In last’s week’s episode, I briefly touched on the positive impact a punk rock mentality has had on my creative output.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized the multitude of lessons I have learned from the world of punk rock.
As such, in episode #127 of The Writing Coach podcast, I reveal ten lessons writers can take from the world of punk rock.
Listen to the full episode now or read the transcript below.
The Writing Coach Episode #127 Show Notes
Get Kevin’s FREE book: NOVEL ADVICE: MOTIVATION, INSPIRATION, AND CREATIVE WRITING TIPS FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS.
Nirvana book mentioned in the episode:
The Writing Coach Episode #127 Transcript
Hello beloved listeners, and welcome back to the writing coach podcast. It is your host as always writing coach Kevin T John’s here in last week’s episode, we talked about waiting for perfect. And I mentioned a little bit about my experience in the punk rock scene and how thankful I am that I grew up a punk rocker. And one of my clients right now who I’m working with on his book is still a punk rocker. He’s still in punk, rock bands, making music. And so he and I really connect on that level. And so I was telling them about last week’s podcast and it got me thinking, you know, there’s so many great lessons I learned from being a punk rocker that come into play every day as a writer. So what I wanna share in this episode is 10 lessons writers can learn from punk rockers.
Now it all began in 1991. I was 11 years old in 1991, and that was the year Nirvana’s album Nevermind came out and completely changed popular culture. It was the stake in the heart of the eighties, and it really birthed the nineties. And I, you know, I got that tape, that cassette tape along with everyone else that year and loved it. And around that time, where shortly after, as Nirvana was blowing up, Sonic youth released a video called The Year Punk Broke. And it was a documentary of the tour that Nirvana and Sonic youth, and some other bands all went on, I guess, around 1990 or early 91, it was just before Nirvana got huge. And I think that was really my introduction to the word punk to this idea of punk rock is Sonic youth calling themselves punk. And of course there’s so many different definitions of punk is, is Sonic Youth punk or is Fugazi punk or is Green Day punk?
I kind of consider all of it punk and speaking of Fugazi, so into Nirvana and I was reading a book, I believe it was called Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana. If I’m remembering the name of the book correctly, I’ll link to it in the show notes for this episode, so that you can get the right book, Head on over to www.kevintjohns.com and have the link to that great book there, it’s a really great book about the independent rock punk rock scene in the early nineties. And anyway, there were some great chapters about Fugazi in that book and that got Fugazi on my radar. And that was an introduction into kind of a deeper world of P. So, you know, from Nirvana to Sonic youth to Fugazi, and around this time a couple years after Nirvana, you know, we’re into like the 1993/94 range.
Now around the time Kurt Cobain died, my father moved to San Francisco, USA, California center of the pop punk world. And he was living there like just as pop punk was about to blow up. I think he might have been there just beforehand. And what he used to do is he’d send us these care packages with just clippings from local zines or comics from newspapers or all these things. And it was through that. I heard of this band green day <laugh> who had an album about to come out called Dukey. And there’s another band called Jawbreaker. These are all bands that were, you know, making names for themselves in the Gillman street, San Francisco pop punk scene. And, you know, I just, before pop punk became huge, my dad put it on my radar via these care packages from San Francisco. And so then Green Day blows up and Offspring blows up.
And I remember the day I saw the music video for Rancid song “Salvation,” and now like these, now we were gonna do it. Now. We had guys with like Mohawks and leather jackets and spikes and, and, you know, I was all in my life became all about punk rock and this was a really challenging time in my life. My parents had divorced, and my mother had moved us out into the country. I’d always grown up in the city. And now I was suddenly surrounded by these kind of redneck country guys that I did not relate to at all. I really felt lost. I felt like the world had lied to me. You know, that society says, oh, you’re always gonna have a family and a parent and love conquer all and all of that. And suddenly my family and my entire life fell away and, and, you know, I was lost in and I found punk rock and, and punk rock was home.
And I, I found a, a place to be myself and I, I started playing in bands and I played in punk rock bands all through high school and into university. It, it continues to impact me to this day. And so that’s kind of the background here. That’s my punk rock background story, but let’s get into what all of this has to do with writing. What are the things I learned from punk rock that I think are applicable to the world of writing.
1. Ragged edges give personality.
Far too often as a writing coach, I see writers obsessing about perfection, obsessing about getting everything just right, getting things just right. Wasn’t even on our radar in the punk rock scene, things were supposed to be ragged. Things were supposed to be not quite perfect. Perfect things were for the mainstream. That was, you know, you two or whatever.
Britney Spears in the Backstreet boys. That’s what was going on in the mid-nineties. When I was playing punk rock, we didn’t want to sound like Backstreet boys. We wanted ragged edges and we wanted some, some roughness to our art. And I don’t see that enough in writing people are so focused on being perfect in their writing. And it loses the personality that comes with something being not quite perfect. And when it’s not quite perfect, it’s a little bit unique. And that is more interesting to me when it comes to art.
2. Choose yourself.
We touched on this a bit last week, and it’s this idea that in writing for the longest time, the only way to get published was either to self-publish and it was considered this vanity project, and you never had much success, or you entered the mainstream publishing world. And this idea of querying agents and kind of like jumping through hoops and bowing down to just praying.
Some agent would choose you to represent you so that you have those doors opened. And that that agent can then pitch you to the big multinational, you know, publishing industry and, and, and turn you into a superstar. I mean, in punk rock, you reject all of that. You say, I am going to choose me. I am going to do whatever it is. I wanna do. You wanna start a band in punk, rock, you go, and you start a band. You don’t wait around for someone else to choose you and say, oh, you are so special. You deserve to be published. You know, all the writers out there listening to this, choose yourself. If you want to go traditional, that’s fine. But you can also say, Hey, I’m gonna do this myself. There’s so many ways to publish a book these days. And most of them, you can retain the control of your work without having to give up something.
And without having to grovel to this mainstream industry that you don’t even necessarily want to be a part of building on that idea.
3. DIY, do it yourself.
In punk rock. We didn’t have show promoters, pulling together shows for us. If we wanted to play a concert, we put on a concert, we booked the gig. We got the bands. We photocopied the flyers and made the flyers. We taped them up. We did it all ourselves. And again, it’s this idea that you don’t need an industry. You don’t need penguin publishing or whatever to get your writing into the world. You can be scrappy. You can make things happen for yourself. Do it yourself. DIY straight outta the punk rock world. Next up
4. Have fun.
Oh my goodness. You know, if nothing else, punk rock is about fun. You know, let’s get out there, let’s be loud.
Let’s smash some stuff, let’s dance and, and go crazy. I mean, punk rock is about emotional expression and having fun. And I see so many writers approach their writing in this fundless manner that it’s like a high school project or something. I mean, I think our schooling system certainly does a good job of stripping all the joy away from writing you know, especially with getting graded and, and teachers saying you’re not a good writer and all of this nonsense, we gotta have fun. Life is short. And if you’re going to create art, have fun doing it. Yeah. We take our art seriously, but we don’t have to take ourselves seriously and loosen up. So many people when it comes to the writing are just so tense and they’re not having fun with it. So when you sit down to write, have fun, it’s hard work writing is not easy.
It’s hard intellectual and emotional work, but it’s fun as well. Make sure you’re having fun with it.
5. Make it emotional.
When we write a punk rock song, it’s never meant to be the greatest song ever written. It’s not can moon the wind. It’s just another short, loud, quick poppy punk rock song. But where it matters is when you get the emotion into it, you get the heart into it. You express something about what it is to be alive. And sometimes that’s joy, but a lot of the time it’s rage and it’s anger and it’s frustration. And art is a wonderful place to get all those emotions out. And so often when I see writers working on their novels, there’s this plot focused idea that like, we, I just gotta get to the next scene. I just gotta get character, a character B to character C.
So that plot point D can happen. But within each of those moments in your book, you’ve gotta be looking for the emotion for the drama, for the tears, for the heartache, for the heartbreak, for the joy, for the love. This is what we come to art for it’s that we can experience these emotions. So don’t get locked up in this idea of perfect writing and a, a perfect plot is what’s gonna make everyone love your writing. No, it’s heart it’s emotion. It’s melodrama. These are the things that we come to art and storytelling for
6. Short is better than long.
I think it was Joey. Ramone said that the reason the Ramone songs were so short was because if you didn’t like it, Hey, no problem. Another song’s coming along in two and a half minutes. You hope this idea that you don’t have to put so much pressure on something if you’re just gonna get onto the next thing.
And so punk rock songs are short. They’re quick, they’re emotional. And then we’re onto the next one. And we’re not obsessing about turning it into November, rain by guns and roses. Some sort of like giant masterpiece. You know, it’s just a song. And so many novelists, they approach say their first book and it’s some sort of giant epic and there’s a million characters and a million ideas in so many ways. Short is better. You learn the most from writing a book and publishing a book. And if you’re writing an epic that you never finish and you never publish, you never learned the lessons of publishing a book. So if you write a book that’s short and sweet, you can get it published all the quicker and learn the lessons of what it’s like to actually be a published author. It’s also, if you’re, self-publishing cheaper to write a shorter book, because editors are likely going to give you cheaper rates.
When they edit your book, you could probably sell the book for cheaper, cuz the production costs will be less because the book is shorter. And there are so many reasons. I think that nice short books are so good and really a great way to start your publishing career. Instead of trying to write the next Lord of the rings. Maybe you write a small, short, personal story, and you get that experience under your belt. Then you move on to these bigger things. Short is better than long.
7. It’s alright to upset people with your art.
<Laugh> Punk rock is not for everyone. Punk rock is a big F-U to mainstream culture. At least it was in the beginning. The Sex Pistols got super famous, mostly for going on British talk shows in the late seventies and swearing and being rude and upsetting everyone. That’s what art is not necessarily what art always has to do.
But if you’re doing something interesting and important and emotional in your writing, you’re probably going to upset someone for some reason, especially in today’s culture. I mean right now where this is, I’m recording this in 2022. I mean, you can’t open your mouth without upsetting someone these days, at least on the internet. And you know what, that’s okay. Be honest to yourself, be true to yourself and be true to your art and try to be a good person and try to make a difference in the world, but also know that you are not for everyone, not everyone’s gonna like your stories. And if it upsets some people, you know what <laugh> that’s okay. Punk rock isn’t for everyone. Either
8. Art created in basements and garages can be a gateway to seeing the world.
When my band first went on tour, Ooh, 1998 or something.
We did this little mini tour through Quebec. We played Montreal, Sherbrook, and Quebec City. It was my band crushed into this car that was breaking down. Every time we got into a traffic jam, it would overheat we’d have to push it to the side of the road. It was an adventure. And I think of my writing career, and I think of the book conferences I went to, and the people I met and the adventures I had were related to publishing and all of these things, they start in your house, they start on your computer. They start in a basement. They start with a band jamming in a garage. But the amazing thing is that when you create art and when you put it out into the world, doors open, and adventures happen. And I so many people, when they’re focusing on publishing a book, they’re like, I wanna be a number one New York times, best seller.
I wanna make a billion dollars. Quit my day job, I wanna be a superstar. And the reality is most of the benefits of publishing a book is nothing like that. It’s things like maybe you get to meet your favourite author at, at a convention that you’re both at or who knows, but it’s, we start alone. We start in our basement, we start looking at a computer and then we put it out into the world and then the world invites us to go be part of it. And that’s a pretty cool thing.
9. You don’t have to be a superstar to consider yourself a successful artist.
There are so many successful punk bands that you have never heard of. 15, 15 was an amazing San Francisco pop punk band. That sounded a lot like green day. And yet, you know, they never became successful in the mainstream green day, went on to be superstars 15 didn’t, but that’s, they didn’t want to be superstars.
You know, even green day kinda stumbled into it. But in the punk rock scene, you can be a superstar in your local scene. You’re not looking to do a stadium tour of Europe. You’re not you too. So this idea that in the writing world, you’re not successful unless you’re on the New York times, bestseller list. I mean, come on. There are so many different levels of success. And, the top 10 New York times is like the 1% outlier. And, and meanwhile, there’s the rest of us. There are rest of us out there, writing books, selling books, making fans, entertaining people, having a career, and being an artist. And there are so many metrics that you can use to measure success beyond just being the next 1% outlier superstar and
10. One of the best parts of being an artist is being part of a community.
As I said, I discovered punk rock at a really challenging time in my life.
My teen years, weren’t the best years and finding a community of angry weirdos who were just like me, <laugh> who loved punk rock and came together to create music and be bands and have shows and have parties get to know each other. When I think back to my punk rock days, I love the music, but what I remember is the shows and being part of something, feeling like you belong somewhere, even when everyone else in your life considers you a big weirdo, even when you are, you’re a city kid, who’s been moved out to the country and you’re surrounded by cowboy hats and, and pick up trucks. And, and, you know, you just want to be listening to punk rock and being at a show in downtown. You can find a community through art and it’s the exact same thing with writing.
I’m running a group coaching program right now, a couple of them actually. And again, the best part is the people I love teaching. I love reading these people’s material. I love working with them as an developmental editor and as a coach, but I also just love having a community of people that I know are gonna be there for me and be there for one another and support one another. And we all grow and improve together and, and they’ve got each other’s backs and it, it takes me right back to those punk rock days in 1996 or 1997, where I, I knew there was other artists out there who felt the same way I did doing the same thing. And I’m so lucky that that’s what I have happening right now. That’s the community I’ve built and I’m really, really proud of it. It’s called First Draft.
If you’re working on the first draft of your book, this program is a perfect community for you. And then I have another program called Final Draft for people who have finished that first draft and are now into the revisions phase and are working on taking that manuscript that they completed the first draft and, and turn it into a, a publishable really enjoyable book. And so I would love for you to join these communities as well for details, head on over to www.kevintjohns.com. That’s where you’ll get the show notes. The transcript for this episode. I also have a free book that I give away on the website. You can click the link at the top that says free book, or there’s a popup. And just put your email in there, sign up, and then shoot me an email and say, Hey, Kevin, I’m an artist. I want to be part of your community. I wanna be part of first draft. I want to continue to learn and grow and produce as an artist, but I want to do it as part of a supportive community, just like it was in the nineties, back in the good punk rock days. All right, my friends that is it for this episode, 10 lessons writers can learn from the punk rock scene. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Remember to hit that subscribe button and I will see you on the next episode of The Writing Coach.
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