The band's "classic" line-up was now fully formed, featuring Rollins on vocals, Ginn on guitar, Cadena on rhythm guitar, Dukowski on bass, and Robo (also of The Misfits) on drums. And just like that, Henry Garfield becomes Henry Rollins, and the rest is history. A few days later, he gets a call inviting him up to audition for the band's new vocalist. After going up to see Black Flag play in New York, he hopped onstage with them to perform "Clocked In", since he had to drive back to DC to scoop ice cream the next day. This guy from DC had been playing in this band called State Of Alert and managing the local Haagen Daz. Cadena's vocal chords were being shredded to hell (check out some live stuff from him, you'll see why), and the band was in need of a new vocalist, since Cadena wanted to play rhythm guitar. The demos and outtakes from this era appear on Everything Went Black, which is a really interesting listen to hear each vocalist's take on the early songs. The main material these three guys put out with Black Flag is all included on The First Four Years, which is a punk rock essential. Their third vocalist was Dez Cadena, whose guttural shouts brought the band into an angrier, noisier territory. Their second vocalist, Ron Reyes, appeared on Jealous Again and came back to sing on 2013's What The., which is quite aptly titled, but we'll also get to that later. It's been infinitely influential to this day. Besides a bunch of demos, he only appeared on the band's debut EP, Nervous Breakdown, which is considered to be one of the first, if not the first, hardcore punk release ever. He also currently fronts Flag, but we'll get to that. He later formed the Circle Jerks, OFF!, and stayed very active in the punk community to this day. Black Flag also went through three singers, the first being Keith Morris. In the band's early days, the other most noteworthy member was bassist Chuck Dukowski, who stayed with them until '83.
Aside from him, the band had a revolving door of members that I could not even begin to get into details about. Basically, Black Flag began in Hermosa Beach, California under the name Panic in 1976 by the band's sole continuous member, guitarist Greg Ginn, whose label SST also released the band's material.
They've got a very long and rich history that's documented in a ton of great sources ( The Decline Of Western Civilization, Get In The Van, and many, many more) which do a much better job than I ever could. Trying to start an introduction on the band's history in no easy task.
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