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At
the time of this writing, a resurgent Dead Kennedys will have brought
their sarcastic yet socially conscious, politically pointed Punk Rock
music through the shores of Japan and Russia for first time ever shows
in support of their recently released "Mutiny On The Bay" live CD
- an unlikely event considering they originally played their last
show together way back in March of 1986 shortly before disbanding,
then personally disjointing about a decade later.
"The fact of the matter is he took money and hid money from the band.
and refused to acknowledge it and still refuses to acknowledge it.
he just got caught in a conflict of interest." - EBR
By now to most familiar with the scene, the legal battles between
former lead singer Jello Biafra and the rest of the band over royalties
and rights to their back catalog are old news. The above caption states
in succinct terms, the open and shut facts as expressed by founding
guitarist and current interviewee East Bay Ray (hereafter referred
to as "EBR" or simply "Ray") relating to the Dead Kennedys vs. Jello
Biafra court case which began back in 1997. Thus, a band, built on
the principles of democracy, having since overthrown the fraudulent
attempts by a misdirected despot, have effectively won back their
rights and moved forward with a new singer and new home for the catalog
at issue - or "reissue" as the case may be. More information on the
case can be obtained at www.deadkennedysnews.com. To matters of future
significance, Dead Kennedys are again a force to be reckoned with
in an American Punk community they helped define 25 years ago. Theirs
was the urgent voice of discontent that made famous the necessary
but often overlooked democratic ideals of questioning authority, equality,
and personal accountability in their pointed lyrics and scathing rhythmic
attack. There were few competitors. The Dead Kennedys were every bit
about musical unity as they were about freedom of expression. In winning
back the rights to their catalog the band has reaped a harvest of
sales figure successes surpassing the 100,000 mark of the digitally
remastered reissues of all their late great landmark albums. In addition,
the band celebrated by scheduling vinyl reissues to be concluded early
this year along with a previous reissue of their classic "Dead Kennedys
- The Early Years Live" video and the new "Mutiny On The Bay" CD.
"Our reissue campaign on Manifesto Records has been an incredible
success," enthuses EBR. "It's great to be back in control of our own
music and the fans have really responded. The new remasters sound
fantastic, way better than the older CD's that's for sure." "Dead
Kennedys - The Early Years Live" features the band performing live
from various venues from 1978 - 1981 and includes highlight performances
from the acclaimed Mabuhay Gardens, the San Francisco club where they
first got their start. While plans remain for a second live tape,
EBR reveals additional plans to uncover another unexpected find: "We're
in the process of working on a DVD of us recording 'In God We Trust'.
it's actually a recording of us recording. So there'll be a lot of
live and in studio footage." How did this surface? "Klaus (Flouride
- bass player) was looking through about 40 or 50 hours worth of tape
and he ran across this kind of documentary footage of us doing 'God'.
We were originally going to do a continuation of our 'Early Years'
video with different songs and venues and such - which we'll probably
still do at some point - but we just ran across this and thought it
was pretty unique. There's not really much in the way of Punk bands
recording themselves in the studio."
Of course in the aftermath of the court proceedings, the band's reformation
was not only in doubt, their legitimacy to proceed without their outspoken
vocalist and chief lyricist, Biafra, would be forced into question.
Why can some bands merely get away with "replacing" a lead singer
or other dominant presence, while others go on to even greater degrees
of success or in some cases implode altogether, is a subject for day
long debates of inconclusiveness. "A lot of people (who doubted us)
don't realize how important the musicians were to Dead Kennedys,"
was Ray's brief conclusion on the topic that will shortly garner more
attention. Weighted against the principles of the "band" as opposed
to one or another member, there may be no single bigger musical interest
on the whole, and certainly in Punk spheres, than Dead Kennedys, who
concurrent to their courtroom clashes, still provided for a group-related
vote to their former frontman. On the recent Dead Kennedys reformation,
EBR had this to say: "We've only been doing this for a little over
a year now. We were re-releasing the records on Manifesto and doing
a record release party for the "Mutiny" CD and just kind of fell into
it really. The party was going to be in Los Angeles and Klaus, DH,
and I were going to be there. We'd planned to meet and greet people,
sign autographs and shake hands. that type of thing. There were going
to be some bands playing - The Angry Samoans, The Stitches, The Cell
Blocks. and DH came up with the idea of us getting up and playing
some tunes too. DH also knew of Brandon Cruz from the band Dr. Know,
and so we all did a bit of rehearsing and next thing you know there's
a bunch of people outside the studio and the rumor hits the street.
Then the club ends up selling out like three weeks in advance! We
were unannounced and unadvertised; We didn't know how people would
feel about the band and the music with only ¾'s of the original members,
but like I said, it sold out. and there were like 300 more people
out front. The promoter was amazed. We had a majority of younger kids
in the audience who'd never seen us before and of course some who
were older and yeah, it was just amazing. We were amazed at the amount
of love there was for the music. That, to me, is when we realized
the music's more powerful than the individuals. And there was this
agent there offering us more gigs to get the ball rolling and we've
been doing it ever since."
 Considering
the magnitude of touring and venues the band has since played, any
lingering questions about whether (they should) or why (they have)
have been resoundingly silenced. With successful shows throughout
the U.S. and Europe fueled by massive festivals highlighted by Germany's
"With Full Force" where DK shared the stage with Biohazard and Slayer
in front of a crowd of 46,000, the band, vindicated in their ideological
passions of music for positive change, took great leaps forward from
their far removed prime with even bigger shows planned for the future.
Ray adds: "We've been to South America, we've been all over the U.S.
again, we're going to Japan for the first time ever, and Russia. We're
going back to Europe and the UK to bigger places than we did the first
time, cause admittedly, there was a lot of skepticism the first time
around. People thought we couldn't pull it off, but I'm proud to say
the skeptics who came were convinced."
EBR and I take a look back reexamine why exactly, when so few bands
could survive such a loss as that of a charismatic platform pushing
vocalist like Biafra, could come back even stronger and effectively
influence a whole new generation of people. Could it be because their
words still cut like a buzzbomb through the bowels of a too often
brain dead and blind society? EBR discusses a little about the band's
history with commentary on the shifting Punk scene from when they
began: "Klaus, DH, and myself really have a unique style and when
you put them together, it comes out like that 'sound', and also the
audiences have been really intelligent. I mean, when we started in
San Francisco at the Mabuhay, the shows would consist of an Art band,
a Pop band, and a Punk band all on the same bill. You'd have this
mix of people and this mix of ideas - words like 'germinate' or 'crossbreed'
would continually come up. By around '83 - '84 the group's split apart
and the Punk scene became one thing, the Pop scene became a sort of
New Wave scene, and the Art scene was. what it was, and by around
'85 - '86 the Punk shows turned into this macho, testosterone-based,
power trip thing. It was more about how many people can you knock
over - not every show, but enough - and it just wasn't fun for us
to play them anymore. But the touring we've been doing this last year
has reminded me of the golden age of Punk. We have a mixed audience;
there are some younger people and we've got the older ones that saw
us before. We've had women in the pit - women stage diving, where
it's allowed (laughs) and you know, people are being really responsible
and helpful. It's not this idea of how many elbows can you throw and
so forth."
"We've always been a very politically and socially conscious band.
and unfortunately, a lot of what we've sung about - 'Life Sentence',
'Police Truck', 'Kill The Poor', whatever, still applies today." -
EBR
With a band like DK, the message in the music, and really an analysis
of the art form at its core, or at least its most influential, will
reveal the basis of deviation as drawing democratic-bred distinctions
toward difference making whether it's promoting free thinking with
furious fist pumps or ass-bearing, nose-thumbing delivery mechanisms;
more so than any other musical style or function, Punk Rock remains
philosophically unchangeable and so allows for a uniquely generational
spanning art with less limitations than most. EBR, obviously moved
at the size, mix, and ability of today's DK audience, concurs with
said theory (phew!) and reveals the band member tastes as "open" when
it comes to musical forms and a sort of "togetherness" and "chemistry"
that allowed for DK's uniqueness, and adding: "When I was remastering
the CD's I was pretty blown away by some of what we'd done at the
time; it was like, wow, I remember that; That was pretty wacky. we
really did take things out there pretty far!" (Laughs)
But then there were your "Too Drunk To Fuck's" that no matter how
responsible your intent, could be shielded from criticism just so
long. "That was a top 40 hit in the United Kingdom!" laughs Ray. "But
we also had a sense of humor in there definitely, which I think is
important." Soon after, we skim over the idea of politics and humor,
two perfectly blended and widely used elements to the DK character
where songs like "Too Drunk." inexcusable in the extremes of precedent
setting, push the issue anthems, suggests, yes, this was a young band,
loose, loud, disrespectful, yet all the more impressive in the accepting
of their share of social responsibility. But with all this serious
talk, doesn't a name like "Dead Kennedys" evoke instant controversy?
Shouldn't it? "I've heard two stories," remarks Ray, "but basically,
Biafra supposedly got it from a friend of a friend. That's the story
but the question is who the friend of the friend is. That's the part
I don't know about. Yeah, I mean, people were just sitting around
thinking of cool Punk Rock names. and that one had suitable shock
value." (Laughs) And? "Well you know from our viewpoint, America in
the '60s, before the assassinations, was kind of a time of idealism
and people - what's the JFK line? 'Ask not what your country can do
for you but ask what you can do for your country.' And he doesn't
mean the government, he means what you can do for your country. your
community and fellow citizens. After the JFK assassination, Robert
Kennedy, MLK, America became self-centered and more cynical and still
hasn't recovered that innocent idealism that had existed. So the name
also signifies the loss of that idealism and our lyrics and music
suggesting that maybe it's time to bring those back."
Let's also address the topic of singers a little bit further. Most
people in the Punk community probably know of Brandon Cruz from fronting
the band Dr. Know, so it's not like some fresh-faced little kid (oh,
then you have seen the '70s sitcom!?) coming in off the street looking
for his first big break. Brandon's definitely logged some mileage
in the scene for a while. "Yeah, and like I said before, we're going
back to Europe to nearly 50% bigger venues and basically the band's
message is still the same - only the singer's have changed. only the
voice has changed. Ultimately what's more important, the message or
the personality? But from back in the day, we'd already played some
shows with Dr. Know with Brandon singing for them, so we're all pretty
familiar with each other. And Brandon does his own style; he's been
a lead singer for a while so he's got his own routine going." Any
possibility of there being any new "fruit" to pick from in the near
future? "We've talked about it but right now we've been so busy touring
and running around. but it's possible."
Each of DK's records offer a distinctive sound that embody the spirit
of Punk aggression yet flawlessly transcend it, often breaking into
a variety of mixed fragments that fall between Pop, Goth, Blues. and
Rockabilly fueled guitar jams augmented by Speedracer style scales
on a high speed picking spree that kicks sand in the face of the traditional
sixties' surf scene. EBR discusses a little about the earlier influences
that helped develop DK's musical dynamic: "As a musician it's an honor
for people to come and hear me play," begins Ray. "These riffs that
I created and recorded, to have them recognized and valued is really
special to me as a musician. It was bizarre in the beginning, but
my dad exposed me to a lot of Duke Ellington and the Blues. stuff
like Lightning Hopkins and Muddy Waters back in the day. I was never
really into '70s music when I was growing up. Klaus's line was that
he got into Punk Rock because of The Eagles. he didn't like The Eagles
(Laughs). Since then I've discovered AC/DC and Aerosmith. These are
the kind of big '70s bands that were pretty cool. And I've also discovered
The Ohio Players and the funkier stuff of the time. So I used to listen
to all sorts of stuff when I was young. and probably was very eccentric
in that way. But as a guitar player, the 'Sun Sessions' with Elvis
Presley was a big influence. Then there was Scotty Moore playing his
guitar into an echo unit like 'Mystery Train.' that sound of 'Mystery
Train' was what inspired me to get an Echoplex. I also liked the first
Pink Floyd record with Syd Barrett on it - again going back to the
idea of an echo. and then there are some people who say I've got a
'surf' sound. like that Dick Dale style of double-picking, but I never
really listened to 'surf' music so maybe it's just the idea of growing
up in California."
Some small talk ensues about fellow Punk vets, The Damned, and how
each, while different, stretch conditional components of Punk music
to richer extremes - Dead Kennedys will actually be playing with them
in the UK in April - where elements of Goth, Drama, psychic fill effects,
and so forth make strange bedfellows to the ideals of traditionally
aimed fury where "Lynching Landlord's" or "Smashing It Up's" are concerned,
but then. "Especially on the CD 'Plastic Surgery Disasters' and 'Frankenchrist'
a lot of those elements exist. there's a kind of Avant Garde Jazz
type mix." Furthering brief themes of individual album content, Ray
adds that "Frankenchrist" gets a little bit "freaky" with an increased
use of "western trumpets," and, "some of them are really short," regarding
the songs on "Bedtime For Democracy" bow out, and then I'm reminded
of "I Spy," the song, and again drawing comparisons to many of DK's
mid-point jam sessions when suddenly "Enter The Dragon" appears in
the background and there's Bruce Lee slipping carefully through the
dark amidst subtle theme music, precursory to violent outbursts and
fearful aftereffects. Ray's never seen the movie. Okay, and so what's
this I've been reading then, with all of the positive build up about
your comeback and recent successes, that you're banned from playing
certain clubs in San Francisco. still? "Well the booker's a personal
friend of Biafra's. something the reporter failed to report. Yeah,
it's basically got to do with personal vindictiveness and nothing
more. The clubs are going for the old fogy music or something. They're
the music mafia clubs here, which makes it kind of funny that we're
banned. It's like, what else is new for The Dead Kennedys?" Who are
some bands you follow from the Bay Area you think have potential to
make a move? "My favorite local band is The Glamour Pussies. They
are like ultra-Punk. They don't care (laughs) but they actually have
some pretty catchy tunes. They're made up of all women who wear different,
wacky outfits every time they play. It reminds me of way back when
the first time I saw The Weirdos play before we formed. They inspired
me to put together a Punk band. so this is like, wow, it's not cliché
ridden, shall we say? So that to me makes it real Punk!"
Biafra said, 'Let the audience decide', way back over a year ago.
and then the audience was coming to the show and guess what? He files
a lawsuit against us. That should tell you all you need to know about
that (Laughs).
Ray and I return to the idea of carrying on in the future without
their original singer; He, shrugging off the notion of potential backlash
by the old school traditionalist, and me, dissatisfied to let the
issue yet rest regarding the loss of an outspoken, almost iconic figure
who'd apparently granted his ego an insurmountable head start. "If
you come and actually see the show and judge for yourself, which is
what DK is about. that's what was so funny about us being banned in
San Francisco. DK is not about telling people what to think; it's
about telling people to think for themselves. and the powers that
be got corrupted. But some people don't want to change and I understand
that. It's an old school way of thinking but nobody's the way they
used to be. It's a fact, everything changes one way or another."
On playing the old classics again. "Yeah we've played 'em all. I'm
subjective of course, but it's actually better than it used to be.
musically speaking. No it's not fresh and new, but musically, the
actual notes and our musicianship shows a better quality. But Punk
isn't a religious cult either. There are those people that want to
turn music into some sort of religious item and it's just really bizarre."
On the issue of the band's potential and perceived loss of credibility
through commerciality stemming from some people's objections to a
certain reissued, or "reselling" of an American Punk legend, EBR concludes:
"People can be small minded and bitter; Some will discover a band
in a club that's underground and then when that band becomes successful
they don't like them anymore. It's like a reverse designer jeans philosophy
or something. (Laughs). My identity exists because I know this band
that nobody else knows. it's like an in/out identity I think, where
it's not really about music, but in a certain sense, it's got to do
with being cool. It comes from insecurity. With a band like Dead Kennedys,
we're opposed to that kind of rigid thinking and. it's like, get a
life. You know, there are bigger issues in the world today. like,
what does Iraq have to do with Al Queda and all that other of stuff?
The government wants to eliminate taxes on dividends so only working
people will be taxed. So yeah, there are much more important issues
to debate." Right now, regarding their decision to play together again,
it appears as though East Bay Ray and the rest of DK's remaining members
are winning that one hands down.
Some quick EBR clips that didn't fit into the overall scheme but were
too cool to cut out:
"Nirvana came out in the '90s and brought that kind of Punky sound
that became much more acceptable to the people, and as a consequence,
people rediscovered us. Actually our sales went up when Nirvana came
out."
"A lot of music on the radio is overproduced."
"I've always had a soft spot for one-hit wonders."
"To be honest, when we broke up, all of us thought, well, in two years
we'll be having day jobs." "A good band has a chemistry between people.
There's a difference between a solo record and a band record." "When
I saw The Dictators I was like, wow, this is better than a lot of
the bands that are getting promoted on the radio!" -
"Really good Rock bands I describe as having an operatic aspect -
they have music, they have costumes, they have characters. Even The
Beatles and The Stones, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones. they have characters,
costumes, and music."
"Back when the lawsuit started, people were like, 'How can you do
that?' Well how can we let someone rip us off? You know that wouldn't
be Punk."
"I met Slayer. one of the guitar players is a DK fan. It was Biohazard,
Slayer, and us. Yeah, it was big."
"We weren't influenced in our decision to shut it down in the mid
'80s because of the popular music scene. It was just that the audiences
were changing and our own well had begun to run dry at the time."
"I put an ad in the paper and a record store. Klaus answered and Biafra
answered. So we started working on songs and got a drummer and got
another guitar player and we did our first show in July 1978. We had
our drummer for about a week!"
"The Beatles sued one another. The Sex Pistols sued one another. The
Misfits sued one another. The Beach Boys. I mean, okay, it makes good
copy for your daily paper or tabloids, but ultimately, the music's
much more powerful than any of that. Do you care now that The Sex
Pistols sued one another?"
Related Websites For More On DK:
http://www.deadkennedys.com
http://www.deadkennedysnews.com
http://www.holidaysinthesun.net
http://www.musicvideodistributors.com
http://www.spin.com/new/features/punk
http://www.manifesto.com
http://www.winstonsmith.com
Interview by Vinnie Apicella
va85@columbia.edu
©
1998-2003 Sinbad Productions / BallBusterHardMusic.com
No Material, Written, May Be Reproduced Without Permission From SinBad
Prods/Communciations and or the Recording Artist and Their
Representation
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