Greg Ginn Biography Quotes 30 Report mistakes

Early Life
Greg Ginn, born in 1954 in the United States, emerged from the coastal South Bay of Los Angeles with a curiosity for electronics and a rigorously independent streak that would define his career. As a teenager he ran a small electronics venture called Solid State Tuners, a seed that later became the basis for his record label. That mix of do-it-yourself engineering, thrift, and persistence shaped his musical path. His brother, the visual artist Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn), contributed stark, provocative imagery that would become inseparable from Ginn's work, especially the now-iconic four-bar logo Pettibon designed for Black Flag.

Formation of Black Flag
In the late 1970s Ginn founded a band initially called Panic, soon renamed Black Flag. He served as guitarist, bandleader, and primary songwriter, steering the group with an insistence on discipline and autonomy. Early on, the lineup was fluid, with vocalist Keith Morris fronting the Nervous Breakdown EP sessions before departing. Ron Reyes and then Dez Cadena followed at the microphone, each marking a distinct phase in the group's rapidly evolving sound. The arrival of Henry Rollins in 1981 ushered in the best-known incarnation, while bassist Chuck Dukowski anchored the group's early years with a fierce onstage presence and managerial prowess. Drummers including Robo and later Bill Stevenson powered the band's relentless touring schedule and blistering tempos.

Sound, Method, and Ethos
Ginn's guitar style combined serrated tone, atonal runs, and improvisational risk, drawing on punk urgency while nodding to free jazz and experimental approaches. He prized long rehearsals, grueling van tours, and absolute independence in business. The band's songwriting broadened from compact blasts to weightier, slow-lurching pieces that culminated in albums like Damaged and My War. Ginn sometimes recorded bass himself under the pseudonym Dale Nixon, an example of his tendency to shoulder multiple roles to keep projects moving.

SST Records
When traditional labels showed little interest, Ginn converted his electronics imprint into SST Records to release Black Flag's music. SST soon grew into one of the era's most influential independent labels. Working with artists and managers in a tight network, Ginn helped issue seminal records by the Minutemen (D. Boon, Mike Watt, George Hurley), Meat Puppets (Curt and Cris Kirkwood), Husker Du (Bob Mould, Grant Hart, Greg Norton), Sonic Youth (Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo), Dinosaur Jr (J Mascis, Lou Barlow, Murph), Bad Brains (H.R., Dr. Know), and Screaming Trees, among others. The label's nationwide reach fostered a DIY touring circuit and demonstrated that uncompromising music could find an audience outside major-label systems.

Legal and Logistical Challenges
Black Flag's drive met frequent headwinds. A dispute involving their distributor in the early 1980s led to an injunction that restricted the band's ability to release music under its own name for a period, prompting creative workarounds such as the compilation Everything Went Black, which credited individual members rather than the band. Visa issues complicated touring lineups, and the group's punishing road schedule contributed to continual personnel changes. Still, Ginn's insistence on touring wherever possible cemented a grassroots following across the United States and abroad.

Later Black Flag Lineups and Final 1980s Phase
By the mid-1980s, bassist Kira Roessler brought a new precision to the rhythm section, working closely with Ginn through an era that yielded experimental instrumentals and slower, heavier material alongside the group's hardcore roots. The ensemble's final studio releases of the decade showcased Ginn's growing interest in extended forms, angular instrumentals, and a drier, more abrasive guitar sound. The band disbanded in 1986 after a last run that left an extensive, fiercely debated catalog.

Beyond Black Flag
Parallel to and following Black Flag, Ginn pursued other projects that flexed different musical muscles. Gone, an instrumental trio, emphasized speed, jazz-inflected phrasing, and unusual structures. October Faction explored improvisation with a rotating cast drawn from SST's circle. Through the 1990s and 2000s, he continued recording and performing in a variety of configurations, often emphasizing instrumental music and releasing work through SST.

Industry Relationships and Disputes
As SST grew, so did tensions common to independent labels that expanded rapidly. Artists periodically voiced concerns about accounting, ownership, and availability of master recordings, and some pursued legal avenues or negotiated to regain rights. These frictions, alongside SST's undeniable historical importance, became part of the label's complex legacy. Ginn's working relationships with key figures such as Chuck Dukowski, Keith Morris, Dez Cadena, Ron Reyes, and Henry Rollins profoundly shaped both his band's trajectory and the punk landscape around it. Outside the band, friendships and rivalries within the SST community (with people like Mike Watt, D. Boon, Curt and Cris Kirkwood, Bob Mould, Grant Hart, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and others) reflected the intensity of a scene built on scarce resources and stubborn ideals. Ginn's relationship with his brother Raymond Pettibon also moved through collaboration and distance, mirroring the push-pull between music, art, and business that surrounded Black Flag and SST.

Black Flag's Return and Legal Action
In the 2010s Ginn revived Black Flag with a new lineup that included veterans like Ron Reyes at points, while former members Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Bill Stevenson, and Stephen Egerton performed the material as FLAG. Ginn pursued legal action alleging infringement related to the band's name and logo, a dispute that highlighted long-standing questions about authorship, trademarks, and the ownership of a group's legacy. The conflict underscored how deeply the music and imagery associated with Black Flag had embedded themselves in American punk history.

Legacy
Greg Ginn's imprint rests on three intertwined achievements: his singular guitar language, his leadership of Black Flag, and the infrastructure he built through SST Records. As a guitarist, he pushed punk into discordant, improvisatory territories, influencing countless bands well beyond hardcore. As a bandleader, he insisted on constant forward motion, even when it meant alienating purists or weathering internal upheaval. As a label head, he helped launch or sustain careers that reshaped underground and alternative music in the United States. The people around him, bandmates from Keith Morris to Henry Rollins, collaborators like Chuck Dukowski, drummers such as Robo and Bill Stevenson, bassist Kira Roessler, visual partner Raymond Pettibon, and the many SST artists, formed a creative community that magnified his impact. Despite controversies and conflicts, Ginn's work remains a cornerstone of the independent ethos: build your own systems, accept the risk, and let the music speak with unfiltered force.

Our collection contains 30 quotes who is written by Greg, under the main topics: Music - Human Rights - Letting Go - Entrepreneur - Marketing.