Latest news with #MinorThreat
Newsweek
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
WWE Star CM Punk Explains The Meaning Behind Questionable Tattoo
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. WWE superstar CM Punk has finally shared the detailed story and personal significance behind one of his most recognizable tattoos: the Pepsi logo on his shoulder. On the June 4, 2025, episode of WWE Tattooed, he explained its connection to his straight-edge lifestyle and punk rock look. Punk began by acknowledging the tattoo's prominence over his career. "I guess I'd be remiss to not mention the Pepsi tattoo. I think that one historically has gotten the most attention," he stated. He then delved into its inspiration. It came from the influential 1980s hardcore punk band Minor Threat, widely credited with popularizing the straight edge subculture that typically involves abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drugs. "The story with the Pepsi tattoo is there is a band called Minor Threat that started in the early 80s in Washington, D.C. that is widely known to have started the straight edge subculture," Punk explained. More news: WWE News: Steve Austin Reveals Real-Life Vince McMahon Confrontation "And the guitarist Brian Baker was asked in an interview I read while I was in detention, 'Do you have a Coca-Cola tattoo? Why do you have a Coca-Cola tattoo?' And his response is, 'I like Coca-Cola.'" This simple, defiant answer deeply resonated with a young Punk. ATLANTA, GEORGIA - JANUARY 27: CM Punk speaks during WWE Monday Night RAW at State Farm Arena on January 27, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. ATLANTA, GEORGIA - JANUARY 27: CM Punk speaks during WWE Monday Night RAW at State Farm Arena on January 27, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. WWE/Getty Images "And I was that's just punk rock right there. I don't like Coke. I like Pepsi," Punk continued, connecting it to his own identity. "I'm a Midwest kid at heart, so I got a Pepsi tattoo." He emphasized that the choice was far more profound than a mere beverage preference. "That tattoo represents me being straight edge, and that's really it," Punk clarified. "It seems silly to put a corporate logo on yourself, but it really has a deeper meaning, and it means so much more to me than just soft drink." For CM Punk, the Pepsi logo is a personal emblem of his commitment to the straight edge lifestyle, a core tenet of his identity throughout his wrestling career and public life. His recent return to WWE in late 2023 and his current involvement. This includes winning a Money in the Bank qualifying match on June 2nd, Raw, despite recovering from injury, which has brought renewed focus to his iconic persona and its symbols. More WWE News: For more on WWE, head to Newsweek Sports.
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My cultural awakening: a punk band told me quit drinking. So I did
I started drinking when I was 14. It was how we'd have fun as kids in Aberdeen – I didn't come across any youth clubs or anything particularly productive. You drank beer or alcopops in some shady lane, and you drank so quickly that you'd get drunk but then be sober enough to get home at 11pm so your parents wouldn't notice anything. It wasn't drinking for pleasure: binge drinking was just what everyone – regardless of social groups – seemed to be doing. During my teenage years I worked at a newsagent and I would read Kerrang! every week, which was extremely formative for me in discovering music. It's incredible how many new bands I was introduced to, and just how my music taste evolved – from nu-metal bands such as Korn to Rage Against the Machine and, most influentially, Fugazi. One day in 1999, when I was 16, I read about the hardcore punk band Minor Threat. Ian MacKaye, a member of Fugazi, was an important figure for me: he had a very specific way of approaching music and was fiercely independent. I was inspired by him, shaving my hair and wearing a beanie. A friend even started calling me Bain MacKaye. His previous band, Minor Threat, were active in the early 80s and had been part of what became known as the 'straight edge' movement, a subculture of hardcore punks who turned away from drugs and alcohol in reaction to punk's excesses. In Minor Threat's song Out of Step, MacKaye sings lyrics such as 'I don't drink', but he shortens it to 'don't drink', so it sounds more like he's telling you to do the same, which to some degree he is. It wasn't so much the music itself that grabbed me, it was more that I became interested in this perspective of questioning the mainstream. I wasn't particularly rebellious: I didn't talk back to teachers or have a problem with my parents. So the concept of being straight edge and not taking drugs or drinking seemed like the most radical thing I could do in a middle-class environment. To begin with, not drinking was just experimental, then it became a challenge. With time, I started to see the good in it. You never know how you're going to react under stress or grief, and from an early age I had just ruled out drinking as a way to deal with these things. I had also developed an ability to speak my mind or just have the balls to speak to new people sober, not needing something to help ease social anxieties. I was the odd one out among my friends. They'd wonder why I was doing it and probably made fun of me, but I was never excommunicated from my circle. Still, when I went to university in around 2003, one guy said to me: 'You shouldn't come inside a pub if you're not ready to drink and smoke in it'. People would often ask me if I was religious or if there were alcohol problems in my family. There always had to be a reason, like it wasn't a choice to be sober. That's what was so appealing – it just seemed so radical to be sober. And I have been ever since. It is largely a force of habit nowadays, not the teenage rebellion I felt back then, though I do still listen to Minor Threat from time to time. Sobriety has given me a very different experience in life. At university I spent a lot of time with foreign students who were slightly older than me. Alcohol was still a part of their social circle but in a more sophisticated way. That group included the person who became my wife. I now live with her in Finland, where I work as a lab technician. In Finland the phrase straight edge, or streittari, is well known to describe the lifestyle of those who don't drink or do drugs, but not many people know its roots – an 80s hardcore punk band. Did a cultural moment prompt you to make a major life change? Email us at
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Al Barile, guitarist with pioneering hardcore band SSD, dies at 63
Al Barile, who played guitar in the influential Boston hardcore band SS Decontrol — a linchpin of the drink-and-drug-shunning straight-edge scene of the early 1980s that also encompassed Washington's Minor Threat — died Sunday at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was 63. His death was announced on Instagram by his wife, Nancy Barile, who didn't specify a cause but said that her husband had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2022 and 'passed away peacefully' with her at his side. With songs that averaged about a minute in length, SS Decontrol — Society System Decontrol for long, SSD for short — railed furiously against what the members saw as the hypocrisy and the oppressive tendencies of government, the police and organized religion on albums such as 1982's 'The Kids Will Have Their Say,' which bore a cover photo depicting a group of young people storming the steps of the Massachusetts State House. The music was loud and fast, with pummeling guitar riffs that made the idea of a fourth chord seem like an immoral extravagance. ''The Kids Will Have Their Say' is so unsettling, so ugly, that SS Decontrol's fans needn't worry about their champs' succumbing to creeping commercialism — not even accidentally,' Joyce Millman wrote admiringly in the Boston Phoenix in 1982. In the Trouser Press, Ian McCaleb and Ira Robbins called the band's follow-up, 1983's 'Get It Away,' 'a definitive hardcore classic.' Alan Scott Barile was born Oct. 4, 1961, in Lynn, Mass., where he grew up playing hockey and 'making Dracula movies,' as his wife said in a statement. Hearing the Ramones inspired him to start playing guitar, after which he formed SSD (while a mechanical-engineering student at Northeastern University) with bassist Jaime Sciarappa, drummer Chris Foley and singer David Spring, who was known as Springa. 'Al comes out and makes the big speech — and I remember this as clear as I remember my f— 8th birthday,' Springa said in a 2024 documentary about SSD. ''OK, what this band is gonna be about — it's not gonna be a groovy type of band where people go out on the dance floor and shake their ass. We're making a statement here: It's about anti-government, anti-society, anti-conformity and breaking down the barriers between the band and the audience.'' Read more: Papa Roach's Jacoby Shaddix on teen pop, toxic masculinity and 25 years of 'Infest' In the documentary, Barile said he started SSD as a kind of response to famous Boston bands such as Aerosmith and the Cars. 'It didn't seem like it was real sincere, that kind of music — it didn't seem like it had the kind of honesty and sincerity that I was after,' he said. The notion of spurning booze and drugs came from Minor Threat, which released its first EP in 1981 with a song called 'Straight Edge,' in which singer Ian MacKaye sang, 'I'm a person just like you / But I've got better things to do / Than sit around and f— my head / Hang out with the living dead.' In her statement, Nancy Barile said the straight-edge philosophy 'provided kids with a choice from the typical '70s suburban party lifestyle.' SSD put out 'The Kids Will Have Their Say' as a joint release between the band's Xclaim! Records and MacKaye's Dischord label; for 'Get It Away,' the band added guitarist Francois Levesque. The band put out two more heavy-metal-leaning LPs before breaking up in 1985. Barile later formed a group called Gage and worked as an engineer for General Electric. This year, SSD was inducted into the New England Music Hall of Fame. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
