Adolescents

The Adolescents are a punk rock band formed in Fullerton, California, in 1980, part of the first wave of Southern California hardcore alongside bands like Social Distortion, Agent Orange and T.S.O.L. The group grew out of a tight-knit circle of Orange County musicians, and its original lineup notably included guitarist brothers Rikk and Frank Agnew (later of Social Distortion) and bassist Steve Soto, who also played in Agent Orange. Vocalist Tony Cadena fronted the band through most of its classic era.

The band is best known for its 1981 self-titled debut album, often called the Blue Album, a foundational record of American hardcore punk that mixed aggressive tempos with unusually melodic, almost pop-tinged songwriting. The track «Kids of the Black Hole» became one of the album's most celebrated songs, chronicling a real Orange County squat house that was a hub for the local punk scene. «Amoeba» is another enduring fan favorite from that era.

Over more than four decades the Adolescents have broken up and reunited multiple times, cycling through upward of twenty members while Soto remained the group's steady core until his death in 2018. Despite the lineup turnover, the band's influence on melodic hardcore and later pop-punk is widely acknowledged, and they continued releasing new material and touring well into the 2010s and 2020s.