Education Quote by Trevor Dunn

There’s a small, telling bewilderment in Dunn’s line: a musician looking back at a tribal war that, from the inside, felt inevitable, and from the outside looks faintly ridiculous. “I never understood” isn’t innocence; it’s a quiet indictment of how youth subcultures police their borders. It’s the sound of someone who lived close enough to the amps to know both camps were built on the same raw materials: volume, anger, outsider pride, and an aesthetic that dared adults to flinch.

The specific intent is almost conversational, but it lands like cultural critique. Dunn isn’t asking for a history lesson; he’s pointing at a contradiction. Metal and punk both marketed themselves as anti-mainstream, yet high school turned them into rival brands. One side often prized virtuosity, heaviness, and a kind of mythic seriousness; the other valorized speed, minimalism, and a sneer at “wank.” That difference gets exaggerated in teenage ecosystems where identity is scarce and allegiance is everything. Hating the neighboring tribe becomes a way to prove you’re real.

The subtext is about gatekeeping as self-defense. When your social power is limited, taste becomes territory. Dunn’s confusion suggests he saw overlap where others needed separation: kids using slightly different uniforms to express the same unease. The context matters too: late-80s/90s scenes were splintering into micro-genres, and school hallways acted like crude sorting machines. His line doesn’t romanticize unity; it exposes how easily rebellion turns into its own conformity.