Minor Threat

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Minor Threat was an American hardcore band from Washington, D.C. The singer Ian MacKaye and the drummer Jeff Nelson founded it in 1980, together with the guitarist Lyle Preslar and the bassist Brian Baker. In 1982 Steve Hansgen joined as bassist, after which Baker became second guitarist. MacKaye and Nelson had previously played in the Teen Idles and had used the money from that band to found the label Dischord Records. All of Minor Threat's records were released on it. Their first gig was in December 1980 in a basement, as support for Bad Brains.

Music and breakthrough

The first EPs came out in 1981, Minor Threat and In My Eyes. Out of Step followed in 1983. The band lasted only three years. The music is short, fast and furious, with brief songs and screamed vocals. The song Straight Edge from the first EP is about MacKaye's choice not to use alcohol or other drugs, something that went against the rock culture of the time. Many later bands made it a way of life, and so the straight edge movement arose, although the band members themselves did not see it that way.

Influence

Minor Threat was regarded, together with Bad Brains and Black Flag, as the benchmark for the hardcore of the 1980s and 1990s. Just as important was the do-it-yourself attitude: the band released its own records and organised its own concerts. In this way it became a model for the independent punk scene.

Listening

• 
  Straight Edge · Minor Threat, 1981
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 1983Out of Step

Mentioned in other articles

• Hardcore punk GenreBlack Flag from Los Angeles, and Minor Threat and Bad Brains from Washington, played songs of less than two minutes in small venues.

See also

• Hardcore punk