The United States Of Punk: The best band from every state in America
Chris Krovatin
Our definitive, objective, indisputable list of the best punk band from every U.S. state. And if you don't like it, you're a cop.
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Kerrang!
If you're a regular K! visitor, there's a strong chance you've read our list of the best metal band from every state, and you got pissed that we didn’t include your favourite Hawaiian slam band. Then you saw us do it again with hardcore , and you were even angrier that we didn’t write about that vegan straightedge crew from Montana whose EP you ordered in the mail.

Now, get ready to get super chapped as we give you our carefully-researched, definitive, non-negotiable list of the best punk rock band from every U.S. state, along with runners-up for honourable mention, and a playlist of all the bands we could find on Spotify (which, in true punk rock fashion, makes those bands "fuckin’ sellouts").

Formed in 1982, The Knockabouts were Alabama’s first entry into the punk and hardcore scene. The band genuinely channels the rage of acts like Black Flag and Fear, but do so with of the sneering slacker malaise that bands like Green Day later cashed in on. Tracks like Where’s My Vietnam and Aimless Youth express panic over living in the rural wasteland of a punk-hostile state, though if those are still a little opaque, their Skynyrd interpretation titled Shit Home Alabama spell things out pretty clearly.

Required Listening: On Suffering Remembered 7" (1995)

Honourable Mention: Cancerslug

Out in the state known as The Last Frontier, Anchorage punk rockers Clyng-Onz are the legendary punks to beat (and, it seems, the only game in town). The band’s sound incorporated weird cherry-picked influences of other punk staples, like the sarcastic announced vocals of Modern Lovers and the thin, driving tone of Stiff Little Fingers. The result is a weirdly satisfying band who might not have taken the risks they did if they weren’t from the edge of the world. And even if they sucked, honestly, they’re all Alaska’s got.

Required Listening: Lighten Up! (Split with the Psychedelic Skeletons, 1983)

Honourable Mention: Skate Death

Though Boulder, Colorado, is now known as an infuriatingly crunchy college town, during the ’80s it was a progressive live music hub with a bit of an ugly side – the perfect place for a band like Anti-Scrunti Faction to form. Not only were ASF a huge influence on Colorado’s punk rock scene as a whole, but they were also one of the first queercore bands. Their binary-questioning lyrics, coupled with the furious vocals of Tracie Thomas and Leslie Mah (who went on to start Bay Area queercore legends Tribe8), made them loved by political punks and rockers examining gender as a new frontier.

Required Listening: Damsels In Distress (1985)

Honourable Mention: The Gamits

With a mixture of the Ramones’ in-your-face rocker attitude and the Velvet Underground’s off-kilter rebellion, Poodle Boys made a stir in the late-’70s and early-’80s, especially in the scene surrounding New Haven venue Ron’s Place. Their connections and swagger even got them briefly featured in LIFE Magazine. The band’s vibe feels weirdly relevant today, and tracks like What Can I Do? and Teenage Tragedy would make perfect soundtrack songs for road trip scenes in independent movies.

Required Listening: What Can I Do? 7” (Gustav Records)

Very little is known about The Numbers, Delaware’s claim to punk fame. The band had a single album, Five Numbers, and the occasional recordings you can find of them sound like punk versions of classic rock acts like Meat Loaf. But as Wayne Campbell once succinctly put it, “Hi... I’m in… Delaware”, so this lesser-known band suits its home state.

Required Listening: Five Numbers (1979)

It takes a special kind of state to inspire its biggest punk rock export to write a song called Sink, Florida, Sink! Formed in Gainesville Rock City, Against Me! combines the boundary-pushing bravery and bone-deep melancholy of a man in a Tampa police blotter. And though their listenability has always made some hardcore punks grimace, their earnest lyrics and outsider politics have always set them outside of polite conversation. That frontwoman Laura Jane Grace came out as trans and is now a political firebrand only adds to the band's punk rock credibility.

Required Listening: Reinventing Axl Rose (2002)

Honourable Mention: Hot Water Music

Anti-Heros aren’t just Georgia’s claim to punk fame, they’re also one of America’s most influential Oi! outfits. The band’s first two albums are considered must-haves by Oi! punks, and their logo can be seen painted in White Out on many a leather jacket. They've long courted controversy by writing a song set to the tune of a Skrewdriver track (Skrewdriver, of course, being a well-known skinhead band), but the dudes have vehemently denied any support of the white power skinhead movement, going so far as to file suit against New Line Cinema for their logo being featured in the film American History X.

Required Listening: That’s Right! (1987)

One might not think of an island paradise as the perfect breeding ground for noisy rage, but Cringer proved that even the beaches of Hawaii could produce solid punk rock. The band’s grinding guitar sound drove their vibe of angry irritation, while their melodic solos and playful lyrics gave them a fun, party-along vibe with a slight ska sensibility. Fun fact: among Cringer’s past members was Lance Hahn, better known for his work in Bay Area punkers J Church.

Required Listening: Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo (1996)

Honourable Mention: Black Square

Another one of the younger band’s featured here, Boise’s False Idle may be the only Christian punkers on this list. Their music is a frenzied but listenable mixture of hardcore, old-school punk rock, and modern pop-punk that gives them an easy-in for the modern Warped Tour fan, while their uplifting and faith-based lyrics fare well with Christian rockers looking to go HAM. That said, though their music is definitely informed by their faith, the band focuses more on positivity than proselytizing, so listeners don’t have to put up with a lot of veiled references to “the one who’s there for me” or what have you.

Required Listening: Threat (2013)

Few bands had the perfect mixture of notoriety and interesting music as Chicago's Naked Raygun. While their earlier music is straightforward punk rock venom, it’s their later material, as they began to help push punk towards what would become alternative, that really solidified them as a band to know. If you want to talk about their influence, you can bro down with Dave Grohl, who has spoken in the past about how seeing the band when he was 13 changed his life.

Required Listening: Throb Throb (1984)

Honourable Mention: Screeching Weasel, Rise Against, Alkaline Trio

Not to be confused with the proto-punk band from Lansing, Michigan, Iowan garage rockers The Dogs were a sensation in their home state. Though their music might remind listeners more of The Stooges or MC5 than, say, the Casualties, their brand of fast-and-loose weirdo rock helped inform the landscape of Midwestern punk. Plus, with an album cover like that of the band’s 1977 EP Rot And Roll, they've safely entertained the kind of disgusting outsider art that punk rock bands dream of.

Required Listening: Rot And Roll (1977)

Sometimes rocking the ‘Mortal’ qualifier and other times not, the Micronotz made big amber waves in the vast cornfields of their hometown, Lawrence, Kansas. The band were a major player in Kansas’ punk scene, rallying around Lawrence venue The Outhouse alongside acts like The Embarrassment. Not just simple cornfed punk boys, they also became acquaintances with Naked Lunch author and drug savant William S. Burroughs, who liked the guys enough that he wrote them some lyrics.

Required Listening: The Mortal Micronotz (1982)

Honourable Mention: The Rackatees

One listen to Nine Pound Hammer, and it makes perfect sense that they hail from the home of fried chicken and fast horses. The band’s music is a combination of straightforward hardcore and good ol’ countrified rock, with lyrics about hillbilly assholes, fast women, getting drunk, living poor, crashing your car, and blowing shit up with your shotgun. The mixture is part of punk’s broader patchwork today, but during the Hammer’s early years, that combination of punk rock and country was relatively revolutionary, showing that you could like the redneck dickhead’s music while still hating the dickhead himself.

Required Listening: Hayseed Timebomb (1994)

Though they’ve moved around multiple times over the years, Masters Of The Obvious (or M.O.T.O. to most) formed in 1981 in New Orleans. That said, the band’s upbeat and at times dreamy brand of punk rock stands in stark contrast to the humid swampiness of their hometown. Though incredibly prolific, M.O.T.O.’s music is kind of hard to find – the band were disdainful of the CD format, and most of their stuff is only available on cassette. But hey, holding onto great music in dead formats is what old punks are all about, so a deep enough dive will turn up a treasure trove of early posi-punk.

Required Listening: This Corpse Is A Warning (1990)

From the land of Stephen King come the Pinkerton Thugs, a hardcore band that went hard on the anarchy. How hard? The band formed the Anarchist Liberty Union, a collective designed to hand out literature and help organise anarchist gatherings. While the collective is now defunct, the band’s tight, driven ’90s trad-punk music still sounds fresh and exciting today, showing that even the frigid wastelands of America’s antenna can breed punkers with raging fires inside them.

Required Listening: End Of An Era (2000)

Honourable Mention: The Leftovers

Though bitterly labeled as “girlfriend hardcore” by defensive traditionalists, Baltimore’s Angel Du$t have made waves of late for taking pop-punk’s madcap emotionality and feeding it into the speed and drive of hardcore. Meanwhile, the band’s videos for tracks like Toxic Boombox and Headstone give them an artsy edge that gives their breakneck irreverence a little more nuance. All of this makes them Maryland’s modern punk heroes (and for the record, Bad Brains and Minor Threat are hardcore bands from D.C., not Maryland, so you can take a deep breath and calm down).

Required Listening: Rock The Fuck On Forever (2016)

When you think of Massachusetts, you don’t think of the Berkshire Mountains or Martha’s Vineyard – you think of heading to Boston on St. Patrick’s day to catch the Dropkick Murphys destroying a crowd of wasted blue-collar punks. And true to their reputation, Dropkick have stuck to their guns, playing raucous Celtic punk that perfectly embodies working-class Irish America. While the band have gone on to spread their message of clinking beers and struggling to get by all across the globe (even your idiot cousin knows that song from The Departed), they’ll always belong to Massachusetts’ first and foremost.

Required Listening: Sing Loud, Sing Proud (2001)

Honourable Mention: The Unseen

This entry will have lot of armchair music experts scoffing that Iggy & The Stooges are actually “proto-punk” or what have you. But that’s like how Lemmy insisted Motörhead wasn’t metal – it sounds official on paper, but then you listen to the music and you know it’s bullshit. The Stooges’ guitar sound on tracks like Penetration and I Wanna Be Your Dog is punk rock’s electric snarl and back alley grime personified. And there’s only one town where that could’ve gestated: Detroit, Michigan, the place where American rock and roll first busted its knuckles.

Required Listening: Raw Power (1973)

Honourable Mention: The Crucifucks, The Suicide Machines

Minneapolis’ Dillinger Four always flew a little under the radar compared to their mid-to-late-’90s contemporaries like NOFX and Less Than Jake, but the band was deeply influential on all those punk rockers ready to look below the surface-level Warped Tour Acts. Their crashing, melancholy, melodic brand of punk, mixed with their hilarious song titles and use of old-timey samples, helped establish an optimistic approach to depression and disappointment that continues to inform the genre today. There’s just something about those small town big cities that makes punk beautifully sad.

Required Listening: Midwestern Songs Of The Americas (1998)

Honourable Mention: Hüsker Dü (winner on our hardcore map), The Replacements, Babes in Toyland, Code 13

Though now based out of the Big Apple, Bass Drum Of Death was started by frontman John Barrett as a one-man band in Oxford, Mississippi. And in all fairness, one can’t attribute the band’s biker-y garage rock entirely to New York – it’s impossible to miss the influence of the American south in BDOD’s languid, sneering rebelliousness. The band’s sound continues to evolve with every release, though, so we’ll see if they could even be considered punk in five years.

Required Listening: Rip This (2014)

There’s something about Maximum Effort’s frantic, stripped-down sound that seems to suit its home state. While Missouri is considered part of the south, it’s got one foot in the Midwest, and St. Louis seems to stand outside the stereotypes of either region. Similarly, Maximum Effort have a twanging, almost rockabilly-ish guitar tone, but their vocals and drumming possess an urgency that feels distinctly hardcore. Given just how awesome the band is, and considering that punk is so often best when it’s reactionary, one has to wonder if St. Louis is either amazing to live in, or if it totally sucks.

Required Listening: Money, Lies, And Media Reels (2017)

Honourable Mention: Trauma Harness, Doom Town, The Pubes

While Montana’s inclusive-yet-diverse scene allows for plenty of bands with punk influences like the Skoidats and Go Hibiki, it was Billings’ own Coldsnap-9 who went hard in the paint and played balls-out punk. Their mix of snottiness and catchiness was perfect for the late-’90s and early 2000s, taking things both one step angrier than pop-punk and one step more fun than crust or Oi. The band may be new to punks outside of Big Sky Country, but their jaunts with Warped Tour have cemented them in Montana punk rock lore.

Required Listening: Victim Of A Small Town EP (1999)

Honorable Mention: Go Hibiki

Of the younger bands on this list, Omaha’s No Thanks might be the spookiest. Their music has quite a bit of shimmering goth rock to it, as well as occasional moments of looming menace. But it’s their stripped-down sound, presenting these dark shows with stark, honest rock’n’roll, that makes them all the more powerful. Maybe all the corn gives them a Stephen King-ish vibe.

Required Listening: The Trial (2018)

Honourable Mention: Snake Island!

You can hear Reno, Nevada, in the Cobra Skulls’ music – the band’s Quentin Tarantino-ish twang and warble that makes one think of the desert. And while they later moved to the Bay Area, that sense of countrified, steer skull-strewn edge remains throughout the band’s career. Sadly, the Skulls broke up in 2013, but they're still the only Nevada band we really want to listen to other than 7 Seconds (which we'd already selected for our hardcore list.)

Required Listening: Sitting Army (2007)

No-one’s saying you have to like The Queers. Frontman Joe Queer’s statements about Black Lives Matter and his support of the police officer who shot Michael Brown are highly controversial and stand against much of what punk rock was built on. That said, there is no denying that they're hands down the most successful punk band out of New Hampshire, so they make this list (some might argue that G.G. Allin should’ve gotten this entry, but we're saving him for the United States Of Weirdos With Poop On Them).

Required Listening: Beat Off (1994)

Sure, we also chose the Misfits for our United States Of Hardcore map, but guess what? It's our list, and we're including them here, too. They're that important. The Misfits single-handedly created horror punk, and their catchy-ass riffs and gigantic woahs inspired pretty much every punk rock band that formed after 1990. These days, the classic line-up is selling out arenas, but let us never forget that it all started with a bunch of movie buffs wearing eyeliner in the Dirty Jerz.

Required Listening: Static Age (1978)

Honourable Mention: The Casualties, Bouncing Souls, Saves the Day, The Gaslight Anthem

Never mind that Albuquerque’s The Eyeliners are an all-girl pop-punk band, or that the members are all sisters, or that they developed their fun, snotty sound in one of the union’s more uneventful states. What we need to focus on is something rare in punk rock – the drummer-vocalist! Yes, frontwoman Laura Baca is singer and drummer for the Eyeliners, proving that not only can women do anything, they can do everything.

Required Listening: Here Comes Trouble (2000)

The Ramones aren’t just a punk band that changed how rock and roll would sound forever, they are quintessentially New York. The matching names and leather jackets, the made-for-radio faces, the lack of pretension or posturing – all of these are responses to the Big Apple’s grit-peppered face in the 1970s. By reflecting their surroundings through spunky, overdriven rock’n’roll, the Ramones showed the world that punk was more than a fashion statement, and that the music could be fast, angry, and yet enjoyable as Hell.

Required Listening: Ramones (1976)

Honourable Mention: Television, Suicide, Patti Smith, Jawbreaker, Leftover Crack

Chapel Hill’s Superchunk are an example of a punk band everyone knows from different eras. On the one hand, their classic material was pivotal in bridging the gap between indie rock and punk. On the other, recent albums like 2013’s I Hate Music and this year’s What A Time To Be Alive gained critical acclaim and introduced a whole slew of new listeners to their eerie suburban sound. Of course, it also helps the band’s reputation that frontman Matt McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance co-founded Merge Records and released seminal albums by bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and Arcade Fire.

Required Listening: Foolish (1994)

Honourable Mention: Zegota, Antiseen

If you’re going to put the word ‘boner’ in your band name, you ought to be from a town with the word 'dick' in its title. Of course, that’s not why The Lone Boners of Dickinson, North Dakota, are the obvious pick for ND’s punk forerunners – it’s their rough-yet-listenable music, with its scratchy vocals, jump-along breakdowns, and faint J-punk influences, that makes them the representatives of their state. In the land of polka, it must be nice having a band like this playing locally.

Required Listening: 3 Done Got Lost (2016)

Oh, we got that name right. Some more recent fans might not realise that a certain San Diego punk band of note took their name from bootlegs of Cleveland’s own Rocket From The Tombs. Though not as famous as that band, and mostly known for its members going on to play in Pere Ubu and Dead Boys, RFTT’s proto-punk sound and dark lyrics were pivotal to developing American punk’s unique atmosphere of vicious rebellion. And honestly, their version of Ain’t It Fun is the better one.

Required Listening: Life Stinks (1990)

Another example of an iconic punk rock band who also happen to be the only punk rock act from their town, Los Reactors hit is big in the late-’70s and early-’80s with their combination of speedy rock and high-strung synth organ. The band’s big hit, Dead In The Suburbs, also helped establish American punk’s depiction of just how weird and alienating quiet middle-class life is. Though in many ways a punk rock footnote today, the band’s music continues to be revived in the form of several compilations, proving that fame doesn't matter so long as some punk at a label always remembers you.

Required Listening: Dead In The Suburbs (2004)

Considered the fathers of the Pacific Northwest’s punk scene, Wipers’ legacy can be heard throughout the genre's history and on into the modern day. The Portland quartet’s spooky-but-patient brand of mid-paced rock inspired a legion of alternative and indie bands doing their best to sound meaningfully disaffected. Among these, of course, was Nirvana, whose love of Wipers is audible on haunting asphalt anthems like Come As You Are and Lithium. That the band came from a city currently experiencing a boom in doom metal makes a lot of sense.

Required Listening: Land Of The Lost (1986)

Honourable Mention: The Thermals

There’s an old saying that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Mississippi in between, and one can hear that in the songs of the Dead Milkmen. Strangely enough, this Philly quartet might be the band on this list that most modern punk and indie bands are trying to bite off: their jangly guitars, nasal vocals, and lyrics about the importance of ultra-normal bullshit have been copied by thousands of bands trying to capture that middle-of-the-road sound. But no one has done it with quite the same earnestness as the Milkmen, and their nerdy outsider’s outsider vibe lives on in the snotty smirks of Philly’s punks.

Required Listening: Big Lizard In My Backyard (1985)

Honourable Mention: The Menzingers, Anti-Flag

These aren’t the Mormons you’re looking for. Salt Lake City’s Problem Daughter play a rough-around-the-edges form of pop-punk that’ll get stuck in the grittier parts of your head. The SLC four-piece claim their sound “smells like a sweaty basement show, tastes like cheap beer on a lamp-lit porch and feels like not wanting to go home at the end of the night.” That sure smacks of self-promotion, but with song titles like Alda, Small Things, it’s hard not to love these dudes. If the band’s catchy-as-the-Dickens music wasn’t enough, their logo is the perfect tattoo for any Utah-based punk (sort of a midwestern version of the Jersey Crimson Ghost tattoo).

Required Listening: Fits Of Disorganized Boredom (2016)

Honourable Mention: Zombiecock (solely for their name)

The first major recording project of anarcho-punk lifer Pat The Bunny, Johnny Hobo And The Freight Trains were the kings of acoustic punk, shouting raw, angry songs about homelessness, alcohol and despair without the aid of distortion. Even without electric guitars, the Battleboro, Vermont, band exudes a sense of raw honesty that plenty of punk bands miss entirely. Their best music exists on demos and splits, and the band’s cynical approach to lyrical storytelling can be heard in the work of punk rock icons like Jeff Rosenstock.

Required Listening: Anarchy Means I Hate You (2003)

It’s one thing to hail from a city, but another thing entirely to write much of your music about it. That’s what Richmond’s Avail are all about, with tracks like Deepwood, Lombardy St, and West Wye referencing their hometown. The band’s speedy, riffy approach to blue-collar punk rock is also interesting when considering that their city also houses thrash acts like Municipal Waste and GWAR (Avail themselves did a kickass Motörhead cover on the 1999 I Heart Metal compilation). Nonetheless, the band’s forward-marching skate punk is a necessary addition to any serious listener’s collection.

Required Listening: 4AM Friday (1996)

Honourable Mention: Strike Anywhere

Whether one could classify Olympia’s Sleater-Kinney as riot grrrl is up for question, but it’s impossible to ignore the band’s hard-left feminist politics. More so, their restless indie punk sound inspired wave after wave of young rockers who felt disenfranchised with the world at large to pick up a guitar and make some relatable noise. Today, guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein is more often associated with Oregon due to her comedy show Portlandia, but her band’s influence continues to be felt by punks, indie rockers, and musicians from all corners of the counterculture.

Required Listening: Dig Me Out (1997)

Honorable Mention: Bikini Kill, MxPx

J. Marinelli is one of the more interesting one-man bands on this list, primarily because his music sounds the part -- there isn’t an illusion of a band in Marinelli’s music, but rather a disparate sound among the instruments that make you wonder if he’s got them all strapped to him like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Marinelli’s West Virginia upbringing is also emphasised by his Appalachian country yelps and his lyrics about the trials and tribulations of rural life. Though not a typical addition to a punk map, this rebellious act certainly qualifies.

Required Listening: Stray Volts (2017)

Though now located in Los Angeles, Naked Aggression started in Madison, Wisconsin. And while other bands from Wisconsin like Violent Femmes and Tar Babies play music close to punk, Naked Aggression go all in, living up to their band name with harsh political punk that’s unafraid to scream right in your ear. But not just another band of noisemakers, No Direction was featured prominently in Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline Of Western Civilization: Part III for their outspoken political beliefs. Fuck yeah, Badger State.

Required Listening: Bitter Youth (1994)

Honourable Mention: Violent Femmes

Some punks might remember Wyoming as the state from which Matthew Lillard is forced to buy beer in SLC Punk. But (at least now) the Cowboy State has its own claim to punk rock fame, Teenage Bottlerocket. The band seems well aware of their locale’s corniness, and spend plenty of time taking the piss in the form of songs like Bigger Than Kiss, Blood Bath At Burger King, and Robocop Is A Halfbreed Sellout. Sometimes, when you hail from the depths of the U.S., what doesn’t kill you makes you sillier.

Required Listening: They Came From The Shadows (2009)