Ben Lovett Quotes

I was a punk before it got its name. I had that hairstyle and purple lipstick.

I was a huge punker growing up.

I used to hang out with a bunch of old punk rockers when I was a little kid.

I went to UC Berkeley for college, and it was during the period when the whole punk movement was happening.

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.

I was actually late to the punk movement because I was too young.

I was really into punk when I was about 14.

I'm still secretly a bit of a punk. Love The Clash and a bit of the Pistols. I guess as I've got older I've chilled out a bit. But, my teenage angst is still stirring somewhere!

I created Punk for this day and age. Do you see Britney walking around wearing ties and singing punk? Hell no. That's what I do. I'm like a Sid Vicious for a new generation.

I pretty much grew up when punk was big in the UK. The Sex Pistols were heroes for me. I used to run around like Johnny Rotten. I had a jacket like his.

I first got into punk music at 17, The Adverts, just from being a bored teenager.

I got into punk at 17 after discovering an all-girl band from Long Island on the Internet called The Devotchkas - four crazy-looking girls with fast, driving basslines and high-pitched gang vocals who shared the same dress sense as the punks I used to eye up curiously in Camden.

I moved to Naples, Florida, and by 15 I was into punk: Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, Operation Ivy. Along with the classic punk bands, like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Misfits, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat - all those bands that you get into when you're first getting into punk.

Punk was key to the early part of me playing guitar. I was really into melodic punk-rock. I related to punk more than Lynyrd Skynyrd or Yes or Van Halen.

I was into the Ramones, Bad Brains, all of that, when I was in high school.

When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial.

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

I discovered the Clash, the Pistols, obviously the Ramones, Blondie.

I love punk rock, The Clash, The Ramones, The Cramps. I love where it all came from, and music for my ears now, it has to have that same electricity, adrenaline and danger.

When I look at it now, the whole punk thing is sort of comedy in a weird way.

I listened a little to punk when I was younger, but it was straight edge punk. It was nothing like what is going on now, like poppy punk.

All of the punk-rock bands of the era would come in and play, and my job on Punk Rock Night was that I would go into the slam pit, and... I was 24 or 25, and I'd slam dance in the pit.

I can't think of anything I hate more than a former punk - they are the most self-righteous people in the world.

I was a punk when I was 15 - I was definitely into it in a big way and loved it - but I came to London when punk was maybe where you'd say punk is dead.

I think I wanted to be a punk-rocker before I wanted to be anything else. I remember wanting a mohawk, and I wanted to cut the sleeves off of my jean jacket because I used to want to be Dirty Dan from Sha-Na-Na. This is before hip-hop was even around. I had the skinny piano tie. I had it, man.