The Mummies are an American garage punk band formed in San Bruno, California, in 1988. Exhibiting a defiantly raw and lo-fi sound, dubbed "budget rock", the Mummies' rebellious attitude and distinctive performance costumes exerted a major influence on garage punk and garage rock revival acts later in the decade, as well as in the 1990s. Their recorded output was intentionally completed with poor, cheap equipment, including their first and only studio album Never Been Caught, which was released after the group's initial break-up. Since then, the Mummies have engaged in several positively-received reunion concerts and tours, including appearances in Europe and the US sporadically through to recent years. The band is currently working on a movie.

Garage punk is a rock music fusion genre combining the influences of garage rock, punk rock, and often other genres, that took shape in the indie rock underground between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bands drew heavily from 1960s garage rock, stripped-down 1970s punk rock, and Detroit proto-punk, and often incorporated numerous other styles into their approach, such as power pop, 1960s girl groups, hardcore punk, blues, early R&B and surf rock.