D.R.I.

During the mid-'80s, the big guns in the American Punk scene began turning their sights more and more towards metal in their desire to stretch their legs musically. One can see this transition at work in D.R.I.'s releases from '82 to '88. The seminal Dirty Rotten LP from 1983 was the gust of innovation that blew many a Punk band in the direction of Thrash, while later releases such as Four of a Kind found the band slowing things down a bit and working with longer, more complex song structures. From the get-go, their irreverent and wickedly funny songwriting earned them a wide following in the skatepunk scene. Since then, they have managed to expand their following to include dyed-in-the-wool metal-heads and a whole new generation of punks via their appearance on the "Social Chaos Tour" of 1999.