Wasted Youth (American band)

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Wasted Youth was a rock band in early 1980s from Los Angeles, California, who played classic hardcore punk. The band followed in the footsteps of Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, and were a prominent and popular act amongst the Los Angeles punk underground of the early 1980s.

Hailing from the "faster, louder" school, the band crafted a unique sound by removing all of the bass and most of the mid-range frequencies from Chett Lehrer's guitars. Coupled with this is the often intricate bass work of Jeff Long, the tight drumming of Allen Stiritz, and the wail of Danny Spira. The band's first release, Reagan's In is a classic of early West Coast hardcore punk music. This entire album, with its ten songs, takes less then 15 minutes to complete, and is famous for the Pushead Lamort artwork of Ronald Reagan on its front cover.

Later releases moved toward more and more of a heavy metal sound, culminating with their last album, Black Daze. Wasted Youth came out and prospered at the same time as bands such as The Adolescents, TSOL, Social Distortion, Bad Religion, Agent Orange, The Stains, and others were dominating the vibrant punk scene in the early 1980s in Los Angeles.

Members went on to perform in the tribal-industrial group Savage Republic; Joey Castillo became a drummer for Danzig and later Queens of the Stone Age; while Dave Kushner, who played guitar on Black Daze, went on to become a member of the chart topping rockers, Velvet Revolver.