Punk Legacy Quotes

The Ruts were a great punk rock band from England whose songs were as excellent as their time together was short.

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.

I will absolutely say that Johnny Ramone was a huge influence on me. I'm a giant Ramones fan.

We feel we're the only British group worth exporting since the Sex Pistols, definitely.

It's not every day you get to create a band like the Sex Pistols, and what it changed, on a musical level. I love that we've done something that was important.

A lot of people of color in the music industry are still more interested in embracing things that are considered white canon, and looking radical. Like when people point to punk in the indie world: If you point to the history of punk as what you see as your legacy, that's more prized and praised.

I sometimes feel a bit embarrassed to play guitar. There's something - I don't want to sound ungrateful - but there's something very old-fashioned and traditional about it. You meet kids today whose grandparents were in punk bands. It's very old and traditional, but then, so is an orchestra and so is a string section.

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day always says we were influences on him, because he does melodic but distorted, like what we were doing. The Ramones were doing it. We were doing it. The Buzzcocks, all those bands.

The last true punk band to get a major label contract was The Dickies.

What they're not doing is marketing the Dead Kennedys in the spirit of what the band stood for.

The Germs' contribution to history sucks as far as I'm concerned.

I made the big turnaround in the early Nineties when I started hearing all the tenth generation punk bands like Green Day and Offspring and all those people. It just made me fall in love with punk again and remember my roots, and since that time I've always wanted to do more of that kind of music again.

I don't think any punk bands really ever got their due.

People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.

I'm not talking about what came later [after the American underground punk scene], indie music, or whatever you want to call it, but the music that came before that - that's an important story. So many interviews with musicians get the time or context wrong. You have these older bands, usually men, who tell stories about "Oh, we got into this huge fight, this guy punched that guy," that's the wrong sort of story. My view of the time is truly pioneering.