Artist

Black Flag

Popular Songs

The most popular songs by Black Flag.

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Black Flag. By Songfacts®.

Black Flag were founded in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. They are considered one of the first hardcore punk bands and general pioneers of the West Coast punk movement. Keith Morris, Black Flag's original vocalist, told us the band were naive to the fact they were starting a music revolution: "While I was in Black Flag, we didn't know that we were starting or creating a template for a lot of bands. We didn't know that we started hardcore along with Middle Class and the Germs, and the Bad Brains, and Minor Threat and all of these bands. We just played music." Despite their hardcore punk routes, Black Flag would ultimately go on to explore other genres later on in their career, including sludge, fusion-jazz and heavy metal.

Greg Ginn's brother, Raymond Pettibon, came up with the name "Black Flag." According to Pettibon: "If a white flag means surrender, a black flag represents anarchy." Pettibon also designed Black Flag's legendary logo: four black rectangles, representing a rippling flag. Henry Rollins had this logo tattooed on to his bicep. It has since gone on to become a popular inking amongst music fans. Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance has the logo tattooed on his upper arm, while Foo Fighters front man, Dave Grohl, revealed to Mojo he gave himself the inking as a kid: "When I was 12 or 13, I gave myself a Black Flag tattoo, prison style, with a needle and pen ink."

Black Flag's line up changed many times over the years; guitarist, Gregg Ginn, was the sole continuos member. Original vocalist, Keith Morris, left in 1979 in order to form the influential punk band, Circle Jerks. Black Flag replaced Morris with Ron Reyes, who was then replaced by Dez Cadena, who was then replaced by Henry Rollins. Henry Rollins remained Black Flag's front man until the band's dissolution in 1986. Keith Morris told The Quietus that he believes all the band members were great in their individual ways: "The thing with the Black Flag vocalists is that we all brought our own little flavor to the table. And each one of us was as good as each other. My ego doesn't allow me to say that I'm the best one because it's all up to the listener...I'm not here to shoot anybody down; I'm here to pat everybody on the back. Because Black Flag was one of those bands that went through a batch of drummers, went through a few bass players and certainly had their share of vocalists. All of them were great. And the band was always amazing."

Albums

Black Flag's most popular albums.

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More songs by Black Flag.

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5.8MArtists
73.5MSongs
12.3MAlbums
6.3KGenres
2.5MLabels
493KPlaylists