‘Why Aren’t Kids Today Listening To More Pissed-Off Music?’
Hardcore punk legend Vic Bondi knows how to harness anger. He just doesn’t know why the rage isn’t the same today.
I grew up in a military household, and my father at that time was pretty authoritarian. So, as part of my revolt against him, I was drawn towards music that called authority into question and rejected it across the board. It was like: ‘What are you angry about?’ ‘What have you got?’
There’s something almost magical about music. It has that ability to really reach down and grab those emotions and make them happen. There’s tons of music that’s not angry, but I’ve made music for 35 years that’s angry. It’s still angry. The most recent Dead Ending single, ‘Ivanka Wants Her Orange Back,’ is a very pissed off song, and so is the flip side, ‘Class War.’
Part of that is because I’m very good at it. That’s my muse. I don’t know if I could write other types of music. I mean, I’ve tried. I’ve written more gentle stuff: I did an acoustic album in ’86. You’ll get artists who have broad sweeps of expression — The Beatles, Paul McCartney, these guys could express a wide range of emotions. And then you get other people whose scope is more limited, like mine. I’m still angry about certain things, and when I focus on those things and I express it, it sounds pretty good.
Right now is a very angry time, and I don’t understand why kids today aren’t listening to more pissed-off music. I do feel like at specific moments in time and history the conduct of society will elicit those emotions. Certainly in the 60s you had pretty pissed-off music coming to the fore — between the civil rights and the Vietnam War there was a lot to be pissed off about. When Neil Young wrote ‘Ohio,’ and when John Fogerty wrote ‘Run Through the Jungle,’ they were a fairly strong insight into the moment, and they were objectively valid.
Anger is an objectively valid emotion, at the right time. It is also completely inappropriate other times. It can be destructive in the extreme. But in the right situation, it makes a lot of sense, and in the right situation it can be very cathartic. Punk rock? It was pissed. And it was pissed at the right things.
There’s lots of punk that isn’t angry. I mean if you listen to Buzzcocks records, they’re wry and they’re witty: ‘Everybody’s Happy Nowadays,’ I want to just dance and smile when I hear that song. But punk was very punk because it’s a hyper-aggressive form of music that matched the sentiment very well. And American Hardcore, the movement that I was part of, notched that up even further, right? Not just in what we were saying, but the speed of the music, the ferocity of what was going on, the noisiness of it. It really was form and function working very well together.
Being pissed about the right thing is also about punching up. That’s part of what rock and roll is about.
A lot of angry music I listen to today is still the music that inspired me originally. But I still like pretty radically angry bands when I stumble across them. There’s this great band from Baltimore, Maryland, War on Women, with this pretty militant feminist singer. The music will kick you in the teeth, and the sentiment will too! I mean, she’s pissed about the right thing.
I think the thing is being pissed about the right thing to me is also about punching up, almost always. That’s part of what rock and roll is about, and it has been from the very beginning. Especially as something that came out of the African-American community, which was about message of resistance against social systems that were rigged against you. So it was one coping mechanism, and anger is a coping mechanism. When it’s a stepping stone towards reform, it can be super valuable.
— “Ivanka Wants Her Orange Back” by Dead Ending is available on Alternative Tentacles.
We asked Anxy readers to help us make the ultimate angry music playlist. Here it is — 42 tracks for every outraged occasion, from Rage Against the Machine to Dixie Chicks.
Find out more about anger and creativity in Issue №1 of Anxy. Take a look now, or sign up to receive our weekly newsletter with exclusive new stories.
