90s Punk Rock Bands

Welcome to 90sPunk.com, your resource for everything 90s punk! Learn all about 90s punk rock bands, discover or reminisce over their music, watch their music videos, and learn about or reminisce on the venues they played at.

Of course, I’m not going to have every single 90s punk band listed here that ever existed throughout the world. But it will be an extensive list of notable punk rock bands of the time, as someone who grew up in the Southern California part of the 90s punk rock scene and as someone who was pretty involved in it as:

• a drummer in a couple of the bands (Gimp and Camerica)
• a maker of some of the music videos
• someone who released some of the compilations and was friends with others who did
• someone who helped distribute compilations for some of the labels
• someone who later on (early 2000’s) produced a weekly punk rock music TV show

A Brief Rundown on 90s Punk Rock

Punk rock music started in the late 1970s with bands like The Clash in the UK and The Ramones here in the US. A large part of the punk rock movement happened in the 80s (with a whole separate set of bands) so 90s punk was sort of a second-coming or revival of punk music. However, the sound that come out of 90s punk was largely different than the previous brand of punk rock and it also expanded into various sub-genres like:

• pop-punk
• ska-punk
• hardcore-punk
• rockabilly-punk
• surf-punk
• folk-punk

But the general sound of 90s punk rock had very fast drum beats, cleaner guitars, but retained anthemic sounding vocal melodies. Because of the faster pace, 90s punk rock music was often used in skate videos, surf videos, snowboarding videos, and eventually featured on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in 1999 (which is why many people now refer to 90s punk as “skate punk”).

Both eras of punk tended to sing about social issues, convey political messages (attacking both sides of the isle but mostly the right), or the songs were just be about relationships and other life experiences. In the 90s, on one end of the spectrum you had “pop-punk” (which used happy melodies in a sarcastic way as they were combined with lyrics on serious, social observations). And then you had “hardcore-punk” on the other end (which used an angry, mad-at-the-world sound complete with screaming).

In the late 90s/Y2K/early 2000s, the latest punk bands wanted to raise the bar musically. Some opted for lighter, softer, and what they thought was a more “emotional” sound so a sub-genre called “emo” or “math rock” was birthed. Others opted to focus on the hardcore side, make the guitars heavier, and vocals angrier (more screaming). That sub-genre became what’s known as “metalcore” today. So it’s a type of metal that did not even come from heavy metal (which was a separate scene all along). Metalcore came from 90s punk rock and ended up dominating the scene. All of the 90s punk labels that still exist today (like Epitaph and Fearless) are strangely now metal labels. That’s why people also refer to this newer style of music as “post hardcore”.

90s Punk Rock Compilations

I think the best way to make sure that most of the key bands are represented on this site is to list classic 90s punk rock compilations (CDs and videos) and then list the bands therein…

Any band name that is clickable means that I have a profile page on the band right here on the website. The profile page will be complete with photos, a bio, music, and probably music videos.

Each video compilation will also have its own page so you can watch the music videos that were on it (via YouTube).

Let’s get started!..

1. Punk-O-Rama

Punk-O-Rama was released in 1994 on Epitaph Records. That bands featured on it are:

• Bad Religion
• NOFX
• Rancid
• The Offspring
• Pennywise
• Total Chaos
• Gas Huffer
• RKL
• Down by Law
• Wayne Kramer
• Ten Foot Pole
• SNFU

2. Punk Sucks

Punk Sucks was released in 1995 by Liberation Records. The bands featured on it are:

• Pennywise
• No Use for a Name
• Ten Foot Pole
• Sublime
• Home Grown
• Voodoo Glow Skulls
• White Kaps
• 88 Fingers Louie
• The Neighbors
• H.F.L.
• Everready
• The Bollweevils
• Unwritten Law
• Good Riddance
• Blink-182
• Strung Out
• Naked Aggression
• Jughead’s Revenge
• Funeral Oration
• Overlap
• The Bouncing Souls
• Boris the Sprinkler
• Glue Gun
• Quincy Punx
• Fed Up
• Straight Faced
• F.Y.P
• Fighting Cause
• Supernovice
• Livingdead

3. Cinema Beer Goggles

Watch the music videos

4. MTV’s Most Unwanted

5. Punk Bites

6. Cinema Beer Nuts

Watch the music videos

7. 30 Ounces of Punk

8. Parental Advisory Explicit Punk

Parental Advisory Explicit Punk is a VHS music video compilation that a friend and I released in 1998 to help fundraise for a San Diego punk rock TV show we were trying to start called Inside Out Television. The bands on it are:

• MxPx
• Blink-182
• No Motiv
• Millencolin
• Gimp
• The Cause
• 30 Foot Fall
• Bigwig
• Fenix TX (formerly River Fenix)
• One by One
• Voice of Defiance

Watch some of the music videos

9. Unrealism

10. San Diego VS. Orange County

San Diego VS. Orange County is a 2-CD compilation released by Common Cause Records in 1999. It features punk rock bands local to San Diego County and Orange County:

11. Punk Chunks

12. Upthrust

Upthrust is another VHS music video compilation that I released in 1999 under the label: In Your Face Productions. I had just graduated high school and I was trying to carve out a living making music videos for other punk bands and/or release video compilations on an on-going basis. This is the first and only volume (before I started the TV show: In Your Face TV) and it features:

• Against the Wall
• West Beverly
• Jughead’s Revenge
• One Hit Wonder
• The Cause
• Letdown
• The Staggers (Riot Squad)
• Second Chance
• Nuklehead
• Gob
• Swindle
• Rubberneck
• Consumers
• Hope
• Cooter (Auto Pilot Off)
• The Line
• Dillweed
• Camerica

*Camerica had broken up before the ad was made so that’s why they’re not seen there. Jughead’s Revenge is also not shown because they were going through a legal battle with their name at the time.

Watch some of the music videos

13. PunkHardcore.com

Events

Another way that I thought I could make sure the main 90s punk rock bands are listed is to cover some of big events that happened…

Warped Tours

I pretty much went to all of the San Diego Warped Tours (which started in 1996 in San Diego). In 1995, San Diego had a similar festival called May Day where I remember seeing Blink-182 and Unwritten Law for the first time. And in 1998, I was at that Warped Tour to film the event for Inside Out Television.

As far as punk bands that played the Warped Tours in the 90s, they were:

1996 Warped Tour:

• Fishbone
• Pennywise
• NOFX
• CIV
• Dance Hall Crashers
• Lagwagon
• Unwritten Law
• Fluf
• Blink-182
• The Suicide Machines

1997 Warped Tour:

• Social Distortion
• Pennywise
• Sick of it All
• Blink-182
• The Vandals
• Reel Big Fish
• Hepcat
• 22 Jacks
• Millencolin
• Protein
• Pivit
• The Aquabats (Travis Barker’s band in the 90s)

1998 Warped Tour:

• Bad Religion
• NOFX
• Rancid
• CIV
• Save Ferris
• Unwritten Law

1999 Warped Tour:

• Blink-182
• Buck-O-Nine
• Dropkick Murphy’s
• Less Than Jake
• Pennywise
• The Bouncing Souls
• Unwritten Law

Soma’s New Year’s Eve Events

And Others

Any band that I missed but remember later, I’ll add here:

1. Fifteen
2. Good to Go
3. Green Day
4. GFI
5. Minor Threat
6. Agnostic Front
7. The Ataris
8. Whippersnapper
9. Swinging Utters
10. Ensign