The Unlikely Artist Bruce Springsteen Credits With Starting Punk Rock

Rock is a timeline that is easily followed. Even with all its branches and sub-genres, it’s easy to see how one sound got to another. Whether it be a modernized homage to the sound of a previous generation or an adverse reaction to it, rock musicians have long taken notes from one another.

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While it’s easy to see which rock movement influenced another, it can be challenging to pinpoint specific individuals to give credit to. Almost every fan has their own opinion on who was the most influential rocker of all time. Bruce Springsteen once offered his two cents, citing an unlikely source for the advent of punk rock. Find out who that artist was below.

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The Artist Bruce Springsteen Thought Was the Beginning of Punk

Chuck Berry is undoubtedly a forefather of rock and roll. No one can deny his transformative effect on the genre’s rise. However, when considering Berry’s influence, most people confine him to classic rock. His guitar riffs became the building blocks for the early days of the genre on a mass scale, which were later reworked and reassembled in different ways, making room for sub-genres to emerge. So, in a way, Berry did help to form all rock sub-genres, but Springsteen thought his influence was much more direct than that.

Springsteen once recalled listening to a live Berry song and noting that it sounded remarkably like hard rock. “I heard this live version of ‘Too Much Monkey Business’ by Chuck Berry, and it sounds so close to punk music,” Springsteen once said.

Early punk had elements of classic rock, like digestible melodies and simple choruses. This is a trend that Springsteen traced back to Berry.

Springsteen on Using Influences in the Studio

Because the influences of past decades inevitably trickle down to the next, you have to find ways to use them to your advantage. Playing off of Berry’s influence on punk rock, Springsteen once talked about creating a “bank” of sounds to help in songwriting.

“When you go to record with your band, you have all those sounds, you’ve created a bank,” he added elsewhere. “I like to stay as awake and as alert as I can. And I enjoy it too, I have a lot of interest in it… I like not being sealed off from what’s going on culturally.”

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