Fullerton, CA · punk rock · cowpunk · punk · roots-punk

Social Distortion

1 upcoming festival

Mike Ness's Orange County punk band, forty years deep in rockabilly-tinged songs about bad decisions — tattooed survival as an art form.

Social Distortion formed in Fullerton, Orange County, California, in 1978, and has been led throughout by singer, guitarist and songwriter Mike Ness. The band emerged from the Southern California hardcore scene but moved steadily toward a rootsier sound, folding rockabilly, country and classic rock and roll into its punk framework. Ness's songs are largely narrative, dealing with addiction, prison, work and regret, sung in a weathered baritone over mid-tempo, riff-driven arrangements. The group is widely regarded as one of the acts that established what came to be called cowpunk, and its lineup has changed repeatedly around Ness over the decades.

punk rockcowpunkpunkroots-punk