Punk might have been born almost half a century ago – but it’s not dead.

One of the latest bands to carry the mantle is Punktuation – three Te Puke High School students who love the music as much for its attitude as its sound.

Fronting the band is Will King on guitar and vocals, with Jack Taylor on drums and Ahliyah Reihana on bass.

Formed last year, the band won through to the Smokefreerockquest Bay of Plenty final, winning the best song category, with just the second song Will had ever written.

They have also played regularly at Totara Street’s monthly College Colab gigs, at The Jam Factory at Tauranga Historic Village and in Blackbird Records in Te Puke.

Taylor was practising at school and was introduced to King by music teacher Josh Crump.

“Will came in and we played (Metallica’s) Seek and Destroy,” said Taylor.

“After that it was like, ‘we are doing Rockquest’ and I said ‘have we got a bassist?’ and he said ‘no’. So we went and saw Ahliyah. We played Rockquest and have just kept having gigs since then.”

King and Reihana were in Year 11 and Jack was in Year 13.

King said after getting together the trio just “played what we felt”.

“The first few songs were about not wanting to wake up for school and school photo days and procrastinating, that sort of thing.”

Sound checking at The Jam factory last Friday. Photo / Supplied

He said the music has always had “a punk thing, a bit of rebellion about school”.

The band’s only song on Spotify – so far – is called Procrastination. But the hope was that before too long a full album will be out.

The band played a mixture of originals and covers.

“We do a few old covers like Twist and Shout by the Beatles, some Joy Division songs, John Lennon.”

Nirvana is another significant influence.

“We are a punk band, we have a lot of punk songs, but we dabble in all genres, we take so many influences,” said King.

Before forming the band, King and Reihana had played a Metallica song at a school assembly and Reihana said she felt she fitted into the band well because “Will and Jack are really flexible”.

The band gets plenty of support from other students when they play live.

“[I just like] the vibe and the mood and seeing everyone jumping around,” said Reihana.

“Everyone’s into it and we like being in the middle of it,” said King.

The name Punktuation stood out from a long list put together by Taylor – but the band members were unaware that a band of the same name had been around the Tauranga music scene in the early 2010s.

“We had no idea about that,” said King.

“The hard thing about making a band is making a name. Jack came up with about 100 names and Punktuation stood out.”

The band hoped to repeat last year’s success and make it through to the regional Smokefreerockquest final at Totara St on June 13.

They are also part of a huge lineup of local bands playing at the Loserpalooza festival at the same venue on June 21.

The festival is raising funds for Lifeline.

Away from Punktuation, multi-instrumentalist King, who had been playing guitar for about three years, already has his own album out.

Taylor was drawn to the drums towards the end of Year 10 when he started playing his brother’s drum kit and Reihana had been playing bass since Year 9.

King also played a lot of jazz and was being taught by Les Robinson at DHL Groove music tuition. He also performs solo.