Watch this if you want to understand why the staff at your local vegan restaurant or health food store are tattooed so heavily.
Moby interviews some of the punk and hardcore musicians who were first to be known as vegetarians on the scene (like Captain Sensible (The Damned), Steve Ignorant (Crass/Conflict) and HR (Bad Brains), were among the first to speak out in the mid to late eighties, like the Cro Mags, MDC, Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits, or took it to the next level by promoting veganism in the early nineties when it was largely unheard of, like Earth Crisis.
Speaking out for animals didn't win popularity contests in the eighties (in or outside the scene) and it definitely didn't make life easier for them on tour, but the message appealed to many active people in the scene, who stopped eating animals decades before it was cool.
One of the interviewees said that vegetarianism and veganism could spread in punk better than in any other scene because punks aren't scared to be different from the norm. I think this is true, just like Straightedge (a youth culture strictly abstaining from all drugs and alcohol) could only develop in the Hardcore scene, saying no to eating animals came much easier to Punks who never cared if they were seen as outcasts.
Fast forward to 2023 and be amazed how mainstream veg*anism is today, how common the label is in supermarkets and how widely available vegan options are almost everywhere in the world. Much of it has to do with the hardcore kids who got exposed to animal rights through punk and hardcore and started vegan restaurants, bakeries, food trucks, health food stores and other businesses, not just in the US, but all over Europe, Australia and Latin America as well.
Few of the people using vegan hashtags on Instagram or TikTok today have any idea who John Joseph, Ray Cappo or Karl Buechner are, and yet they have so much to thank them for. I know i do, over thirty years later and i still do not eat animals, long after being part of that scene, just like many of my friends from back in the day.
So glad Moby put this together, it's a great introduction to an aspect of the punk/hardcore scene that hasn't had much exposure, but deserves to be recognized for it's influence.
