The Old Punk Guard Has Failed Us

The people who once represented rebellion can do so no longer. It’s time for American punks to find new leadership.

Written by Felix Kalvesmaki

Photo courtesy of Farrah Skeiky

Extreme music has often drawn people with radical ideas on both ends of the political spectrum together. Black metal, for instance, brings anarcho-feminists and neo-Nazis into the same genre, and it takes a keen eye to recognize which is which. Fans and the media often portray American rock icons, be it Kurt Cobain or Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, as advocates for equity and progress. However, some of America’s old punk guard have failed us.

The Dead Kennedys, you know, the band about the JFK assassination? The band took to Twitter, talking politics in the wake of the January 6 attacks on the Capitol. You can imagine that the band behind the iconic “Nazi Punks F-ck Off” would have some scathing words for the Republican party that enabled this sort of behavior for four years, right? Not exactly. “Thank you @SenatorRomney. Mitt Cares about the USA,” their now-deleted tweet read. Romney has been one of the notable anti-Trump Republicans in the party, but voting to convict doesn’t excuse his vote of support for anti-progressive politicians, like Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Then there’s Lindsay Graham. The former Trump bootlicker was apparently “trying to do the right thing,” according to the band. It’s kind of pathetic, really. Though the band went on to claim their account manager, not the members themselves, posted the tweet, it still feels like a refusal to take accountability. It’s simple enough to say “my bad” after a bad tweet.

The Dead Kennedys is one example of a rebellious 20th century band that doesn’t stand up to modern scrutiny. If you start digging, you may find something you don’t like about your favorite punk artist. For example, The Kennedys used the n-word in one of their biggest songs on Spotify. Punk hero Patti Smith has done the same, and grunge goddess Courtney Love once dropped it on-stage. Although these people come to mind when we think of punk, they don’t necessarily epitomize it. A celebrity’s work from decades ago shouldn’t represent the genre. Instead, the anti-establishment movement born against the suffocating Ronald Reagan era should thrive.

This isn’t just spewing nonsense, either. Pitchfork and The Guardian have both published articles detailing punk’s deep relation to anti-fascism and left-wing ideologies. Author Mark Bray claims as such in the Guardian: “in many cases, the North American modern Antifa movement grew up as a way to defend the punk scene from the neo-Nazi skinhead movement, and the founders of the original Anti-Racist Action network in North America were anti-racist skinheads,” he said. “The fascist/anti-fascist struggle was essentially a fight for control of the punk scene [during the 1980s], and that was true across of much of north America and in parts of Europe in this era.” Punks in the 21st century carry this on, and you don’t need to look further than Bandcamp to find proof. Scanning the Punx for Mutual Aid compilation or the antifascist tag on their site is a good place to start.

Again, though, this doesn’t necessarily mean that punk is inherently radical. Wearing Nazi memorbilia for shock value, for instance, is a documented facet of the early punk scene. One Guardian article depicts a tale of the infamous Sid Vicious before his Sex Pistols days walking into a basement party adorned with a swastika. He mentions, of course, that his most defining public relationship was with Nancy Spungen, a Jewish woman — but it doesn’t particularly matter, either. The Holocaust and its incomprehensible loss of life had only happened about 30 years ago. Wearing a hate symbol as an ornament is not only embarrassing, but repulsively insensitive.

So, yes, some punks were cruel or callous. But it doesn’t mean all of them were, and there is an argument to be made that things have changed for the better since the ‘70s. Canadian rockers PUP are another good example of punks working to make the genre a more inclusive and protective space. “It’s a weird thing to say, but as four straight white males playing in a band, it’s so important to us that diversity and inclusion is part of what we’re doing.” PUP frontman Stefan Babcock said to the Austin Chronicle. “It’s kind of our job to make space for people who might not have as much of a strong voice as we are privileged enough to have. I feel like that should just be the norm for bands that can bring people out. You should be giving something back. It’s not even a good thing to do. It’s just a normal human person thing to do.”

A flyer for Rock against Reagan, archived by Kevin Mattson

Some, like former Dead Kennedys singer and songwriter Jello Biafra, are true to form, and speak out against his ex-band’s cowardice. But it feels like others aging musicians were just biding their time until they got so rich and famous that they didn’t have to worry about how political leaders affect the daily lives of average Americans. Johnny Ramone (of guess which band) was at least consistent — always Republican, and once claimed Reagan was the best President. Now, the Ramones are not the first band people think of when they think back to ‘80s political spitfire. But it just goes to show that identifying as a punk rocker does not necessarily mean somebody can’t have terrible opinions.

In fact, the problem with denoting the punk movement as inherently anti-authority is because this notion is one that people on the right can co-opt pretty easily. They can call themselves punk because they hate the president, but they only hate the president because their favorite candidate lost.

Punk has evolved into something a lot more specific than simply hating authority and screaming about it with a guitar. If it didn’t start out as an explicitly leftist ideology, then it certainly has grown into one. Movements like riot grrrl bands of the ‘90s, more underground modern expansions into folk punk and crust punk, and outwardly political movements like anarcho-punk have turned the genre into one undeniably defined by the destruction of oppressive hierarchies. That includes the patriarchy, class, white supremacy, homophobia and transphobia and ableism. Fighting against these hierarchies is a daily effort, even within creative spaces. We shouldn’t let the right-leaning works and personalities of last century’s punk movement define the genre as it is today. We especially shouldn’t expect these people to speak for a generation they didn’t grow up in.

Fans of the genre can always be grateful to older punks and the way they’ve paved. But it can be difficult to listen to these people and feel like they speak for you. This isn’t to say we should ditch the classics and only listen to obscure, underground, anarcho-hardcore-riot-skate-art punk, but the genre is still evolving, and it’s time to quit defining punk by what it used to be. In 2021, punk can represent something much broader than white, male, cishet rebellion. It’s time we begin to let it grow past the charms of older days, and into something stronger than years past.