The Best Punk Guitarists Of All Time Ranked

The term “punk rock” was previously used by American rock critics in the early 1970s to describe the mid-1960s garage bands. Certain late 1960s and early 1970s Detroit acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges, and other bands from elsewhere created out-of-the-mainstream music that became highly influential on what was to come. Glam rock in the UK and the New York Dolls from New York have also been cited as key influences. When the movement now bearing the name developed from 1974 to 1976, prominent acts included Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones in New York City; the Saints in Brisbane; and the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned in London, and the Buzzcocks in Manchester. By late 1976, punk became a major cultural phenomenon in the UK. It led to a punk subculture expressing youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing, such as deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands and jewellery, safety pins, and bondage and S&M clothes. Here are all of The Punk Guitarists Of All Time ranked.

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20. Hugh Cornwell

“Great style, baroque and sometimes weird melodies, acid telecaster sound. I really appreciate him as song writer. The Stranglers was beyond punk rock but at the same time somewhere into it. Possibly the most underrated guitarist in history.”

19. Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman

“He earned the nickname “Noodles” for his frequent noodling on the guitar. Kevin John Wasserman, best known by his stage name Noodles is the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for The Offspring. Noodles generally plays Ibanez guitars, and he has now had four signature models, each of which is a Talman.

18. Poison Ivy

“The Cramps had a brilliant singer and a very definable area they were operating in but they constantly broke the rules and this was down to their guitarist the great Poison Ivy, who not only looked the part- with her gum chewing glacial cool but was coasting on a wall of scuzzy feedback, sorta fifties licks and tripped out psych noises- especially on the band’s first two albums when they sounded like the rock n roll band from outer space and her guitar work was like no other.”

17. Tom Delonge

“Thomas Matthew “Tom” DeLonge, Jr., is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and film producer. He was known for his guitar playing and his raspy voice. Years later in 2015, Tom left the band Blink-182..”

16. Brett Gurewitz

“Brett Gurewitz has been flying the flag for punk rock since he co-founded Bad Religion in 1980. But his punk credentials go way further than that – from his co-founding of the essential Epitaph label to his relentless championing of dozens of young, worthy bands who may have never had a change to shine had he not given them their break.”

15. Rikk Agnew

“From the moment he appeared on the scene with tuneful Orange County punks the Adolescents, Rikk Agnew truly stood out. He sounded like someone who had been playing in hard-rock bands for years. He had a dynamic sense of structure that shined on their debut album, especially “Kids Of The Black Hole.”

14. East Bay Ray

“The man formerly known as Ray Pepperell was liberated by punk. He’d played in a San Francisco show band called Cruisin’, requiring him to be conversant with rockabilly and surf guitar styles for their oldies presentation. In the Dead Kennedys, he pushed that knowledge and some considerable jazz chops through a heavily distorted Fender copy, achieving a lively, highly musical sonic signature.”

13. Greg Hetson

“Greg Hetson has been a member of two of the most influential Punk Rock bands ever to take the stage. With both the Circle Jerks and Bad Religion, he’s given us some of the greatest Punk Rock licks, one that will forever echo off of kids’ bedroom walls or their parent’s basements.”

12. Lyle Preslar

“Lyle Preslar is best known as the guitar player for the hardcore punk band Minor Threat. He was a member of the band throughout its lifespan (1981-1983). Prior to Minor Threat he sang for a local band called The Extorts (sometimes called Vile Lyle and The Extorts).”

11. Ron Asheton

“The late, great Ron Asheton can be credited with being the ultimate punk guitarist before anybody else knew what punk even was. With The Stooges, Asheton created some of the most notorious riffs of all time. Forming the Stooges with his brother Scott, an act fronted by Iggy Pop, the guitarist created a wave of punk acts waiting to happen.”

10. Billy Zoom

“Billy Zoom was truly a musician’s musician. At least a decade older than his bandmates, he’d played with everyone from soul outfits to ’50s legend Gene Vincent before forming X with bassist John Doe in 1977. He created a rootsier take on punk guitar the world at large first heard on X’s 1980 debut, Los Angeles“

9. Mick Jones

“One of the most influential guitarists of his generation, the powerhouse performance of Mick Jones is often overlooked as a vital component of The Clash’s undoubted rise to the top of the punk pile. Jones, alongside Joe Strummer, crafted some of punk’s anthems and pushed them through the speakers to their adoring audience.”

8. Tim Armstrong

“One of the key figures of American punk rock in the 1990s and onward, Tim Armstrong is best known as the singer and guitarist with the band Rancid, which he formed in 1991 after the dissolution of the influential ska-punk group Operation Ivy.”

7. Johnny Thunders

“As part of two founding fathers of punk rock, we couldn’t have a list of punk’s greatest guitarists without including Johnny Thunders. The guitarist was a part of the foundational band New York Dolls—a band who can be attributed with changing the musical landscape all on their own— and later cultivated the bubbling underground punk scene further with the Heartbreakers.”

6. Pig Champion

“At his heaviest, Pig Champion was clocking in at nearly 500 pounds. But despite (or because of) his hefty carriage, this Portland, Oregon behemoth was one of the most nimble-fingered, face-melting guitarists in punk rock history.”

5. Steve Jones

“With the Sex Pistols Jones became an undoubted icon of the genre, as capable on his guitar as he was causing mayhem wherever he went—before Sid Vicious arrived Jones was the archetypal punk. The image of Jones with a hanky on his head and a string-bare jumper will remain a piece of punk iconography forever, let alone his appearance on Bill Grundy.”

4. Billie Joe Armstrong

“The band’s seminal album Dookie is undoubtedly a modern masterpiece of puerile boredom and much of that is down to Armstrong’s uncensored stance on the modern world. It’s a sure-footed stance that he brings to guitar-playing too, thrashing with the precision intensity of a pneumatic drill.”

3. Dr. Know

“The best and most original sound as yet. He could adapt to any other genre, without much effort, and I also speak of Jazz, to which Ginn has been linked. It’s my humble opinion that Hendrix would have found the doctor quite interesting, given a time machine and a few minutes to listen. Not that it would be the thing for Hendrix, though listen, yes!”

2. Greg Ginn

“The leader and principal songwriter of Black Flag, Ginn is seen as the godfather of the hardcore punk scene. Unlike some of his other punk rock contemporaries, Ginn does his best work not with power chords but with technical triumphs.”

1. Johnny Ramone

“The creative force behind much of that imperious three-chord work with the Ramones, the controversial guitarist Johnny Ramone created a career out of thrashing out those riffs to his latest moment of adolescent discontent revisited. He, along with his adopted family of bratty brothers, in many ways invented the punk genre in the depths of New York’s underground scene.”