There have been at least two Wasted Youths. The first Wasted Youth were a punk/new wave group from Canning Town in east London who released several records on the Bridge House label in the late 70s. Similarly to early The Only Ones their sound was very Lou Reed influenced. The first two singles "Jealousy" and "I'll Remember You" remain classics of their kind.

The second Wasted Youth was a band in early 80s from Los Angeles,California, who played classic hardcore punk. The band followed in the footsteps of Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, and were a prominent and popular act amongst the Los Angeles punk underground of the early 1980's.

Hailing from the "faster, louder" school, the band crafted a unique sound by removing all of the bass and most of the midrange frequencies from Chett Lehrer's guitars. Coupled with this is the often intricate bass work of Jeff Long, the tight drumming of Allen Stiritz, and the wail of Danny Spira. The band's first release, "Reagan's In" is a classic of early West Coast hardcore punk music. This entire album, with its ten songs, takes less then 15 minutes to complete and is famous for the Pushead Lamort artwork of Ronald Reagan on its front cover. The band went to school at Hawthorne High School, the same school from which the The Beach Boys, Redd Kross and Chris Montez hailed.

Later releases moved toward more and more of a metal sound, culminating with their last album, "Black Daze." Members went on to perform in the tribal-industrial group Savage Republic, Joey Castillo became a drummer for Danzig, whilst also forming Sugartooth and later on joining Queens of the Stone Age while Dave Kusner, who played guitar on Black Daze, went on to become a member of chart topper Velvet Revolver.