emma_goldman
28th July 2006, 08:48
Port Folio Weekly
Make Room for Jello
Former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, who'll be
performing spoken word at the NorVa on Tuesday, has no love
for the Bush administration, no patience for subtlety and no
trouble saying what's on his mind. In a recent phone
interview with Port Folio Weekly, Biafra talked about
everything from "California Über Alles" to Al Qaeda.
By Will Harris
Tuesday, Jun. 27, 2006
As frontman for the seminal California punk band the Dead
Kennedys, Jello Biafra has never shied away from
controversy. But at the root of everything he's done in his
career -- both musically and as a well-respected spoken-word
artist -- is a desire to educate. Biafra has continued to
release music since departing the Kennedys in 1986,
including a 2005 collaboration with the Melvins that
featured a reworking of a DK classic for the Schwarzenegger
era ("Kali-Fornia Über Alles 21st Century"), but his
appearance at the NorVa on June 27 will find him speaking
his mind before a seated crowd. If it's anything like the
comments he offered in his interview with Port Folio Weekly,
don't be surprised if someone tries to throw one of the
chairs at him. (After all, this is Pat Robertson country.)
Biafra requested in advance that the interview be taped. He
began our conversation by noting that we'd just missed a
chance to record his bathroom break, then went on to brag
about a pornographic paperweight he'd recently received. The
remainder of the conversation was considerably more elevated.
It's a real honor to talk to you. I admit that I did not
discover the Dead Kennedys until Frankenchrist came out, but
after that, I was driving people crazy, forcing people to
listen to No More Cocoons. It was definitely one of the
first times I found myself becoming aware of politics.
Well, good. It's a job, but someone's got to do it. That's
one of the reasons that I don't believe that art should be
subtle.
I know your lyrics have always been political, but do you
ever find it hard to flip-flop between music and spoken word?
It is kind of hard to concentrate fully on both at the same
time. And, plus, there's Alternative Tentacles [the label
Biafra owns] and all kinds of other things going on, so
there isn't always as much time for music as I would like.
Especially with unending harassment from greedy former band
members and great, big, nasty corporate lawyers.
Well, I was going to hold off asking about that, but now
you've given me the perfect segue.
Yeah, it's as ugly as it ever was. I mean, I'm not allowed
any say in how the band is pimped any more . . . and I
emphasize the word "pimped." I'm not allowed to see all the
books; they've *never* adequately explained how "Viva Las
Vegas" got into American Idol or an ad for The O.C.
overseas. And, now, I guess they're in negotiations with
some big, slick Hollywood manager whose website lists
experience with sports stars and Britney Spears.
Oh, geez.
And no matter what they try, I will not be forced into that.
I mean, they've alternately tried to arm-twist and
sweet-talk me into rejoining the band, but, y'know, I have
no interest in dumbing down something that means as much to
me as Dead Kennedys does. I actually care more about the
quality and integrity of the songs than they ever did.
Did you ever consider contributing to those reissues [of the
Dead Kennedys' back catalog] that have been going on from
Manifesto Records, or . . .
I have no trust or respect for Manifesto at all. I would
never do anything to let them use me or exploit me any more
than they already have, you know. But they took advantage of
an ugly situation when everybody from Epitaph to Fat to
Lookout! to SubPop to Caroline said, "No, thanks," because
they didn't want a key member of the band . . . if not *the*
key member of the band . . . getting screwed the whole time.
They didn't want their hands on that.
So, in general, as far as seeing the material reissued and
expanded, if it had been something that could've been worked
out . . .
It hasn't really been expanded, either, except for that
horrible DVD on Fresh Fruit (for Rotting Vegetables).
Yeah, that's what I was referring to.
Yeah, I steered clear of that one, too. I just felt the
quality was so poor there was nothing I could do to save it,
so the best thing I could do was to not be part of it.
Were you upset when your ex-wife [Ninotchka] contributed to
the documentary?
Ugh, that's too much of a tabloid question.
Fair enough.
The director of the documentary did not tell me she was in
it, but there's a lot of things I don't get told. But I
*did* get numerous letters from Norfolk, complaining that
the singer [of the Dead Kennedys, one of his replacements]
had at the time [they played the NorVa in 2002] called me a
terrorist on stage.
I did not realize that.
And claimed that I didn't love my country because I didn't
support the war or terror, and whatnot.
Well, since you've brought up the area, have you thought
about putting Pat Robertson on the guest list?
If there's anyone who has enough money to pay to get into
the show, it's him. I mean, he got his money even more
dishonestly than the ex-members of Dead Kennedys have…and
uses it for really sinister stuff. And what especially makes
me sick is after the horrible tragedy in New Orleans,
President Bush suggested people who wanted to help donate
money not to the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity, let
alone a grass-roots organization in the city like Common
Ground Collective, he told people to give money to Operation
Blessing. . . . Maybe that's another example of a
faith-based initiative. I don't know. I mean, I hope this
whole war isn't a faith-based initiative.
On a related note, do you think Bush is a sincere religious
nut, or do you think he's more cynically calculating?
I think he's probably . . . probably a combination of both.
I mean, it's always dangerous when you have an actor
pretending he's the president or the governor or whatever.
At least Reagan knew he was an actor who was just supposed
to read his cue cards and act presidential while his pals
and his wife's friends looted the country. But Bush is so
stupid and so delusional that he probably thinks he really
is president! And the regents around the clown prince know
that all they have to do is plant a few words in his head,
and he'll do anything they want. But some of the things that
come out of his mouth that don't get reported really scare
me. Contrast all the tabloid media coverage on Howard Dean's
frat-boy scream in Iowa with the things they don't talk
about with Bush . . . like him telling a group of Amish
people in 2004 that God speaks through him. I mean, other
people that say God speaks through them are fruitcakes, like
Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden. That scares me a lot more
than Howard Dean's frat-boy scream. And, then, in Bob
Woodward's last book, he asks King George how he thinks
history is going to judge his escapades, and Bush just
smirks back and answers, "We don't know; we'll all be dead."
Does this mean that he's one of these end-times,
last-generation, reconstructionist-type Christian
supremacists who actually hopes for Armageddon soon? 'Cause
then Jesus will come back and put back all the natural
resources, balance the federal budget, and let him be
Commissioner of Baseball . . . ? I mean, some of these
theories I don't mind. The Rapture, I think, is kind of
cool. All these hardcore fundamentalist bigots suddenly
rising up from the ground, naked, and flying off into the
sky, and leaving the rest of us in peace, so we can finally
put the planet back together . . . I think that's a great
idea! But Armageddon doesn't, uh, seem like quite such a
good shopping experience.
Do you think there's any one person in the Democratic party
who can rescue it from turning into Republican Lite, or do
you think a third party is going to be the only option . . . ?
There's a handful of decent Democrats left, but most of them
seem to be African-American women. People like Maxine
Waters, Barbara Lee, Cynthia McKinney . . . they're pretty
cool. I mean, I doubt if I agree with all of them, with them
on every single issue, but we need more of those kind of
people and a lot less Hillary Clintons. I've been getting
these mailings from the Hillary-Monster, saying, oh, she
wants to listen to our feelings, y'know, feel our pain or at
least pretend to, and wanted the people in the survey to
rank the issues important to them from 1 to 10. And, on the
surface, it seemed like the usual right-on stuff -- health
care, education, environment -- but then I noticed there was
no mention of the war in Iraq, no mention of vote fraud, no
mention of corporate corruption or inequality, and no
mention of human rights or torture. It didn't matter. It was
all supposed to be fluff . . . and that is not going to
solve the problem.
The reason [many people] serve . . . as legislators in D.C.
is to audition for [a] cushy lobbyist job once [they] leave
office . . . Even Ann Richards wound up lobbying for tobacco
companies after she got voted out of the Texas governor's
mansion . . . and replaced by the demon seed! .. .
Y'know, basically, instead of leadership, they just
cultivate dealmakers. That's what Bill Clinton was, that's
what Nancy Pelosi is . . . they're not leaders, they're
dealmakers, at a time when this country and the world is
crying out for some visionary and conscientious leadership.
Did you have any hesitation about re-recording "California
Über Alles" (as "Kali-Fornia Über Alles 21st Century" on
Biafra's 2005 collaboration with the Melvins, Sieg Howdy)
for the Schwarzenegger era?
Well, of course, I got a threat letter from [Dead Kennedys
guitarist] East Bay Ray, claiming that I have to get
permission from him to sing my own song, which they didn't
write a note of, . . . but we went right ahead with it. I
mean, if you like Bush, you'll *love* Schwarzenegger! If
they actually find a way to make him president, there's
gonna be Abu Ghraibs opening up right next door to Wal-Mart
all over the country. They'll be multiplying like Starbucks!
And these coded slurs and racial stuff he does shows he
hasn't really changed that much since his upbringing. And a
lot of the white supremacist Republicans are figuring, OK,
people are getting a little tired of gay marriage, and the
polls show that, deep down, most Americans favor letting
that happen, anyway, but this time, in order to keep control
of our little playpen in Washington, we're gonna have to
start bashing brown people again. It sure worked for Pete
Wilson! And Schwarzenegger is right at the front of that,
endorsing the Minutemen Militia to patrol the California
border . . . and, yesterday, he ordered the National Guard
down there, too. So, yeah, I think brown-bashing is the gay
marriage of 2006. I just hope people don't fall for it,
because it's gotten very ugly, even in my old home state of
Colorado. Right outside where I grew up, in the town of
Longmont, there was actually a violent standoff between
white and Latino middle school students, each waving
American and Mexican flags . . . so the principal banned
American flags from being used as a racist symbol, and then
all these parents got down on the principal for
disrespecting the flag. As if those racist *kids* weren't
disrespecting the flag! Or, let's say, as if *their* racist
kids weren't disrespecting the flag. And, so, then, the
American flag was allowed back in, but the Mexican flag
wasn't. So the fact that people that young are being that
openly racist makes me very sad. I mean, that shows
conditioning by racist parents who keep their white hood in
the closet, except on Election Day. Even Willie Mays, way
back when, said that when he was growing up . . . the white
kids and the black kids used to play together as children,
but then they got separated as they got older, and that's
when the segregationist mentality was drilled into both sides.
I actually got to talk to Henry Rollins the other day, and
he mentioned that he was getting ready to do a benefit with
you for the West Memphis Three.
Yeah, it was the first time we'd ever been on stage together
at the same event. It went great! I just get a little tired
of doing West Memphis Three benefits, because they should've
been released *years* ago. Even if people think they're
guilty, they at least ought to be proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt at a new trial.
Which in no way have they even been in the past.
Right. I mean, they were very poorly represented in a town
that's kind of a cross between Twin Peaks and Mortville in
Deliverance, and they didn't have a chance. I mean, that
first documentary, Paradise Lost, when they're in the
courtroom, I see nothing but colossally incompetent defense
tactics. You don't put a kid with long hair and black
clothing on a witness stand to discuss Wicca in front of a
bunch of Deliverance-mentality jurors. That was incredibly
stupid!
I couldn't believe that, after the documentary came out, it
wasn't almost immediately overturned.
Some of it is ego . . . , but another part of it is if they
admit they're wrong on one case, it's going to open up a can
of worms with a lot of other people wanting to have their
cases looked at again as well. After all, it's amazing that
something like one in seven prisoners on Death Row have been
cleared through DNA testing since those came in, and it's
obvious that there's a lot of innocent people in prison on
trumped-up charges. Not just the people who were rounded up
under the Patriot Act who have been detained in secret for
years. . . . There are about 700 of them. No hearings, no
lawyers, no calls to the family, nothing. I mean, same with
the people we held in Guantanamo Bay. We don't want to let
them go because we might have to admit we're wrong in most
cases. I mean, at one point, they finally -- after two years
-- released a 15-year-old Afghan boy . . . which means he
was 12 or 13 when they picked him up as an Al-Qaeda
operative, and it took them that long to finally admit they
were wrong. Right before that, they released a 92-year-old
man. I mean, is this really what we pledged allegiance to
all those years in grade school . . . ? Seems to me this is
more like what we went to war to eradicate when we fought
the Nazis and Japanese.
Since Sieg Howdy is the second album with the Melvins, I
guess the collaboration is continuing to go pretty well . . . ?
I haven't been able to get ahold of them in a little while.
There's tentative plans for more touring in the fall; I
don't know how much I'll be on, because of other commitments
and not wanting to spread myself so thin that I have to
stand in front of the mike the whole time like some sort of
cigar-store Indian just to sing the songs. My problem is, if
I start singing songs, I want to go wild . . . but, at my
age, I can't go wild every single night. There's only one
Iggy Pop or Rollins, and I'm not it. I do the best I can.
I'd rather do a smaller number of shows that are really good
than do a whole lot of shows that are half-assed.
Did your former bandmates have any public reaction to [the
Biafra / Melvins song] "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy
Anything)"?
No. I mean, it's not specifically about them. There are a
lot of other people who are, in my mind, completely
disgracing what punk was supposed to stand for. They may be
the smelliest example, but they're not the only one. What
really bums me out is that this has kind of created an
audience who only wants to see old bands and doesn't care if
they play well or give a damn about their own songs anymore,
just as long as they can stare at them as artifacts. And,
then, if a really good new band pops up in their own town,
they won't support them. I have nothing against people who
want to play music because they enjoy it or get their band
back together or play a kind of music they like, but I do
get really bummed about people who think they're really
rebellious and punk rock but refuse to be curious about
anything new. That's not what punk was supposed to be. It
wasn't supposed to be so damned conservative. Back when it
started, part of the reason it was so extreme was that it
was a reaction to how stale the '70s were, to the point that
people were nostalgic for the '50s. Y'know, watching Happy
Days like a bunch of lemmings, and things like that. And we
thought, yeah, we're smarter than that. Even the old hippies
are starting to turn into that now, but we the punks see
through it. . . . But in a way, in some areas, it's become
as backwards and conservative as the more by-the-book sides
of rockabilly and reggae.
What do you see as the Kennedys' chief contribution to
contemporary music? I mean, as far as how it's expressed
through your legacy.
(Hesitates) I'm not sure that much of it is.
I guess what I'm asking is, how would you like to be
evaluated historically with regard to what you've done with
the Kennedys?
(Hesitates again) I can't think of a good answer for that. .
. . I don't academically analyze my stuff like that. I guess
I would say I would hope we at least helped bury the '70s.
From my perception, you did.
My goal in particular was to dynamite and burn down the
Hotel California and everything it pretended to stand for. I
think we helped bury the '70s pretty well.
Were you at all surprised when you first became more
successful in the UK than in America? Or did you kind of see
it coming, given your political views . . . ?
It had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with
how the music scene worked overseas. I mean, there were
three different publications -- Melody Maker, New Musical
Express, and Sounds -- and, unlike Rolling "Drone," they
were published every week, so they had to keep up with what
was new and, at times, would fall into an annoying
flavor-of-the-week syndrome . . . but that also meant that
an unknown band or type of music was likely to be front-page
news quickly instead of resisted in the whole industry power
structure like it was in the United States. . . . Dead
Kennedys becoming successful over there early was not
because we were so much better than other bands. We weren't.
It was just pure, dumb luck . . . because of Bob Last, who
ran a very hot indie label called Fast Product that launched
Gang of Four, Mekons, and Human League, among other things.
Everybody was watching to see what Fast would put out next,
and they put an American band, an American punk band who had
a good-sounding record, which in itself was very hard to
achieve over here because of the generation of recording
engineers brought up to learn how to record the Eagles. And
so it broke through. And then when we finally played over
there, people were coming up to me after the shows, asking
me why there weren't any other good bands in America. So I
put together the Let Them Eat Jellybeans compilation. For a
while, it worked almost too well. By the late '80s and early
'90s, an Alternative Tentacles band, Alice Donut, went over
for a long European tour with two or three months of
touring, and they came back shaking their heads, saying, "We
wound up playing with nothing but other American bands the
whole time we were over there!" The promoters weren't giving
locals a chance at all.
That's so bizarre.
I think it's reversed itself to some degree now, but it is
doubly difficult sometimes these days for a decent
underground German band to get very many good gigs in
Germany. (Laughs) Sweden is a lot more supportive, and
that's been a major reason there's been so many kick-ass
Scandinavian garage and punky rock-n-roll bands coming out
of there: because Swedish radio will start playing them
nationally almost immediately.
I know the Melvins stuff has kept you busy for the past
couple of years, but I was kind of surprised when Bush got
re-elected that there wasn't almost instantly a new
spoken-word album.
I have mixed feelings about that. I decided to hold off
because the Iraq situation was moving so quickly, and I
didn't want to put out an album and have it become out of
date by the time it actually hit stores. Now that I'm going
through all the material from 2002 up till the present, I'm
beginning to wonder how I'm going to find *room* for it all.
I'd pulled a lot of the Iraq stuff out of the show . . . but
now I'm realizing that maybe I should put it in. And it just
really makes me sad to see how much of the information has
changed. It didn't take some weasel in a think tank to
predict what was actually going to go wrong in Iraq. I'm
probably one of millions of people who accurately predicted
it long before we invaded, based on the minimal amount of
logic and common sense.
If we invade Iran, it's gonna be 10 times worse. The
Pentagon admits that 80 percent of our military is either in
Iraq or recuperating from Iraq. Plus, we have to run around
bullying North Korea, refusing to leave our bases in Europe,
we're putting up bases in central Africa now because we
think there might be oil there . . . and, after all, what is
the U.S. military really for except a global oil protection
force . . .
That's what we've got. Iran, on the other hand . . . if you
think the Iraqis hated our guts from the get-go, wait until
you get to Iran! I mean, it wasn't that long ago that Iran
was a real democracy, but then in the early 1950s, the CIA
had the democratically-elected leader, Prime Minister
Mossadegh overthrown and replaced by a brutal, dictatorial
monarchy headed by the Shah, who was so vicious on his own
people that he literally killed off all secular moderate
opposition to the point that, when the Iranians finally got
so mad they were able to overthrow him, the only people with
any leadership skills left for them to follow were violent
Islamic fundamentalists led by Ayatollah Khomeini. And
whaddaya know? After that, Iran is our mortal enemy instead
of our policeman . . . our puppet policeman…of the Middle
East, and violent Islamic fundamentalist uprisings start
catching fire all over that part of the world and beyond. I
wonder how much trouble we would be having with terrorism,
suicide bombings, and violence and hatred around the Persian
Gulf today if we'd just left the Iranians alone in the 1950s
and let them elect their own leaders.
And, plus, the Iranians . . . I mean, all they're doing by
claiming and making it look like they're trying to make an
atomic bomb is finding out how much fun it is to stick a
needle in King Kong's toe and have him screaming in pain!
In reality, you have to get a 90 percent enrichment ratio in
order to use uranium to make a nuclear weapon. The Iranians
have only managed to get 4 percent. This is not a real
threat. It's being spun and sexed up and used the same way
the phony weapons of Saddam Hussein were. But Iran also
knows that not only can they stick a needle in King Kong's
toe that way, but maybe even step on it good and hard simply
by saying, "Look, you attack us, we have the ability to
possibly block the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf,"
which is about 30 miles wide at its narrowest point, but all
the oil . . . or most of the oil from Saudi Arabia and all
of Kuwait and the United Arabian Emirates and Bahrain and
Iraq all have to pass through that strait. And the narrow
point, Oman is on one side, but Iran is on all the other
sides, and there's two shipping lanes, each a mile wide and
separated by a two-mile buffer zone and that's it. It's a
shallow gulf. I don't think they can block it by sinking a
few ships, but they can sure as hell disrupt traffic by
laying a bunch of mines and *threatening* to attack a few
ships, so that no traffic moves. And *then* where do you
think the price of oil is gonna go?
I would hope at least somebody at the Pentagon or one of
those thoughtless think tanks has figured this out, too. If
we attack Iran, we're toast! And even if Bush tries to do it
on the cheap by dropping a nuclear bomb, how is that gonna
make us look in the eyes of the rest of the world? Will this
prompt other countries in the area to all go after Israel en
masse to get revenge? Then Bush can claim, "Hey, I started
Armageddon! Come on, Jesus, come back to Earth! We can ride
around my little toy ranch in my golf cart called Gator!"
But I don't think a lot of us want this to happen.
I've got just one more question for you: not that you've
ever really been afraid to tackle any topic, but when you
offered your impressions on 9/11 for the first time, did you
ever think, "If they're ever gonna turn on me, this is when
it's gonna happen"?
I think the harassment was a little more in-your-face during
the Gulf War. I think I was even more frightened then,
especially when environmental activists like Judi Bari of
Earth First and then this other one in Ohio and another one
in Florida were all the targets of murder attempts. Y'know,
Judy's car was blown up and was supposed to kill her; it
didn't in the short run, but . . . [she] was permanently
maimed. . . . [She died of breast cancer later.]
And then a woman who was . . . making allegations of
environmental pollution against Procter & Gamble had her
throat slit at her home in Ohio. And then another one had
the same thing happen in Florida. And I thought, "My God!
President Bush" . . . you know, King George the First . . ."
he used to be the CIA director when those dirty wars that
killed all these political prisoners went down in South
America. Is this what he's got in mind for America, too?"
I'm really glad he didn't get a second term, even with as
much of a disappointment as Clinton turned out to be. But my
feeling is, we still have constitutional rights. . . . So my
attitude, from clear back then onward, has been, OK, they
know I'm a troublemaker, so I'm just gonna make more
trouble. Why not? Besides, it's fun! Y'know, if I turned
around and faked a conversion and began crawling around on
my hands and knees behind Pat Robertson or Oliver North now,
it still wouldn't keep me out of the local gitmo if
everything really went down.
On the other hand, maybe the incompetent handling of
Hurricane Katrina gives me hope . . . because the reason
FEMA has been so incompetent in the last several disasters
-- Hurricane Andrew being another example, when Daddy Bush
was President -- it's because starting under Reagan, they
tried to transform FEMA from a professionally-run disaster
relief organization to a marshal law agency who have all the
names and know who to round up and where to put them. Oliver
North elaborated on this at the ContraGate hearings, I
believe it was, where he said, basically, that he wanted
FEMA to run an experiment to see if they could round up
400,000 Americans if there was protests of a planned
invasion of Nicaragua. And so, then, Hurricane Andrew
happens, and here's the new FEMA lackey going, "Hey, wait a
minute, we've got all these lists, we know exactly who to
arrest, but how do we help these people whose homes have
been destroyed? We haven't a clue!" Hell, if homeland
security is that incompetent, maybe they won't get away with
what they have in mind! You know, after all, you can hunt
down patriotically incorrect Americans who support the
Constitution more than a rogue President, but if your
hunting skills are no better than Dick Cheney's, you're
never going to get away with it all! I mean, we tried to
conquer Iraq and make it our spearhead colony to transform
the Middle East and seize all the oil, and we can't even
protect a two-mile road to the Baghdad Airport! And we're
running out of money just trying to do that! So in a way,
this whole Iraq fiasco has severely weakened America as the
big, bad King Kong super power. . . .
But now they know that King Kong is staggering around drunk,
has no clue, no plan, and could collapse and pass out in
your living room at any moment! You know, as the old Chinese
proverb says, "We live in very interesting times." So as far
as I'm concerned, when you have an unelected president who
breaks the law left, right, and center, a true patriotic
American will do whatever they can, even if it's a tiny
little prank in the workplace, to fight the corporate Bush
agenda. It's the most patriotic thing people can do. •
Will Harris is Associate Editor of the website
Bullz-Eye.com. A Hampton Roads native and graduate of
Averett College, Harris lives in South Norfolk with his
wife, daughter, and highly neurotic cat. His fingers are
still cramped up from transcribing this interview.
Make Room for Jello
Former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, who'll be
performing spoken word at the NorVa on Tuesday, has no love
for the Bush administration, no patience for subtlety and no
trouble saying what's on his mind. In a recent phone
interview with Port Folio Weekly, Biafra talked about
everything from "California Über Alles" to Al Qaeda.
By Will Harris
Tuesday, Jun. 27, 2006
As frontman for the seminal California punk band the Dead
Kennedys, Jello Biafra has never shied away from
controversy. But at the root of everything he's done in his
career -- both musically and as a well-respected spoken-word
artist -- is a desire to educate. Biafra has continued to
release music since departing the Kennedys in 1986,
including a 2005 collaboration with the Melvins that
featured a reworking of a DK classic for the Schwarzenegger
era ("Kali-Fornia Über Alles 21st Century"), but his
appearance at the NorVa on June 27 will find him speaking
his mind before a seated crowd. If it's anything like the
comments he offered in his interview with Port Folio Weekly,
don't be surprised if someone tries to throw one of the
chairs at him. (After all, this is Pat Robertson country.)
Biafra requested in advance that the interview be taped. He
began our conversation by noting that we'd just missed a
chance to record his bathroom break, then went on to brag
about a pornographic paperweight he'd recently received. The
remainder of the conversation was considerably more elevated.
It's a real honor to talk to you. I admit that I did not
discover the Dead Kennedys until Frankenchrist came out, but
after that, I was driving people crazy, forcing people to
listen to No More Cocoons. It was definitely one of the
first times I found myself becoming aware of politics.
Well, good. It's a job, but someone's got to do it. That's
one of the reasons that I don't believe that art should be
subtle.
I know your lyrics have always been political, but do you
ever find it hard to flip-flop between music and spoken word?
It is kind of hard to concentrate fully on both at the same
time. And, plus, there's Alternative Tentacles [the label
Biafra owns] and all kinds of other things going on, so
there isn't always as much time for music as I would like.
Especially with unending harassment from greedy former band
members and great, big, nasty corporate lawyers.
Well, I was going to hold off asking about that, but now
you've given me the perfect segue.
Yeah, it's as ugly as it ever was. I mean, I'm not allowed
any say in how the band is pimped any more . . . and I
emphasize the word "pimped." I'm not allowed to see all the
books; they've *never* adequately explained how "Viva Las
Vegas" got into American Idol or an ad for The O.C.
overseas. And, now, I guess they're in negotiations with
some big, slick Hollywood manager whose website lists
experience with sports stars and Britney Spears.
Oh, geez.
And no matter what they try, I will not be forced into that.
I mean, they've alternately tried to arm-twist and
sweet-talk me into rejoining the band, but, y'know, I have
no interest in dumbing down something that means as much to
me as Dead Kennedys does. I actually care more about the
quality and integrity of the songs than they ever did.
Did you ever consider contributing to those reissues [of the
Dead Kennedys' back catalog] that have been going on from
Manifesto Records, or . . .
I have no trust or respect for Manifesto at all. I would
never do anything to let them use me or exploit me any more
than they already have, you know. But they took advantage of
an ugly situation when everybody from Epitaph to Fat to
Lookout! to SubPop to Caroline said, "No, thanks," because
they didn't want a key member of the band . . . if not *the*
key member of the band . . . getting screwed the whole time.
They didn't want their hands on that.
So, in general, as far as seeing the material reissued and
expanded, if it had been something that could've been worked
out . . .
It hasn't really been expanded, either, except for that
horrible DVD on Fresh Fruit (for Rotting Vegetables).
Yeah, that's what I was referring to.
Yeah, I steered clear of that one, too. I just felt the
quality was so poor there was nothing I could do to save it,
so the best thing I could do was to not be part of it.
Were you upset when your ex-wife [Ninotchka] contributed to
the documentary?
Ugh, that's too much of a tabloid question.
Fair enough.
The director of the documentary did not tell me she was in
it, but there's a lot of things I don't get told. But I
*did* get numerous letters from Norfolk, complaining that
the singer [of the Dead Kennedys, one of his replacements]
had at the time [they played the NorVa in 2002] called me a
terrorist on stage.
I did not realize that.
And claimed that I didn't love my country because I didn't
support the war or terror, and whatnot.
Well, since you've brought up the area, have you thought
about putting Pat Robertson on the guest list?
If there's anyone who has enough money to pay to get into
the show, it's him. I mean, he got his money even more
dishonestly than the ex-members of Dead Kennedys have…and
uses it for really sinister stuff. And what especially makes
me sick is after the horrible tragedy in New Orleans,
President Bush suggested people who wanted to help donate
money not to the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity, let
alone a grass-roots organization in the city like Common
Ground Collective, he told people to give money to Operation
Blessing. . . . Maybe that's another example of a
faith-based initiative. I don't know. I mean, I hope this
whole war isn't a faith-based initiative.
On a related note, do you think Bush is a sincere religious
nut, or do you think he's more cynically calculating?
I think he's probably . . . probably a combination of both.
I mean, it's always dangerous when you have an actor
pretending he's the president or the governor or whatever.
At least Reagan knew he was an actor who was just supposed
to read his cue cards and act presidential while his pals
and his wife's friends looted the country. But Bush is so
stupid and so delusional that he probably thinks he really
is president! And the regents around the clown prince know
that all they have to do is plant a few words in his head,
and he'll do anything they want. But some of the things that
come out of his mouth that don't get reported really scare
me. Contrast all the tabloid media coverage on Howard Dean's
frat-boy scream in Iowa with the things they don't talk
about with Bush . . . like him telling a group of Amish
people in 2004 that God speaks through him. I mean, other
people that say God speaks through them are fruitcakes, like
Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden. That scares me a lot more
than Howard Dean's frat-boy scream. And, then, in Bob
Woodward's last book, he asks King George how he thinks
history is going to judge his escapades, and Bush just
smirks back and answers, "We don't know; we'll all be dead."
Does this mean that he's one of these end-times,
last-generation, reconstructionist-type Christian
supremacists who actually hopes for Armageddon soon? 'Cause
then Jesus will come back and put back all the natural
resources, balance the federal budget, and let him be
Commissioner of Baseball . . . ? I mean, some of these
theories I don't mind. The Rapture, I think, is kind of
cool. All these hardcore fundamentalist bigots suddenly
rising up from the ground, naked, and flying off into the
sky, and leaving the rest of us in peace, so we can finally
put the planet back together . . . I think that's a great
idea! But Armageddon doesn't, uh, seem like quite such a
good shopping experience.
Do you think there's any one person in the Democratic party
who can rescue it from turning into Republican Lite, or do
you think a third party is going to be the only option . . . ?
There's a handful of decent Democrats left, but most of them
seem to be African-American women. People like Maxine
Waters, Barbara Lee, Cynthia McKinney . . . they're pretty
cool. I mean, I doubt if I agree with all of them, with them
on every single issue, but we need more of those kind of
people and a lot less Hillary Clintons. I've been getting
these mailings from the Hillary-Monster, saying, oh, she
wants to listen to our feelings, y'know, feel our pain or at
least pretend to, and wanted the people in the survey to
rank the issues important to them from 1 to 10. And, on the
surface, it seemed like the usual right-on stuff -- health
care, education, environment -- but then I noticed there was
no mention of the war in Iraq, no mention of vote fraud, no
mention of corporate corruption or inequality, and no
mention of human rights or torture. It didn't matter. It was
all supposed to be fluff . . . and that is not going to
solve the problem.
The reason [many people] serve . . . as legislators in D.C.
is to audition for [a] cushy lobbyist job once [they] leave
office . . . Even Ann Richards wound up lobbying for tobacco
companies after she got voted out of the Texas governor's
mansion . . . and replaced by the demon seed! .. .
Y'know, basically, instead of leadership, they just
cultivate dealmakers. That's what Bill Clinton was, that's
what Nancy Pelosi is . . . they're not leaders, they're
dealmakers, at a time when this country and the world is
crying out for some visionary and conscientious leadership.
Did you have any hesitation about re-recording "California
Über Alles" (as "Kali-Fornia Über Alles 21st Century" on
Biafra's 2005 collaboration with the Melvins, Sieg Howdy)
for the Schwarzenegger era?
Well, of course, I got a threat letter from [Dead Kennedys
guitarist] East Bay Ray, claiming that I have to get
permission from him to sing my own song, which they didn't
write a note of, . . . but we went right ahead with it. I
mean, if you like Bush, you'll *love* Schwarzenegger! If
they actually find a way to make him president, there's
gonna be Abu Ghraibs opening up right next door to Wal-Mart
all over the country. They'll be multiplying like Starbucks!
And these coded slurs and racial stuff he does shows he
hasn't really changed that much since his upbringing. And a
lot of the white supremacist Republicans are figuring, OK,
people are getting a little tired of gay marriage, and the
polls show that, deep down, most Americans favor letting
that happen, anyway, but this time, in order to keep control
of our little playpen in Washington, we're gonna have to
start bashing brown people again. It sure worked for Pete
Wilson! And Schwarzenegger is right at the front of that,
endorsing the Minutemen Militia to patrol the California
border . . . and, yesterday, he ordered the National Guard
down there, too. So, yeah, I think brown-bashing is the gay
marriage of 2006. I just hope people don't fall for it,
because it's gotten very ugly, even in my old home state of
Colorado. Right outside where I grew up, in the town of
Longmont, there was actually a violent standoff between
white and Latino middle school students, each waving
American and Mexican flags . . . so the principal banned
American flags from being used as a racist symbol, and then
all these parents got down on the principal for
disrespecting the flag. As if those racist *kids* weren't
disrespecting the flag! Or, let's say, as if *their* racist
kids weren't disrespecting the flag. And, so, then, the
American flag was allowed back in, but the Mexican flag
wasn't. So the fact that people that young are being that
openly racist makes me very sad. I mean, that shows
conditioning by racist parents who keep their white hood in
the closet, except on Election Day. Even Willie Mays, way
back when, said that when he was growing up . . . the white
kids and the black kids used to play together as children,
but then they got separated as they got older, and that's
when the segregationist mentality was drilled into both sides.
I actually got to talk to Henry Rollins the other day, and
he mentioned that he was getting ready to do a benefit with
you for the West Memphis Three.
Yeah, it was the first time we'd ever been on stage together
at the same event. It went great! I just get a little tired
of doing West Memphis Three benefits, because they should've
been released *years* ago. Even if people think they're
guilty, they at least ought to be proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt at a new trial.
Which in no way have they even been in the past.
Right. I mean, they were very poorly represented in a town
that's kind of a cross between Twin Peaks and Mortville in
Deliverance, and they didn't have a chance. I mean, that
first documentary, Paradise Lost, when they're in the
courtroom, I see nothing but colossally incompetent defense
tactics. You don't put a kid with long hair and black
clothing on a witness stand to discuss Wicca in front of a
bunch of Deliverance-mentality jurors. That was incredibly
stupid!
I couldn't believe that, after the documentary came out, it
wasn't almost immediately overturned.
Some of it is ego . . . , but another part of it is if they
admit they're wrong on one case, it's going to open up a can
of worms with a lot of other people wanting to have their
cases looked at again as well. After all, it's amazing that
something like one in seven prisoners on Death Row have been
cleared through DNA testing since those came in, and it's
obvious that there's a lot of innocent people in prison on
trumped-up charges. Not just the people who were rounded up
under the Patriot Act who have been detained in secret for
years. . . . There are about 700 of them. No hearings, no
lawyers, no calls to the family, nothing. I mean, same with
the people we held in Guantanamo Bay. We don't want to let
them go because we might have to admit we're wrong in most
cases. I mean, at one point, they finally -- after two years
-- released a 15-year-old Afghan boy . . . which means he
was 12 or 13 when they picked him up as an Al-Qaeda
operative, and it took them that long to finally admit they
were wrong. Right before that, they released a 92-year-old
man. I mean, is this really what we pledged allegiance to
all those years in grade school . . . ? Seems to me this is
more like what we went to war to eradicate when we fought
the Nazis and Japanese.
Since Sieg Howdy is the second album with the Melvins, I
guess the collaboration is continuing to go pretty well . . . ?
I haven't been able to get ahold of them in a little while.
There's tentative plans for more touring in the fall; I
don't know how much I'll be on, because of other commitments
and not wanting to spread myself so thin that I have to
stand in front of the mike the whole time like some sort of
cigar-store Indian just to sing the songs. My problem is, if
I start singing songs, I want to go wild . . . but, at my
age, I can't go wild every single night. There's only one
Iggy Pop or Rollins, and I'm not it. I do the best I can.
I'd rather do a smaller number of shows that are really good
than do a whole lot of shows that are half-assed.
Did your former bandmates have any public reaction to [the
Biafra / Melvins song] "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy
Anything)"?
No. I mean, it's not specifically about them. There are a
lot of other people who are, in my mind, completely
disgracing what punk was supposed to stand for. They may be
the smelliest example, but they're not the only one. What
really bums me out is that this has kind of created an
audience who only wants to see old bands and doesn't care if
they play well or give a damn about their own songs anymore,
just as long as they can stare at them as artifacts. And,
then, if a really good new band pops up in their own town,
they won't support them. I have nothing against people who
want to play music because they enjoy it or get their band
back together or play a kind of music they like, but I do
get really bummed about people who think they're really
rebellious and punk rock but refuse to be curious about
anything new. That's not what punk was supposed to be. It
wasn't supposed to be so damned conservative. Back when it
started, part of the reason it was so extreme was that it
was a reaction to how stale the '70s were, to the point that
people were nostalgic for the '50s. Y'know, watching Happy
Days like a bunch of lemmings, and things like that. And we
thought, yeah, we're smarter than that. Even the old hippies
are starting to turn into that now, but we the punks see
through it. . . . But in a way, in some areas, it's become
as backwards and conservative as the more by-the-book sides
of rockabilly and reggae.
What do you see as the Kennedys' chief contribution to
contemporary music? I mean, as far as how it's expressed
through your legacy.
(Hesitates) I'm not sure that much of it is.
I guess what I'm asking is, how would you like to be
evaluated historically with regard to what you've done with
the Kennedys?
(Hesitates again) I can't think of a good answer for that. .
. . I don't academically analyze my stuff like that. I guess
I would say I would hope we at least helped bury the '70s.
From my perception, you did.
My goal in particular was to dynamite and burn down the
Hotel California and everything it pretended to stand for. I
think we helped bury the '70s pretty well.
Were you at all surprised when you first became more
successful in the UK than in America? Or did you kind of see
it coming, given your political views . . . ?
It had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with
how the music scene worked overseas. I mean, there were
three different publications -- Melody Maker, New Musical
Express, and Sounds -- and, unlike Rolling "Drone," they
were published every week, so they had to keep up with what
was new and, at times, would fall into an annoying
flavor-of-the-week syndrome . . . but that also meant that
an unknown band or type of music was likely to be front-page
news quickly instead of resisted in the whole industry power
structure like it was in the United States. . . . Dead
Kennedys becoming successful over there early was not
because we were so much better than other bands. We weren't.
It was just pure, dumb luck . . . because of Bob Last, who
ran a very hot indie label called Fast Product that launched
Gang of Four, Mekons, and Human League, among other things.
Everybody was watching to see what Fast would put out next,
and they put an American band, an American punk band who had
a good-sounding record, which in itself was very hard to
achieve over here because of the generation of recording
engineers brought up to learn how to record the Eagles. And
so it broke through. And then when we finally played over
there, people were coming up to me after the shows, asking
me why there weren't any other good bands in America. So I
put together the Let Them Eat Jellybeans compilation. For a
while, it worked almost too well. By the late '80s and early
'90s, an Alternative Tentacles band, Alice Donut, went over
for a long European tour with two or three months of
touring, and they came back shaking their heads, saying, "We
wound up playing with nothing but other American bands the
whole time we were over there!" The promoters weren't giving
locals a chance at all.
That's so bizarre.
I think it's reversed itself to some degree now, but it is
doubly difficult sometimes these days for a decent
underground German band to get very many good gigs in
Germany. (Laughs) Sweden is a lot more supportive, and
that's been a major reason there's been so many kick-ass
Scandinavian garage and punky rock-n-roll bands coming out
of there: because Swedish radio will start playing them
nationally almost immediately.
I know the Melvins stuff has kept you busy for the past
couple of years, but I was kind of surprised when Bush got
re-elected that there wasn't almost instantly a new
spoken-word album.
I have mixed feelings about that. I decided to hold off
because the Iraq situation was moving so quickly, and I
didn't want to put out an album and have it become out of
date by the time it actually hit stores. Now that I'm going
through all the material from 2002 up till the present, I'm
beginning to wonder how I'm going to find *room* for it all.
I'd pulled a lot of the Iraq stuff out of the show . . . but
now I'm realizing that maybe I should put it in. And it just
really makes me sad to see how much of the information has
changed. It didn't take some weasel in a think tank to
predict what was actually going to go wrong in Iraq. I'm
probably one of millions of people who accurately predicted
it long before we invaded, based on the minimal amount of
logic and common sense.
If we invade Iran, it's gonna be 10 times worse. The
Pentagon admits that 80 percent of our military is either in
Iraq or recuperating from Iraq. Plus, we have to run around
bullying North Korea, refusing to leave our bases in Europe,
we're putting up bases in central Africa now because we
think there might be oil there . . . and, after all, what is
the U.S. military really for except a global oil protection
force . . .
That's what we've got. Iran, on the other hand . . . if you
think the Iraqis hated our guts from the get-go, wait until
you get to Iran! I mean, it wasn't that long ago that Iran
was a real democracy, but then in the early 1950s, the CIA
had the democratically-elected leader, Prime Minister
Mossadegh overthrown and replaced by a brutal, dictatorial
monarchy headed by the Shah, who was so vicious on his own
people that he literally killed off all secular moderate
opposition to the point that, when the Iranians finally got
so mad they were able to overthrow him, the only people with
any leadership skills left for them to follow were violent
Islamic fundamentalists led by Ayatollah Khomeini. And
whaddaya know? After that, Iran is our mortal enemy instead
of our policeman . . . our puppet policeman…of the Middle
East, and violent Islamic fundamentalist uprisings start
catching fire all over that part of the world and beyond. I
wonder how much trouble we would be having with terrorism,
suicide bombings, and violence and hatred around the Persian
Gulf today if we'd just left the Iranians alone in the 1950s
and let them elect their own leaders.
And, plus, the Iranians . . . I mean, all they're doing by
claiming and making it look like they're trying to make an
atomic bomb is finding out how much fun it is to stick a
needle in King Kong's toe and have him screaming in pain!
In reality, you have to get a 90 percent enrichment ratio in
order to use uranium to make a nuclear weapon. The Iranians
have only managed to get 4 percent. This is not a real
threat. It's being spun and sexed up and used the same way
the phony weapons of Saddam Hussein were. But Iran also
knows that not only can they stick a needle in King Kong's
toe that way, but maybe even step on it good and hard simply
by saying, "Look, you attack us, we have the ability to
possibly block the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf,"
which is about 30 miles wide at its narrowest point, but all
the oil . . . or most of the oil from Saudi Arabia and all
of Kuwait and the United Arabian Emirates and Bahrain and
Iraq all have to pass through that strait. And the narrow
point, Oman is on one side, but Iran is on all the other
sides, and there's two shipping lanes, each a mile wide and
separated by a two-mile buffer zone and that's it. It's a
shallow gulf. I don't think they can block it by sinking a
few ships, but they can sure as hell disrupt traffic by
laying a bunch of mines and *threatening* to attack a few
ships, so that no traffic moves. And *then* where do you
think the price of oil is gonna go?
I would hope at least somebody at the Pentagon or one of
those thoughtless think tanks has figured this out, too. If
we attack Iran, we're toast! And even if Bush tries to do it
on the cheap by dropping a nuclear bomb, how is that gonna
make us look in the eyes of the rest of the world? Will this
prompt other countries in the area to all go after Israel en
masse to get revenge? Then Bush can claim, "Hey, I started
Armageddon! Come on, Jesus, come back to Earth! We can ride
around my little toy ranch in my golf cart called Gator!"
But I don't think a lot of us want this to happen.
I've got just one more question for you: not that you've
ever really been afraid to tackle any topic, but when you
offered your impressions on 9/11 for the first time, did you
ever think, "If they're ever gonna turn on me, this is when
it's gonna happen"?
I think the harassment was a little more in-your-face during
the Gulf War. I think I was even more frightened then,
especially when environmental activists like Judi Bari of
Earth First and then this other one in Ohio and another one
in Florida were all the targets of murder attempts. Y'know,
Judy's car was blown up and was supposed to kill her; it
didn't in the short run, but . . . [she] was permanently
maimed. . . . [She died of breast cancer later.]
And then a woman who was . . . making allegations of
environmental pollution against Procter & Gamble had her
throat slit at her home in Ohio. And then another one had
the same thing happen in Florida. And I thought, "My God!
President Bush" . . . you know, King George the First . . ."
he used to be the CIA director when those dirty wars that
killed all these political prisoners went down in South
America. Is this what he's got in mind for America, too?"
I'm really glad he didn't get a second term, even with as
much of a disappointment as Clinton turned out to be. But my
feeling is, we still have constitutional rights. . . . So my
attitude, from clear back then onward, has been, OK, they
know I'm a troublemaker, so I'm just gonna make more
trouble. Why not? Besides, it's fun! Y'know, if I turned
around and faked a conversion and began crawling around on
my hands and knees behind Pat Robertson or Oliver North now,
it still wouldn't keep me out of the local gitmo if
everything really went down.
On the other hand, maybe the incompetent handling of
Hurricane Katrina gives me hope . . . because the reason
FEMA has been so incompetent in the last several disasters
-- Hurricane Andrew being another example, when Daddy Bush
was President -- it's because starting under Reagan, they
tried to transform FEMA from a professionally-run disaster
relief organization to a marshal law agency who have all the
names and know who to round up and where to put them. Oliver
North elaborated on this at the ContraGate hearings, I
believe it was, where he said, basically, that he wanted
FEMA to run an experiment to see if they could round up
400,000 Americans if there was protests of a planned
invasion of Nicaragua. And so, then, Hurricane Andrew
happens, and here's the new FEMA lackey going, "Hey, wait a
minute, we've got all these lists, we know exactly who to
arrest, but how do we help these people whose homes have
been destroyed? We haven't a clue!" Hell, if homeland
security is that incompetent, maybe they won't get away with
what they have in mind! You know, after all, you can hunt
down patriotically incorrect Americans who support the
Constitution more than a rogue President, but if your
hunting skills are no better than Dick Cheney's, you're
never going to get away with it all! I mean, we tried to
conquer Iraq and make it our spearhead colony to transform
the Middle East and seize all the oil, and we can't even
protect a two-mile road to the Baghdad Airport! And we're
running out of money just trying to do that! So in a way,
this whole Iraq fiasco has severely weakened America as the
big, bad King Kong super power. . . .
But now they know that King Kong is staggering around drunk,
has no clue, no plan, and could collapse and pass out in
your living room at any moment! You know, as the old Chinese
proverb says, "We live in very interesting times." So as far
as I'm concerned, when you have an unelected president who
breaks the law left, right, and center, a true patriotic
American will do whatever they can, even if it's a tiny
little prank in the workplace, to fight the corporate Bush
agenda. It's the most patriotic thing people can do. •
Will Harris is Associate Editor of the website
Bullz-Eye.com. A Hampton Roads native and graduate of
Averett College, Harris lives in South Norfolk with his
wife, daughter, and highly neurotic cat. His fingers are
still cramped up from transcribing this interview.