“A truly amazing thing”: the artist who invented punk, according to Siouxsie Sioux
While the advent of punk rock seemed to stem from the boisterous rebels who shared the same sense of style and penchant for musical chaos, the true spirit of punk was long present before the likes of the Sex Pistols claimed to start a movement.
There were rebels in other eras prior to this major watershed moment in the UK in 1977, and while not identical to what came after it, there were shades of the fashion sensibilities and musical disruptiveness that came with what most consider to be the birth of punk already present in plenty of other acts who had already established themselves.
In the US, you can point to acts like New York Dolls, MC5 and their Detroit contemporaries, The Stooges, as all being early to the punk party, and having laid the groundwork for all of the acts who came later on with their countercultural acts of defiance.
They were far from being carbon copies of those who are often credited as having birthed punk much later on, but there were early flashes of what punk could be, especially from a musical standpoint, and how raucous they could be.
However, in the UK, these aforementioned acts didn’t really make much of an impression at the time, hence why people consider the likes of Sex Pistols and The Damned to be the ones who kickstarted it, despite them having clearly been influenced by things that had come before them.
If you were to ask Siouxsie Sioux, however, as someone who witnessed the first wave first hand, and having been part of the next wave of punk and gothic rock herself, she’d point to a different figure as having emulated the US incarnation of punk much earlier, and who had more of an influence on the UK’s version of it than most would care to admit.
“I can say, hand on heart, that I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for David Bowie,” she proclaimed in a 2016 interview with Mojo shortly after the iconic songwriter’s death. “When so-called punk was happening, a lot of the boys in bands wouldn’t admit to being into him, but I don’t think punk would have happened without him.”
She continued by arguing that his influence was something incredibly personal to her, and that much like punk had attempted to do, it allowed disenfranchised youngsters who felt as though they didn’t fit anywhere to have someone like them that they could look up to.
“He gave people the courage to be who they wanted to be, as well as the courage to be who you actually are,” she added. “For someone to be able to give people that creative strength is a truly amazing thing.”
The assertion that Bowie was the originator of punk can’t really be argued with as far as being a trailblazer is concerned, and given his appreciation and close friendship with some of those involved in the US punk movement such as Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, it’s hard to deny that Bowie had actually captured the true spirit of punk before anyone else in the country had caught on, whether the supposed punk icons would want to own up to liking his glam and art rock sensibilities or not.
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