In the beginning, the punk scene was so full of promise. All the bands were different, and all the sounds were different. The common denominator was that it was all very young kids doing it, and doing it on their terms. But then it became, 'You should listen to this and you should wear this uniform, and you shouldn't do this or that.' It was supposed to be about not having rules, but every generation of music gets watered down.
What the Sex Pistols made sounded like quality, because they had a big label and top engineers and producers. But punk rock shouldn't be quality; it should be f**king mania. It should be gnarled, a glorious lo-fi live sound.
Unfortunately, you don't get artist development anymore. Record companies have become a huge corporate thing. It used to be you'd meet someone [in the business] and they'd have a little history of music. Some people in the companies now don't even like music. It's just a job. So I miss the days when someone would go out on a limb and pick a band that was different. I just don't see that anymore. It's the same with the film industry.
