Black Flag

Ginn named the Stooges first when asked what built Black Flag's sound: "We were influenced by the Stooges and then the Ramones; they inspired us," he told the magazine Stay Thirsty. It was the earlier debt that mattered more — Iggy Pop's total lack of restraint, a band that sounded like it might fall apart mid-song, appealed to a guitarist already bored with the polish of mainstream rock. Where the Ramones gave him a structure, the Stooges gave him permission to sound genuinely dangerous, feral rather than merely fast.

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1969

I Wanna Be Your DogIggy and the Stooges

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1981

Six PackBlack Flag

listen forPlay the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and Black Flag's "Six Pack" back to back: both hang the whole song on one blunt, repeated riff and a vocal that sounds like it's fighting to stay on pitch rather than performing control. Iggy Pop's yowl is slow and stoned; Black Flag pushes the same riff at hardcore speed, so what was menacing turns frantic — the chord progression barely changes, only how fast it's allowed to spiral.

Ginn pinned the exact moment years later: "The Ramones came out in December '76...That concert may have been the turning point," he said, describing the show at the Roxy that convinced him punk didn't need a British accent. The effect reached Keith Morris just as directly — watching the Ramones, Ginn recalled, made Morris realize he "doesn't have to be some classical operatic singer, he could just do his own thing." Black Flag kept the three-chord blueprint but sanded off the Ramones' bubblegum hooks, replacing them with something closer to a shout.

listen: upstream & heresource: Arthur Magazine — Their War ↗share

1976

Blitzkrieg BopRamones

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1978

Nervous BreakdownBlack Flag

listen forSet the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" against Black Flag's debut "Nervous Breakdown": both strip the song to a handful of chords, a chant-along vocal, and a beat that never lets up for a bridge or a solo. But where the Ramones' hey-ho-let's-go is a pep rally, Morris's voice on "Nervous Breakdown" cracks and outruns the beat entirely, turning the same bare structure into something closer to a panic attack than a party.

Ginn and Keith Morris met at a Hermosa Beach record store where the soft rock playing over the speakers — "the Eagles, Jackson Browne, the Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac," Morris called it — was everything they hated. What they wanted instead: "Give me some Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad, Black Oak Arkansas," Morris recalled telling Ginn, describing drives in his '64 red Impala to see Thin Lizzy and Journey at the Santa Monica Civic. That taste for volume and doom resurfaced years later on My War's slow, bludgeoning second side, when Black Flag traded hardcore's sprint for something closer to Sabbath's crawl.

listen: upstream & heresource: Arthur Magazine — Their War ↗share

1970

Black SabbathBlack Sabbath

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1984

Nothing Left InsideBlack Flag

listen forPlay Black Sabbath's title track, "Black Sabbath," next to Black Flag's "Nothing Left Inside" and the tempo tells the story: Sabbath's tritone riff crawls under Ozzy's dread-soaked wail, built for maximum weight rather than speed. "Nothing Left Inside" slows Black Flag down to nearly that same pace, Ginn's downtuned riff repeating for over six minutes until the song stops sounding like hardcore and starts sounding like the sludge metal it helped invent.