Lester Bangs Quotes

To me punk rock is thinking outside of the box, outside of the program, outside the establishment.

We need punk now; we need it more than ever. We need rebellion by youth.

Punk rock is just another word for freedom.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

For me the safety pin is about rebellion, and I'm punk in the soul.

I was a punk rocker. A full-bore, 1st-generation punk.

Punk and all that was just an image that ripped people off. Johnny Rotten's a wanker, and that's all there is to it.

Punk rock was the tsunami that threatened to drown us all in 1977.

When Punk Rock happened, it created an opening in the culture... it made it ok to think you could play music, even though you had no musical training.

Punk rock will never die, until something more dangerous replaces it.

The 1960s were about releasing ourselves from conventional society and freeing ourselves.

If a rock band throws a TV set out of a hotel window, it's seen as anti-Establishment.

I don't think punk ever really dies, because punk rock attitude can never die.

Punk was more based on social change than on music, so it didn't bother me too much. It wasn't really a musical threat.

Johnny Rotten isn't punk. Maybe that's punk to somebody, but these people are participating and challenging the corporations that are telling us what punk is and what good music is.

Punk became a circus didn't it? Everybody got it wrong. The message was supposed to be: Don't follow us, do what you want!

Punk rock should mean freedom, liking and excepting anything that you like. Playing whatever you want. As sloppy as you want. As long as it's good and it has passion.

On a scale of one to ten, how punk am I? Apple. I don't use your scale.

I think [rock'n'roll] essence is what made it good and has a lot in common with what originally made monotheism good - it's against everything that is fixed, all the social structures that you can't go past.

Will punk rock ever die? Pal, if you have to ask it's dead to you.

Punk rock isn't something you grow out of Punk rock is an attitude, and the essence of that attitude is 'give us some truth'

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.

Ideologically, the pursuit of science is not that different from the ideology that goes into punk rock. The idea of challenging authority is consistent with what I have been taught as a scientist.

I was the only guy with any bit of anarchy left.