Punk’s Not Dead. And Neither is Legs McNeil

“I Thought I’d Be Dead at 30”: The legendary, disputatious co-founder of Punk Magazine is still alive and in a score-settling mood

Oct 29, 2026

Legs McNeil didn’t invent punk rock, because he isn’t a musician (although few of the original punks were) and never pretended to be, though one could be forgiven for thinking he had, considering all of his friends were. But he has a very strong claim to having named it, and to having shaped its aesthetics and attitude. In 1975, he showed up in New York City and, along with his childhood friend (turned lifelong moral enemy) John Holmstrom, started Punk magazine. The movement, still shapeless and unfocused, was now called something, because burgeoning moral panics are ineffective without a name. Legs barely survived the era but would ultimately become its most famous chronicler; his oral history of the movement, Please Kill Me, has, by his count, sold well over two million copies.

Legs stopped by the SoHo studio to discuss his new memoir, Resident Punk; why he thinks Patti Smith’s Just Kids was dishonest; why thinks Tom Verlaine was a pretentious jerk; his complicated relationship with Sinéad O’Connor; and how he ended up flying naked over the crowd at a Scorpions concert in Budapest.