“I WASN’T GOING TO SMOKE ANGEL DUST OR ROB PEOPLE…” — One brutally honest confession just gave fans a raw new look at punk history. Quicksand’s Walter Schreifels opened up about growing up in New York, where chaos, danger, and self-destruction were part of the scene surrounding him. While many were pulled toward reckless choices, he says one unexpected movement became his escape route: straight edge. What sounded like rebellion from the outside was, for him, a way to survive. The interview also revisits a vanished era of CBGB, filthy bathrooms, late-night shows, and a city where young outsiders built their identity through music. Between stories of Blondie, hardcore legends, and learning guitar against the odds, Schreifels paints a world that was messy, loud, and life-changing. But the detail hitting hardest now isn’t just what he rejected… it’s the one sentence he said about why so many people were drawn to hardcore in the first place.
“I wasn’t going to smoke angel dust or rob people, so I thought straight edge was a good antidote.” The Beatles, Blondie, New York hardcore and those disgusting CBGBs toilets: an interview with Quicksand’s Walter Schreifels (Image credit: Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images) Walter Schreifels has been releasing music for close to 40 years and has been … Read more