“Sometimes New Jersey could get a bad rap for being an angry, unenlightened, and unwelcoming place, but in those sweaty VFW halls and community college parking lots, you could find yourself right at home among like-minded progressives who became your found family of friends overnight as you sang along to your favorite bands side by side,” Saves the Day frontman Chris Conley said last year, in the midst of their New Jersey Vs. The World tour with Senses Fail. “I’m sure, somewhere in that vast territory, the same spirit is alive and well even today.” With his band, Conley established a legacy alongside other early 2000s giants like Thursday, the Dillinger Escape Plan, and My Chemical Romance, helping to alter the culture through intense, heart-on-sleeve confessionals. With one of its greatest exports kicking off their Long Live The Black Parade tour last week, we asked our readers to name the best bands from New Jersey, and their answers didn’t fall short. Find the top fan picks ranked below.
Read more: Backstage with Geoff Rickly, Keith Buckley, and Walter Schreifels
5. The Gaslight Anthem
The Gaslight Anthem’s New Jersey roots are entrenched in their identity and storytelling. New Jersey possesses a rich musical history, most significantly as the home of Bruce Springsteen, whose influence looms large in the Gaslight Anthem’s music (and features on their 2023 song “History Books”). Like Springsteen, the band write about the working class, broken hearts, and the hope that permeates blue-collar towns. “The Diamond Church Street Choir” alludes to New Brunswick, where the band formed, whereas “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts” name-checks Cookman Avenue and Asbury Park. It’s this sense of place that gives their music depth and weight, contributing to the region’s vibrant legacy.
4. Senses Fail
“The No. 1 stereotype is that everyone from New Jersey is a jerk and an asshole, and that is pretty true,” Senses Fail’s Buddy Nielsen told us. “Except for the fact that everyone has the biggest heart and is absolutely amazing.” Like the rest of the bands on this list, their roots are vital to their identity and sound. While earlier bands like Lifetime and the Bouncing Souls helped push the scene forward, Senses Fail bridged the gap between the worlds of punk, post-hardcore, and emo in the early 2000s. Alongside Thursday, My Chemical Romance, and Midtown, they came up in a scene that was more emotionally raw, blending metalcore breakdowns, post-hardcore intensity, and poetic lyrics into a cathartic whole. Along the way, they always exhibited a sense of Garden State pride, shouting out the region with songs like “New Jersey Makes, The World Take” and “NJ Falls Into the Atlantic.”
3. Misfits
If any band embodied the outsider spirit of New Jersey the most, it was Misfits. They spearheaded the scene’s hardcore underground through their DIY-minded approach, aggressive attitude, and murky theatrics — a reaction to the boredom and dreariness of living in their small town of Lodi. Their weird and revolutionary music channeled that frustration into a dramatic, horror-obsessed strain of punk that stood apart from their contemporaries, creating something ghoulishly new. Their legacy extends to the generation of bands they’ve inspired since, including everyone from Metallica to Green Day.
2. Thursday
Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly grew up in Dumont and started attending basement shows while attending Rutgers in the mid-’90s. During his second year, Rickly and his friends rented a house at 331 Somerset St. that had a basement where they could throw shows. Thursday exist because of that very space. “The reason we started the band was just to play one of my basement shows,” he recalled in 2022, reflecting on the storied scene. “More people will come to see a touring band if the local house band is playing. It’ll be more of a hangout and supporting your friends… Even now to this day, when we go onstage, the first thing I say to the crowd is, ‘Hey, we’re Thursday from New Brunswick, New Jersey.’ It still in my mind identifies what kind of music we play.”
1. My Chemical Romance
No surprise, My Chemical Romance received an overwhelming number of votes from our readers. Though Gerard Way formed the band after witnessing the 9/11 attacks while interning for Cartoon Network, the frontman has referenced the “grayness” of the New Jersey suburbs as a significant influence behind their dark, theatrical aesthetic. There’s also their NJ peers Misfits, whose devilish punk became foundational to their image and sound. Through it all, MCR have stayed connected to their roots, even playing a 9/11 show with Thursday (who influenced their early sound and whose frontman, Rickly, produced I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love) during their reunion tour in 2022.