The Queers are an American punk rock band, formed in 1981 by Portsmouth, New Hampshire native Joseph “Joe” P. King (a.k.a.

With the addition of Keith Hages (ex-guitarist of Berlin Brats) joining on bass in 1983 the band started playing their first public performances.

Records, the band rescinded their master rights from the label, citing breach of contract over unpaid royalties.

[6] The original line-up consisted of guitarist/vocalist Joe “Queer” King, bassist Tulu, and drummer Wimpy Rutherford.

While Queer was on the west coast he saw many of the original Los Angeles punk rock bands including the Zeros, the Germs, Black Flag, the Dickies, Fear, and Angry Samoans.

[8] All three had previously played in earlier bands before forming the Queers including the Objects, the Falling Spikes, the Bugs, and the Monsignors.

After listening to Blood Sausage, the band members were all collectively of the opinion that they could "do much better" and commenced to writing original songs.

Tulu then wrote the Queers' first classic, “We’d Have A Riot Doing Heroin”, right on the spot “in about two minutes” and the band was born.

A phone call was made to Tulu to inform him that they had written a great new batch of songs, discussed re-forming the band, and recording another EP.

Shortly after the breakup the Webelos EP was released and Wimpy then went to college in Arizona, Tulu moved to Boston, Massachusetts and reformed the Mosignors, while Joe owned a successful restaurant café while remaining in New Hampshire.

[8] While never releasing a proper album at the time, the 1996 compilation A Day Late and a Dollar Short compiled the Love Me EP (1982), the Kicked Out of the Webelos EP (1984), a studio session dating from 1993 recording original songs that were written in 1983 but not recorded in the band’s original era, demo tracks in 1991, and an East Orange, New Jersey live performance in 1994 on independent community radio station WFMU.

[10] In 1986, Joe formed a new version of the band with DMZ guitarist J. J. Rassler, bassist Kevin Kecy, and drummer Hugh O'Neill.

In 1990, this line-up released the band's debut album, Grow Up, on a small English label called Shakin' Street Records.

Records owner Larry Livermore to sign the Queers, who released their second album, Love Songs for the Retarded, on Lookout!

The band had been offered a three-album deal with Epitaph Records, which King was in favor of, but B-Face and O'Neill weren't.

The rift over this caused King to replace them with bassist Dave Swain from Jon Cougar Concentration Camp, and The Dwarves drummer Chris Fields.

[8][11] After leaving the Queers, B-Face would play bass for Chixdiggit!, the Mopes, and the Groovie Ghoulies, while O'Neill developed brain cancer, dying on January 20, 1999.

Bands/artists covered by The Queers include The Beach Boys, Ramones (including a complete re-recording of the Rocket to Russia album), Unnatural Axe, The Nobodys, Angry Samoans, The Mr. T Experience, Skeeter Davis, The Fantastic Baggys, The Who, The Undertones, The Hobos, Tommy James and The Shondells, Helen Love, The Catalogs (from Hawaii, featuring Les Hernandez of The Quintessentials), The Banana Splits and many more.

[24][25] In 2008, a tribute album titled God Save The Queers was released, which featured covers by bands including Dwarves, Screeching Weasel, Teengenerate, New Bomb Turks, The Jolts, Hard-Ons, Toys That Kill, Parasites, Toothless George, and The Unlovables.

Steinhardt later apologized for the open letter, stating "I remain personally appalled by Joe Queer's defense of Darren Wilson, his use of the term Obongo regarding the president...at the same time, I recognize that a better way to go about this would be more thoughtful discussion directly with the people involved."

"The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, the Dickies, the Angry Samoans, Flipper, X — they were funny, but they had a message.

The mid-1980s line-up was Joe Queer, JJ Rassler, Hugh O'Neill with Kevin Kecy or Evan Shore.