Aural History: Be Gay, Play Guitar: The Musicians Who Brought Queerness to Punk’s First Wave

Punk rock is famous for lionizing life on the margins, but only a few years after Stonewall and still a few decades away from marriage equality, these musicians brought sexuality into the politics of the burgeoning subculture.

Written by Carys Anderson
Illustrated by Mark Yoder

It’s getting harder to separate music from politics nowadays, with the world’s biggest pop stars writing songs about climate change and endorsing presidential candidates. But back in the 1970s and ‘80s, politics mostly thrived in punk rock. Self-proclaimed socialist Joe Strummer called on his fellow white men to revolt against the economic power structure in The Clash’s first single “White Riot,” and Rock Against Reagan/Racism concerts have abounded in the years since. But how does queerness fit into this narrative? Punk rock may have been a culture for misfits, but it was usually seen as a revolution of discontent straight white dudes, and homophobia remained prevalent at the time. Despite this, some of the genre’s most influential artists were queer, inspiring future generations to subvert the status quo in more ways than one. Without further ado, here’s a list of some of the coolest gay punks.

Pete Shelley, Buzzcocks

Buzzcocks were a British band formed in 1976, and with their fusion of melody with fast rock, they played pop-punk way before bands like Green Day or Blink-182. Singer-guitarist Pete Shelley was bisexual, and he wrote his music to fit any object of his affections. Many of their songs are addressed to a “you,” rather than a “he” or a “she," because “the object of my attention could be either,” Shelley told Pitchfork in 2009. This allows listeners to interpret his songs to their liking, but Shelley’s openness about his sexuality is important representation in itself. He’s admitted one of Buzzcocks’ most famous songs, “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?),” is about a man, and its tale of unrequited same-sex love — “You spurn my natural emotions / You make me feel I’m dirt / And I’m hurt” — broadened the horizons of what a love song could be. Shelley became even more explicit in detailing queer desire as a solo artist. “I’m the shy boy / you’re the coy boy / and you know we’re homosapiens too,” Shelley snarls in his 1981 solo debut “Homosapien.” The lines “Homo superior / In my interior” actually got the song banned from the BBC for its “explicit reference to gay sex.”

Joan Jett, The Runaways

The Runaways were one of Los Angeles’ early punk bands and one of the first popular bands comprised of all women. Since their inception in the late ‘70s, singer-guitarist Joan Jett has become a feminist and gay icon for her leather jackets, black eyeshadow, and unabashed love of rock and roll, despite years of being told the genre was only for men. Jett has never publicly come out as queer, insisting that she’d rather the media focus on her music than her personal life. Still, The Runaways’ “experimentation” with each other (as the band’s singer Cherie Currie put it in her 2010 memoir) has led the community to adopt her as one of their own. Besides, Jett has also said that she’s made her sexuality clear through her music, telling people to “read the lyrics and figure it out yourself.” Jett’s famous cover of Tommy James and the Shondells’ “Crimson and Clover” may be another hint, as she kept the song’s original pronouns intact, therefore singing about a woman (“I don’t hardly know her but I think I could love her”).

Gary Floyd, Dicks

In the ‘80s, punk rock splintered off into the more commercial, experimental sounds of new wave, and the more aggressive, straightforward music of hardcore. One band of note from the latter category is Texas’ own Dicks. In true hardcore fashion, lead singer Gary Floyd was a vulgar and aggressive presence, and also openly gay. Floyd’s songs shine a light on the gay experience in Texas in the early ‘80s. For example, “Saturday Night at the Bookstore” detailing the prevalence of anonymous sex between closeted men. Floyd’s existence in punk rock also helps highlight the genre’s ironic tendency to slip into conformity, whether in terms of dress or sexuality. In a 2014 interview with Maximum RocknRoll, Floyd remembers “not much crossover at all, they hated me for being different. They would spend hours getting ready to go out to the bars or months in the gym to be that perfect image of something they thought might make them equal and free, so when I showed up in torn or old clothes, bleached hair and not conforming to what they were so working towards, they f---ing hated me.” Artists like Floyd help break the stereotype that punk rock is a uniform entity, and the same goes for the LGBTQ community.

Bob Mould and Grant Hart, Hüsker Dü

Hardcore Minneapolis trio Hüsker Dü was led by gay singer-guitarist Bob Mould and bisexual singer-drummer Grant Hart. Often seen as an important stepping stone from punk rock to grunge and greater alternative, the band had greater ambitions than many hardcore bands, opting to write “real” songs with melodies and decipherable lyrics rather than short bursts of unintelligible energy and anger. Mould and Hart’s different approaches to announcing their sexuality highlight the complicated and deeply personal nature of coming out; while Hart was more open about his sexuality, Mould’s was more of an open secret within the scene until he was outed by Spin Magazine in 1994. Mould was seen as a large, angry figure during the band’s career, which he’s admitted to be true. In 2008, he looked back on his Hüsker Dü persona, saying, “Everyone was scared of me. But 20 years ago, you had good reason to be. It was the Reagan years, our culture was bad, and I was a young, confused homosexual living in a country that refused to acknowledge me as a human. That will make you angry.” With the hysteria and confusion of the AIDS crisis in mind, it’s easy to understand Mould’s hesitancy in coming out.

Some 40 years on from the beginning of these artists’ careers, punk rock continues to shock and inspire, with queer people leading the charge. As a new generation of artists dismantles the genre’s last barriers, check out the originals who paved the way.

This article was added to Aural History after its publication, upon the creation of the Aural History series.