came out of N.Y. as a philosophy before the groups were ever recorded. I had a kind-of intellectual interest in the idea of creating a new scene that could be a grassroots thing.
Greg Ginn Black Flag -
You can't be a punk all your life.
Ben Eine -
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 Bikini Kill -
We punk fans have so much energy to give to the fight against injustice, i.e. the abuse of the poor by the rich, i.e. climate change.
Ezra Furman
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I always felt like I had a punk album waiting to be made.
Ezra Furman -
We had no money, and we had to go through 'punk' school. We ended up living in the rehearsal room that used to be the Sex Pistols rehearsal room at Malcolm McLaren's office. So we had this sort of interesting beginning.
Keren Woodward Bananarama -
I don't think punk fashion is a specter or overemphasized - it made a big impression, as there had never been anything like it before.
Vivienne Westwood -
On a scale of one to ten, how punk am I? Apple. I don't use your scale.
Eugene Mirman -
Punk is not really a style of music. It was more like a state of mind.
Mike Watt -
It's weird for me to try and write punk songs - I'm almost scared of it.
Gary Jarman
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I first got into music when I heard punk, and it was saying maybe it's OK if you don't live up to the expectations various authorities have for you.
Ezra Furman -
Caitlin Cary and I were always talking about X when we talked about whiskeytown, before it became an actual band. We like the concept of there being no real front person in X, yet this kind of switch up of vocals and really their sheer power, and their ability to sort of bastardise punk rock and midwetsren rock and even country into their own sound.
Ryan Adams -
The first music I loved on my own was punk.
Ezra Furman