'Jesus was a punk'

Remember the late 1970s? If you were around back then you'll know that punk was all everyone in the music industry was talking about.

The Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren (the photo on McLaren's Wikipedia site was taken by me) were being outrageous, and The Clash were tearing up the music rule book. Across the Pond, the New York Dolls and Iggy Pop (so called 'Godfather of punk') were similarly disruptive.

Punk rock was loud and basic, a distorted, fast moving and very aggressive form of music that captured the imagination of an entire generation of young people. The boundaries were blurred between the bands and their audiences, and it seemed as though anyone could join in. Punk overturned the acceptable norms and challenged conventions, because it was raw and honest, and it took no prisoners. Kids were angry about society, seeing injustice and corruption everywhere they looked, and they wanted their voices to be heard. But punk was more than just loud protest music.

An entirely new subculture emerged, influencing fashion, jewellery, cosmetics, hairstyles, dance, film and TV, art ... in fact most of the creative and expressive arts were disrupted in some way by a new wave of anarchic, do-it-yourself ideology. It also spawned new political movements, and loosened the grip record companies held over bands. To say that punk was a flash in the pan is underestimating a significant momentum of youth that ultimately changed the way bands and artists worked and made their impact.

It seems that punk is making a comeback. Or, to quote some of the proponents of the genre - it never really went away. There are dozens of Christian Punk bands currently active, on both sides of the pond, and the UK is seeing a resurgence of interest from many. Peter 118 (pictured above) are one of the newest wave of Christian punk bands to lend credence to this claim. As a trio, they generate an impressive wall of sound reminiscent of the Pistols. Their faith is conveyed strongly through their music and they are very, very busy on the gig circuit, both in the UK and across Europe.

I caught up with the trio after their set in the Big Top at Creation Fest 2018 to find out what drives them to continue to play music that is rooted in a revolution that is now over 40 years old. Back then, John Lydon famously declared there was 'no future'. The members of Peter 118 might disagree with that statement. When I asked the band whether Christian living and punk were mutually exclusive, one of the members responded with 'Jesus was a punk'. Find out what she meant when she made this claim. Click on the red arrow below to hear the full story.


Photo credit: Liberty Pearl

Previous Creation Fest interviews: Philippa Hanna: Beautiful Horizons

Creative Commons License
'Jesus was a punk' by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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