Punk music might conjure images of rebellious artists wearing ripped clothes and leather jackets with spiked, brightly colored hair, making aggressive music. In other words, chaos. 

Punk for the People, vol. 2, a panel event held in Bovard Auditorium on Tuesday, looked to prove that image isn’t all punk is. They showed that punk movements carry deep messages still relevant in today’s society. 

Presented by USC Visions and Voices, the panel event featured some of the most influential artists in the punk scene, including Kathleen Hanna, frontwoman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. She said that as a woman leading a band in the ’90s, she did not always feel welcomed. 

 “We want to see more girls on stage, we want to see more, we want to hear more,” Hanna said. “There were a lot of women who always made punk music, who made music in general, who were erased.” 

Hanna has championed female empowerment throughout her career. It was a consistent effort for her to make women’s role more prominent in the punk world, Hanna said, something she did through the riot grrrl movement, an underground feminist punk movement focused on challenging social norms for women as well as patriarchy in the ’90s in Olympia, Washington.

Thus, Hanna decided to take on the challenge herself of marking the presence of women in the world of punk. 

“I started doing zines, and I put out shows, and I did a lot of behind the scenes stuff because in the ’90s, it was still really weird to be a woman in a band,” she said.

Martin Sorrondeguy, singer for Los Crudos and Limp Wrist as well as a filmmaker,  said he encountered punk music in his childhood through his mother, who was a big fan of punk music. He said despite being initially startled by the aesthetics of the punk movement in his childhood, he felt a strong appeal to the genre. 

“It was The Cramps, and I remember being in the safety of my home and feeling scared watching. I was still in grammar school, and I was like, ‘What am I watching?’” Sorrondeguy said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know what this is,’ but it was one of those moments that I felt started pushing me into this.” 

Sorrondeguy said when he first started his career with his band and gained recognition for his music, he received a mixed reception, including positive feedback and support, but also criticism that his music was often loud and chaotic. Still, he said when people started learning the lyrics to his songs, he felt like he was making a connection to his community. 

“Other young Latino kids [were] identifying with what we were doing and what we were saying,” Sorrondeguy said. “This kid comes to me and goes, ‘My grandfather loves your lyrics but hates your music,’” Sorrondeguy said. “I’m okay with that. Like, get down with the lyrics.”

Bruce LaBruce, a queercore icon, said he found community and acceptance in the punk scene that, as a gay man, was hard to find in other places. 

“In the early ’80s, we just didn’t feel represented. We didn’t feel like we had a community,” LaBruce said. 

The specific punk movement that LaBruce was part of was called queercore. The culture of queercore is marked by its exploration of sexual and gender identity as well as LGBTQIA+ rights through its lyrics, inclusivity and aesthetics.  

James Spooner, a graphic novelist, tattoo artist and co-founder of the Afropunk Festival, said he was inspired by Afropunk growing up, and spoke about idolizing Maurice Mitchell from the band Cipher, who spoke up against social issues such as racism. Afropunk is a movement that advocates for diversity and inclusivity. 

“It instantly hit, because he’s very political, singing about the middle passage and slavery as the only Black person in the room,” Spooner said.  “A couple years later when [the band] The Zone came out, I started screaming when the African community started to play, it was like a beautiful moment.” 

The panel shared experiences that are each unique and different, but united by one desire to increase diversity and awareness in not only the punk community but in society. 

“We had lost a lot of people to AIDS and drugs and suicide, and so we were having our own depressions in our apartments and not talking about it,” Hanna said. “We did not know how to fucking communicate … so I just started doing electronic music.”

When Lia Riot sent a text to her popular music performance cohort proposing a rock album project, Jared Manasse was the first to respond. 

Since then, that text has grown into Janero, a collaborative rock band directed by vocalist Riot and guitarist Manasse, and featuring many of their pop performance classmates, who “ebb and flow” in the band. 

The duo started writing music together in October and debuted in February at Whisky a Go Go.

“I wanted our first debut to be somewhere that our image was really reflected in the audience,” said Riot, a freshman majoring in popular music performance. “It really was intentional, even if the rest of the gigs are frats or literally anywhere else. The first gig was somewhere where Mötley Crüe played and Def Leppard, somewhere that we could go back and be like, ‘This was our first gig.’” 

Manasse said having such a strong rock identity has been an asset to the band, as it sets them apart from the rest of the freshman pop performance cohort, most of whom he said avoid the genre. 

“In our cohort specifically, there’s three or four people who are pretty popular, on Spotify or online, but they all write R&B music,” said Manasse, also a freshman majoring in popular music performance. “We’re the only people, at least, who I met, who actually are … crossing the bridge between pop-rock ballads.”

Janero has performed for student audiences throughout the semester, mainly at fraternity houses such as Phi Delta Theta and Theta Xi. 

“We invite a lot of our friends, and then they invite their friends, and so it’s just people that genuinely wanted to be there,” Riot said. “[House shows are] a lot better way to start your fan base in college [than random venues], especially at USC, with the resources that we have.”

At their concerts, Janero covers songs that reflect their musical inspirations, such as Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” — with an eerily similar recreation of Axl Rose’s intro scream by Manasse. Between covers, they pepper in some of their original music, written by both Riot and Manasse.

“They’re all my babies,” Riot said. “I recently went through a breakup, and so most of the songs that I have written are about … empowering women.”

Although most of their songs are born from meshing lyrics, guitar riffs and chords that Riot and Manasse have created, one song in particular, “Opposite to You,” was built from a song that Manasse had been writing before coming to USC.

“My favorite guitar song is ‘Opposite to You.’ That riff is really, really fun to play,” said Manasse. “With ‘Opposite to You’, I had a song that I’ve been writing for about a year now, and I’ve been refining it a lot along the way, and then I gave it to her … it totally just depends on what we each come with.”

Beyond writing the songs as a duo, Riot and Manasse have also collaborated with many of their cohort members for their live performances. Jacob Egan, a freshman majoring in pop performance, has played at many of the band’s concerts.

“For Janero, it’s more like, ‘Here’s our idea and here’s where it comes from. Here’s the music we’re thinking about when we made this idea. Now you, you help us flesh out this idea.’ And I do enjoy that,” Egan said. “I do really like playing with people, and it’s nice to play a different style.”

Both Riot and Manasse draw inspiration from multiple sources, including the theory training they’ve received at the Thornton School of Music and the music they grew up listening to. 

For the band name, Riot paid homage to her mother’s home city, Rio de Janeiro — but with the “i” removed, because she didn’t want Americans pronouncing it wrong.

“I’m super close with my mom, and she’s one of the biggest reasons why I’m in music and one of the biggest reasons why I am where I am today,” Riot said. “She was a dancer, so she understands all the creative stuff. She’s kind of a momager, but not in the obnoxious sense; she tells me what I need to improve, so I wanted to dedicate it to her.”

Janero is currently working with student producer Haziel Gonzalez, a freshman majoring in music production, to record their original song “Burn,” which is set to be finalized over the summer. 

“Once we actually solidify three additional members, I would like to, at some point, put out a full, 12-track album,” Manasse said. 

While figuring out their permanent band members, the two plan on continuing to perform at full throttle.

“I see us doing very big things in the future. We are very hardworking. We’re, at least this spring semester, very booked and busy … that’s not going to stop,” Riot said. “We’re very passionate about what we do, and we’re definitely going to make it.”