Punk: Attitude Page #10

I jumped down and punched

him in the face.

Punk was now on the news,

in the news.

Everybody knew what it was,

or thought they knew what it was.

Right around 92...

everyone just

curled up and...

started having their stomachs

scratched by Sony...

and they kinda went and

old people like me, are going...

you know, "Back in my day

we would've blown that up".

And they're like,

"Shut up, you old man". And I, "Ok".

You pick up these punk books,

you never see what's going on...

between. They'll, they'll start

like mentioning the Pistols...

and they'll mention like DC

bands like maybe Black Flag.

And then it's quiet...

and they always say that and

then it's like nothing happened...

until this little band from Seattle

got formed and came the late 80's.

It's like a secret history,

you know.

It's like nobody really knows

what happened in the 80's...

cause there's really

not much mutation...

of exactly what happened

in underground music.

I'll tell you what happened

in those 10 years.

There's bands like our who were having

the roughest times of us lives...

who believed in what

we believed in...

and still to date we're

pursuing our beliefs...

and everything and touring

and putting out our records...

but the crowds are a lot smaller, very

underground, very true like always...

but that's the core

of the audience...

the core of the people.

So in the 80's you had this

gigantic underground movement.

Now eventually that, the underground

movement would turn into...

Nirvana, you know.

I mean, Nirvana didn't sell

10 million records because...

you know,

they were so f***ing great...

which they were,

which they were...

but that audience had been building

for more than 10 years.

It was almost as if Nirvana had

taken all the lessons of the past...

and synthesised them down into

their band and into their music...

in a way it was palatable

for the masses.

The title itself...

it's not about punk,

it is punk.

All of a sudden to have a band

like Nirvana sort of come out...

it, it completely was great in

the way that it's very galvanised.

Everything that had been going

on in those 10 years...

but historians can only

look at it...

as that moment...

because they don't know really

what it, where it came from.

They think it comes from a void.

It didn't come out of a void.

Kurt Cobain and the Seattle scene

tapped into a vast...

chunk of American

white youth...

who were depressed,

bummed out...

and here is a guy who looks

like them, comes from them...

sings for them, about them

and to them...

and all of a sudden you

have a Nirvana shirt on.

There just were good,

you know...

and it was great because no one could

understand what they were saying...

you know, it sounded like about mashed

potatoes or something, I remember.

That's when MTV came

along and really broke out.

And I think they needed

someone like Nirvana...

who's actually a good rock

and roll band to get behind...

much to Kurt Cobain's displeasure

because he ended up killing himself...

because he had all these jerks

hanging around him.

He swung his guitar and the industry

in one year had to go reset.

You're dropped, you're dropped,

you're dropped, you're dropped.

You're hair's too long, you better

cut it or you're dropped...

and all of a sudden,

Alice In Chains are signed.

Soundgarden are signed.

Nirvana.

And they're all going

multi platinum.

It basically people who are...

it's not rock

inspired punk bands.

A lot of what got big,

especially through Nirvana...

was punk inspired

rock bands.

Shortly after that is when bands

like Green Day became million sellers...

and bands like Rancid came

out of nowhere...

and that led to bands like Blink

182 and Sum 41 that we have today.

Let's take some time

to talk this over

You're out of line

and rarely sober

We can't depend

on your excuses

Cause in the end it's

f***ing useless

It was like ok...

now the media has finally said

oh punk rock happened now.

Nirvana, Sonic Youth and

the year that punk broke...

basically was the doors...

of all the major label, major

record companies basically saying...

"Come on in".

Freakin' me out

You wear a mask

You're freakin' me out

You wear a mask called

Counterfeit, you're freakin' me out

You wear a mask

The core music to me

is very formulaic.

You have your breakdown section,

a little rap thing, and a DJ guy...

and like its all this and I want

like this and that and "Dooh"!

Because I'm a...

And the crowds

are bouncing.

That's right

It's freak, it's freak

You're like,

this is a no-brainer.

If I was 17 this would probably

be my favourite band...

and the pay-off on those songs

when that big guitar comes in...

you can't help it...

you're like, hell yeah,

let's go wreck something.

Punk completely

changed my life.

It changed my attitude

to culture...

it changed my attitude towards

what was possible...

and I think I learnt to go against

the system a little bit.

Punk proved to people and

it is now ingrained in people...

that what they thought was impossible,

is not impossible.

You didn't have to wait

to start doing something.

If you wanted to do it,

you could try doing it.

Punk rock gave me a platform

to put a band together...

and do it my way...

and that was good for

an 18-year-old kid.

Kids are still wanting the same

thing as they wanted back then.

Something to express

what they're feeling.

They get all this information

from MTV and VH1...

and that's their

history of rock...

and they find out that, like,

well it's like everything else.

It's like school. You're not

really getting the full story.

They were introduced

to it as a package.

They... you know...

the business turned it

into a commodity, if you will.

There's a lot of manufactured

anger these days, if you ask me.

When you can make

a dollar off it...

it gets uploaded into

the cultural lexicon...

the slang becomes your

normal patois of the day.

You know,

grunge become...

you know,

Mom knows grunge now.

As soon as Mom knows how

to say grunge, gotta go.

Back then it, it was very much

considered an anti-establishment...

and it seems that today

most of the bands...

that to form are, want to be

part of the establishment.

What they pay you for now is being

stupid and making people stupider.

It's easy for a young person

today to say f*** you.

I'm 43.

I'm still saying f*** you.

I'm like still pissed

at something.

You know, whatever you've got,

I'm mad at it.

Where's the political awakening?

At this point on the planet...

it seems that 80% of the people

are f***ing asleep, you know.

Don't ask me why the cataclysmic

state of the environment hasn't...

galvanised and, you know, mobilised

people into doing something.

The more severe,

the political landscape becomes...

the more repressive...

the more valuable that

the imagination becomes.

It possible that music is not

really the expression of it...

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes