Nowadays, in music, it’s increasingly hard to create a brand-new genre. So much has already been done in the past and so many musical avenues have been exhausted, so in order to stay unique and find the most fitting way of expressing their tuneful talents, bands often merge two or more pre-existing genres to create a whole new sound.                                                                

One of Lacey Walker’s all-time favourite genre mash-ups is that of folk and punk. The brazenly loud vocals of punk collide with the bluesy instruments of folk to give us a fresh, rural and rebellious sound. Today, Lacey shares with us her favourite tracks from the folk-punk field.

Gorehound – Harley Poe This is my favourite song to dramatically belt out while cruising down the highway. As a fellow horror movie lover, the lyricism really resonates with me. All of Harley Poe's initial members came from the now defunct Christian band Calibretto 13. They really did a 180-degree genre flip, hey? The ‘Harley’ comes from the anti-hero protagonist Ed Harley in the horror movie classic Pumpkin Head, and the ‘Poe’ is after a church friend of the bands. Check them out if you like morbid, fast-paced and tongue-in-cheek songs with lots of acoustic guitar.

Skinned – Blind Melon Speaking of tongue-in-cheek songs, here’s another one! You may know Blind Melon from their song No Rain, with the little girl in the bee costume prancing around through the music video. But unbeknownst to many, the band have a secret dark side (not unlike most folk-punk groups). This song is about serial killer Ed Gein, and exaggerates his ridiculous furniture making hobby. Too gruesome for some, perhaps, but you cannot deny that the kazoo absolutely slaps.

In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company – The Dead South Often referring to themselves as the ‘evil twins’ of Mumford and Sons, The Dead South are a Canadian band that incorporates banjo, mandolin, guitar and cello into their music, AKA, lots of stringed instruments for lots of raw, bluegrass sounds. This track fills me with the urge to grab a moonshine jug or a metal washboard and join the boys for a rustic musical shindig. Maybe even milk a cow, churn some butter and bury a trunk full of knives and Bibles under the weeping willow out back. You know, standard rural-gothic activities.

Country Death Song – The Violent Femmes are so much more than the guys who sing Blister in the Sun. They’re the pioneering forefathers of folk-punk and have been together for over forty years. This is the first track from the band’s 1984 album Hallowed Ground and was written by vocalist Gordon Gano when he was in high school, inspired by the “terrible, horrific stories of traditional folk songs”. He hit the nail on the head with his storytelling here. But be careful, the baseline in this song is infectious and you might catch a case of uncontrollable head bops to give you a headache. Give it a listen but, please, don’t be influenced to throw anyone down a well.

Old Number Seven – The Devil Makes Three Jack Daniels lovers, this one’s for you. If this Californian band have accurately predicted what goes on up upstairs, I can’t wait to join the party. As someone who grew up on an “old dirt road” like the song’s protagonist, I did not always do “what I was told”, by any means. Tenor banjo and double bass create the rustic sounds in this song, and pair lovely with front man Pete Bernhard’s gravelly voice. Old Number Seven has what I’d call a versatile sound; it appeals to country music lovers, alcoholics, folk punk listeners and mischievous ghosts from rural backgrounds. Coincidently, the four must-haves for any party guest list!

First Song – Ramshackle Glory When I was in high school, I used to spend class sitting up the back listening to music on the school laptops. The only streaming website that wasn’t automatically blocked was Bandcamp, which is where I first stumbled across Ramshackle Glory and this song. Now-retired vocalist Pat the Bunny is a notable name in the folk punk scene, and also fronts the bands Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains and Wingnut Dishwashers Union. It’s safe to say he has a talent for choosing awesome band names. As well as writing lyrics, of course, because how good is the line, “I don’t know if you believe in ghosts / I’d hope you’d haunt me if you were one”.

Hell and You – Amigo The Devil Singer-songwriter Danny Kiranos, better known by his stage name Amigo The Devil, often includes themes or murder, death and other dark subject matters in his music. He has resultantly created a subgenre within a subgenre, ‘dark-folk’ or ‘murder-folk’, as some may call it. At various times throughout Hell and You, you can hear what I assume is the guiro, a wooden percussion instrument that kind of sounds like a frog croak. To me, this is the perfect song to ballroom dance to at a zombie-themed wedding in a swamp on Halloween night. Don’t ask why, it just is, okay!

Holland, 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel are one of the most commercially-successful folk-punk bands ever. This song, from the band’s 1998 album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, draws vague inspiration from the story of Anne Frank and Word War II, although there aren’t any explicit references. It includes lots of uncommon instruments, like the ullieann pipes, the singing saw and the euphonium. I’ve always loved the name Neutral Milk Hotel, like, how can milk be neutral? I first heard this song at the end of 2017, when we had an outdoor bathtub set up for the summer. Listening to it always reminds me of sitting in the lukewarm water, smelling soap and thinking about the future.

Distance – AJJ This is probably the least genre-conforming song in my list today, but the rest of AJJ’s discography is extremely folk-punk. I had to choose Distance though, because it’s just so unapologetically honest and is my favourite song of theirs. The band originated in Phoenix, Arizona, and explore themes of shyness, poverty, humanity, religion, addiction, existentialism and politics in their music. Vocalist Sean Bonnette is so self-aware in his lyricism on this track, even going as far as saying he “hates whiny songs like this” but “can’t afford a therapist”. It's okay Sean, I’m the same. Therapy is expensive, music is free!

I Love You Like An Alcoholic – The Taxpayers I keep trying to get my partner to learn this duet on guitar with me, to no avail (yet). The Taxpayers started as a three-piece band in Oregon in 2007, but now perform live with up to eight members. Like majority of folk-punk artists, they are very crafty with their lyrics, heavy on storytelling, metaphors and similes. I’m not sure how you love someone “like a pack of dogs”, as mentioned in this song, but it sounds very folky-punky. To me, I Love You Like an Alcoholic feels like beer-soaked blue pub carpet and six-inch dirt-caked stilettos, but in a good way.

Take a listen to the playlist we crafted down below: