Top 55 Punk Quotes

I was in bands, but they were punk bands, and you plug in the guitars, you turn them up really loud, you’ve got four or five other people on stage with you, you’ve got some protection from when they throw lighters. You can always hide behind the lead singer or the bass player.

People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse. It allowed us to be aggressive.

I was the punk outsider who nobody messed with. I was fearless. At 16, I graduated and moved out.

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

I had moments of my actions and words not reflecting who it is I am – if that defines a punk, then yes, absolutely.

I’ve always respected and appreciated Punk, but we never really hung out. We came from the same route, but we didn’t necessarily hang out in the same circles. I’ve always had a great appreciation and respect for his hard work.

People can talk about punk all they want, but after new wave put that down, metal is the voice of the disenfranchised and that need to become unhinged. That’s why it appeals to so many people when they are younger and carries over when those people, at 40, don’t want to grow up.

Rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll isn’t even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit that’s been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop.

When we started to do punk, we put all of these things together to create the look of an urban guerrilla – a rebel.

Coming off the back of the live album, there was a certain edginess and an almost punk energy that I’ve missed for a while.

I’m not anti-fashion, but I’ve always had a bit of a punk attitude. That’s important, I think. I do my own thing.

People have evolved into something selfish, greedy and intolerant. People are unaccepting, because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation… I’ve seen it in punk clubs, and I’ve seen it in the world.

Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvana’ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

I have a karaoke punk band called The Ungrateful Dead, but we don’t exist yet.

I was into punk rock back when I was in high school. I used to go around to dive venues and take photographs. But now it’s been just much more about the country stuff and soulful folk.

There are always young bands playing in their garages. 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.

Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality.

‘Waking the Fallen’ truly encompasses everything that Avenged Sevenfold was at that time. It was us being fearless, us showing our roots in heavy metal, punk, rock n’ roll, and not being afraid to try everything under the sun when it comes to writing music.

I change my style maybe every month. I’m, like, punk one month, ghetto fab the next, classy the next. I’m just young and finding out who I am.

My first band was called Nubert Circus, a very embarrassing, dumb name. It means nothing. We were kind of grunge. I would say we were more funny punk, a lot of songs about food and stuff like that.

It’s all magic to me. Country to punk rock, all of it. Chopin to Kurt Cobain. But it always all comes back to punk for me, because that was the last time, punk rock or grunge rock, was the last time that passion ruled the airwaves.

That punk approach of ‘We don’t wanna get big’ is really a bourgeois thing. It’s not a tactic of people that actually have been successful at changing things.

One of the seminal moments I remember as a young punk is, when Roy Thomas was doing an editorial read-through of a book before it went to press, and being so gob-smacked by it, he just canceled it right there.

If someone says ‘grunge’ or ‘punk,’ you know what the sound is, but if you say ‘No Wave,’ it’s kind of mysterious. That was the most interesting part and should have been the most inspirational thing about it… here’s this collective sonic insanity, and none of it sounds anything alike.

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’m thinking of remaking ‘Psycho’ again. Doing a third remake. The idea this time is to really change it – we’re talking about doing a punk rocker setting.

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.

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.

I have an aversion to taking care of my gear, a wayward manifestation of my punk ethos.

I always said punk was an attitude. It was never about having a Mohican haircut or wearing a ripped T-shirt. It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that.

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.’

Growing up in a band is weird – you get stuck hanging on to what it is you think you are. But what I took into Depeche was that punk ethic, that you don’t have to be accomplished to be a musician. If you’ve got ideas, you can do this.

I’m punk, but I love gold.

The Who quite possibly remain the greatest live band ever. Even the list-driven punk legend and music historian Johnny Ramone agreed with me on this.

To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying ‘This is who I am’.

When it comes to electronic music, I started listening to a lot of Daft Punk, way before I knew what house music was, and then progressed into a lot of Steve Angello, Eric Prydz, Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, and Laidback Luke.

On ‘Van Halen,’ I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I’d say that at the time of ‘Fair Warning,’ I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people’s minds I’m just a gunslinger.

There are plenty of politically motivated pretenders out there preparing to punk you, and you better be on your toes.

I started an all-girl punk band when I was 14, and I was the drummer, not the singer.

The problem is we moved to LA… The only way to be punk rock in L.A. is to be a Republican.

Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world, its ayatollah, deliverer, and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk, Pop Art, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon, and Catholicism.

Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.

A lot of people say I look like a rock star or a designer punk. But I swear it’s the job that has carved my face. It’s the hours, the stress, and the pressure. It’s not me trying to look like this.

There is something encouraging about the rebellious spirit of the Internet. It’s like the modern equivalent of punk – anyone can make a record. But it’s only the means of distribution that is different rather than the content.

I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle.

Punk hadn’t even begun when The Runaways started, at least not in the US. We had our own sound, straight up glam rock.

The only way to be punk rock in L.A. is to be a Republican.

For some young people, their first experience ever hearing punk rock music was playing the Green Bay Packers on ‘Madden’.

Triple 6 Mafia and Mystikal in Atlanta was one of my first shows. I remember how sweaty and smashed up everybody was, and it was so punk rock.

I started making music with my band in the ’80s, so I am more product of post punk than classical music, and I have always carried on this way.

My off-camera friendship with Brock Lesnar has always been different than my off-camera friendship with CM Punk. But I could not tell you that I am closer to either one of them or either one of them is closer to me. It’s just a different relationship.

In my high school the Mexican cowboys, the chilangos and rancheros, didn’t like the punk rockers.

When the ‘godfather of punk’ thing started floatin’ around, it was, I was really, really embarrassed. I thought I should have a great, big rig and a cape and everything, and it was very embarrassing. And then after a while, you learn that if people call you anything, this is a great gift.

People can have their punk ideals, but I don’t really care about that kind of thing.

Books are up against TV and movies and video games and a multimedia society that is so busy that people don’t have contemplative time any more. I worry deeply about this. In fact, I worry about everything all the time. I used to be a punk. All I wanted to do was tear everything down, and that was so much easier.