Part of what put us on the map was
that nobody had done anything like
"Holiday In Cambodia," or "Califor-
nia Über Alles. We figured that we
would probably do more than one
record at that point. Then we kind of
hit some bad times. We lost 6025
and couldn't find a suitable gui-
tarist. I was getting very discour
aged. At that point, I had kind of
made up my mind to quit when we
got home unless the single took off
Low and behold, it went beyond any
of our wildest dreams after that. It
even got released in England, which
everybody in town had wanted for
their record and nobody got. By
sheer fluke. the guy booking
Hurrah's in New York got a copy of
the record and he played it for Bob
Last at Fast Records in Scotland.
where up until then, they were con-
sidered a really crucial cult label.
What better luck could we have. By
the time it was released. I was run-
ning for mayor of San Francisco.
Why mayor of San Francisco?
Why not? I guess, basically, not
knowing not to do it. Not knowing
how weird or how hard it would be. 1
was probably inspired more than
anything by people like John Link.
who was the first hippie to run for
city council in Boulder. After he
came in second to last, he said "Hey,
even a creep like me got a thousand
votes. I was still pretty new in town.
and I realized that I was old enough
to run for Mayor. You have to be
were all around us. I turned it in
and then out comes the voters pam
phlet. Next to all of the lies and live
of Mayor Dianne Feinstein, was Jello
Biafra, Occupation: Punk Rocker "If
Mayor. I will ban all cars from the
city limits. Make police run for re-
election, voted on by the neighbor-
hoods that they patrol. Legalize
squatting in the buildings left vacant
for tax write-off purposes," which
was a direct barb at the owner of the
San Francisco Giants, who left the IC
Penney building at Fifth and Market
vacant while homeless people slept
in the doorways. Proposition 13 had
just passed. Five thousand city
employees had just been laid off. I
proposed letting all of them pan-
handle to raise the money back that
the city lost in Proposition 13 on a
fifty-percent commission.
It was a lot of work. It was worth it
We spent $1.500 and came in fourth
out of ten people, ahead of candi-
dates who had spent as much as
sixty grand. We caused enough of an
uproar that the candidate who fin-
ished second. Quentin Kopp, of the
through a resolution saying that
board of supervisors, rammed
nobody could run for public office
unless they use their Christian
name Saying "We're tired of people
like Sister Boom Boom and lello
Biafra humiliating candidates who
spent tens of thousands of dollars
on their campaigns Which was the
whole idea. This is a guy whose
name is Quentin Kopp. The first
time that I saw that name. I fell on
the floor laughing not even realizing
how ridiculous he was in person
How did you come up with lelle
twenty-six to drive a cab in San
Francisco, but at eighteen, you can
run a whole town. What the fuck. I
was twenty-one. Our old drummer
said that I had such a big mouth
that I should run for Mayor. I
thought, why not? While watching
Pere Ubu at the Waldorf. I was stag-
everybody confused it with Resident
gering around telling everyone that I This had to change real fast; we were
was running for mayor. After that playing our first show in a week if
night, I couldn't back out. I wrote
most of my platform on a napkin
that night. I figured out that I had to
Biafra?
First I called myself Occupant, but
you're going to analyze it after the
fact, I guess I like the collision of the
plastic American culture of lello col
go get petitions, so there I was begin with the squalor and starva
ging people to register to vote, so
they could sign my petition legally
to get me on the ballot. A lot of luck
I had that way. I was ready to give up
when Dirk Dirksen from the
Mabuhay, smelling lots of fun in the
future, told me not to quit, that we
would have a benefit to raise money
and buy my way onto the ballot. You
can do that in this town if you don't
have enough signatures. We raised
the money and with about ten min-
utes to spare. I got on the ballot. I
was there at City Hall, on the floor,
writing out my platform for the vot-
ers pamphlet. trying to cross it out
to limit it to the proper number of
words, news people with cameras
88 THRASHER MAGAZINE
tion image of Biafra
What was Biafra?
The countries in Africa are divided
by European boundaries. A lot of
these countries were formed irre
spective of cultural boundaries..
meaning many different ethnic
groups and tribes who have had
rivalries for hundreds of years are
stuck in the same country. The Ibo
Tribe of Nigeria declared themselves
an independent country called
Biafra. Nigeria fought back, with the
help of British and American aid. by
cutting off the entire food supply to
Biafra and starving them to death.
So back to the DKs history...
Because "California Über Alles did
well in England, we were able to
make more records, release them
over there, and in a rare first, go play
over there Over we went, on the
crest of a wave of media hype,
although, most of the publicity was
bad. Because they lambasted us for
playing punk, two generations of
punks in England jumped on us
immediately. They were hungry for
raw primal music, no matter where it
came from Granted, there was some
great shit going on in England:
Crass, Bauhaus. Gang of Four.
Discharge was just starting. When
talking with these people I realized
how much it would mean to them if I
could get them to hear Black Flag.
DOA and all of the bands that we
took for granted over here. They
were in many ways more confronta-
tional, powerful, more insane than
what was going on in England. For
example, in England, Joy Division
would write dignified lyrics about
getting ready to commit suicide. In
America, you had the Germs. That
was the difference between the two
cultures. It occurred to me that a
compilation album would be great
over there The agent who booked
our first European tour. Bill
Gillan.had the idea to rehash the
Alternative Tentacles label
At the time Let Them Eat Jelly Beans
came out, hardly anybody in
ple in places like Finland, Italy and
Germany. We went back a year later
and guess whose underground
scenes had exploded? I would say
the biggest impact of the Dead
Kennedys was not in America, it was
in Central Europe. That was where
we had more effect on the culture
than anywhere. Hardly any English
bands had ever played in Germany.
let alone Italy or Finland or Sweden.
We did for them what the Ramones
did for me.
Talk a bit about Dirk Dirkson.
He was a behind the scenes guy
who had access to the Mabuhay
Gardens and decided to book punk
rock. I'm not sure of his exact histo
ry. I think that he worked on Bewitched
and game shows. I think he was a
lawyer once. He was a road manager
for the Doors at one time. He claims
he spent the night in jail in Florida
instead of Morrison during that
bust. He had a major hand in things
with Dead Kennedys. He was a sort
of father figure. Originally, he just
semi-reluctantly booked our band.
He would book anybody who was
new, underground. He would try
anything. You've got to give him
credit for that.
Do you consider your music and
your lyrics a form of journalism?
Yeah. I deliberately pick subjects
ush is a banana
republic dictator. He's not
a wimp at all. He is a very
smooth, efficient Nazi
machine who's studied all
that people haven't cov-
ered in the way I see
them. The spoken word
tapes are even more
intense in that regard.
It's like a nonstop bar-
rage of information.
about why our lives are
the way they are, and
what they can do about
that. Nine times out of
ten my message is. just.
say no to this bullshit I'm
satirizing. A very easy
thing, yet it's made to
look so hard by our
schools, media, church-1
es. et cetera. We also
thought of our music as
being a great prank
When the opportunity,
arose and we were invit-
ed to crash the political
conventions we thought,
why not. Rock against
Reagan. We went to
of Hitler's mistakes to
know how to do things
right. You don't take over
a country overnight, it's a
thirty year slow coup so
nobody asks questions.
You make a big stink
about the American flag.
Guess who else made a
big stink about desecrat-
ing the flag-the Nazi
party, right after they took Dallas for the Republican
over Germany.
England wanted to know about
American bands. Either it was from
England, and it was cool, or it was
nothing. The first people who picked
up on Jelly Beans, ironically, were
Americans buying imports and peo-
convention. That was the
heavier one because
right when we started to
play, all of the conventioneers filed
out of the hall after triumphantly re-
nominating Reagan and Bush. Stay
the course, as they said then, more
rip offs, more apathy, more lies,
more greed, more fundamentalist
Christianity creeping into the legal
system. Here they are coming out of
the convention, and twenty yards
away is a band with one mike lead-
ing the crowd in a chant of...well, 1
figured, what will get to these peo-
ple the most and let them know
what we feel about them? "US out of
El Salvador, yes, they need to know
that, but they won't understand that:
they'll figure it's just a bunch of
stupid people who aren't afraid of
communists. We just got the whole
crowd to yell "Fuck you" to them,
over and over again until they'd fled
the convention site.
How about the demise of the
Dead Kennedys?
Well, that I'm not as eager to go
into, because everybody has their
side on that. Let's just say we broke
up in 1986 and there are no plans to
reform. I don't want to get stuck on
the punk nostalgia retread circuit.
which is why I've taken so much
time to pursue things like spoken
word, acting, collaborations with
other people, visual art, no more
censorship. I don't want to get stuck
at 35 years old with no skills except
being a retired rock musician. It
talk show host to be their imperial
leader and let him pretty much get
away with anything he wants, includ-
ing rubbing people out and banning
music he doesn't like, kind of like
what's going on with the PMRC and
the record stickering controversy. I
am the right-hand hatchet man of
the corrupt dictator. I produced the
soundtrack for the movie also.
Doing work on the movie sound-
track got me together with the guys
in DOA and No Means No. We did
one song for the soundtrack and
now we're going on with it. At this
point I'm working on four different
albums, the DOA collaboration, one
with No Means No. one with the
Steelpole Bathtub people plus
Charley Tolnay from Kingsnake
Roost in Australia. He used to be in
a band we put out called Grong
Grong one of the most bent guitar
players I've ever known. And there's
the Lard album. There have also
been a couple of collaborations by
mail. Ice-T sampled the entire open-
ing
track off of my No More Cocoons
album for his album. You can expect
more Lardcore soon, unless we kill
each other in the studio or go nuts
would be a painfully whorish and trying. Then I'm not sure what I'm
going to do, because now that I've
humiliating life. So, I continue to
push and explore. First, Lard hap-
pened, and then I did some more
speaking tours. Believe it or not, I'm
brought in as a college lecturer now.
What is Lard?
I was in Chicago and Al Jorgensen
and Paul Barker of Ministry and I
discovered all of these other things I
can do, want to do, et cetera, how
do I make time for it all without
doing a half-assed job at each one?1
haven't figured that out yet. I want
to write another batch of songs and
then decide what to do with those. It
might finally be a real Biafra band,
decided to make a record. What but I don't know, we'll have to see. I
should we call it? Well, how about
Lard? Al fell on the floor laughing so
I knew it was the right name. I mean.
guess my current dream would be to
cross the Frankenchrist era of Dead
Kennedys with the avant-industrial
just think of it, an arena full of fans aspects of people like the Beat Nigs
or some of what Ministry or Foetus
who, instead of shaking their fists in
the air, metal fan style, are all hold-
ing giant cans of lard. The first thing
that came to mind was that if there
was going to be a song about lard, it
would have to be an anthem about
the power of lard. What is the power
of lard? So I just thought of different
one-liners that I didn't have room
for in any songs and just put them
all together at random. By the time I
was done, a thread came through
and there was the power of lard. I
cut some of it out of an ad for con-
dominiums in the Chicago Tribune.
"Nowadays most of us need some-
one to run our personal life, blah.
blah blah."
What are some of the other pro-
Jects you're working on?
1 just acted in a movie called
Terminal City Ricochet. It's a very dark
comedy set in the present, only
things are more in a state of decay
and collapse. In the fine tradition of
the fall of Rome, people elect a TV
or Head of David or some of them
are doing. I have no idea where it'll
all end up. But at least this way it's
more of an adventure. I would hate
for spoken word, acting, music or
whatever to turn into a job. When it
turns into that. I'm gone. There are
times when I get so frustrated and
depressed I just want to chuck the
whole thing and go find a shack in
Colorado and slam the door and not
talk to anybody anymore. But for
now I'm here to do damage.
Describe the DOA collaboration.
The entire second side of the
Biafra/DOA album is one song called
"Full Metal lackoff," all about the
connections with the Contras, help
ing bring drugs into this country
with the help of Oliver North, who's
been made into this hero. I wouldn't
call North the Adolf Hitler figure of
American politics, more like Roberto
Del Wesan, the head of the death
squads in El Salvador. Same kind of
guy, same kind of magnetism as
marketed by right wing owned cor-
porations, who own our media. I
mean, now almost eighty percent of
American mass media is in the
hands of only twenty corporations.
They may buy Thrasher in the very
near future, who knows?
If you study papers, you'll see that
there's less and less actual news in
there. It's more and more like the
USA Today, which is a Soviet style
paper in terms of telling people as
little as possible except hot vacation
tips for the weekend. Happy news
for happy people with happy
problems. That's why so many rock
songs pushed by major labels have
one message alone-shut up and
shop. Same with TV shows.
So here we have our own intelli-
gence community bringing in mas-
sive amounts of drugs, ruining the
exactly what's going on. The lunatics
have taken over the asylum.
Bush is a banana republic dictator
He's not a wimp at all. He knows
enough to make himself look like.
that, but he is a very smooth, effi-
cient Nazi machine who's studied all
of Hitler's mistakes to know how to
do things right. You don't take over a
country overnight, it's a thirty year
slow coup so nobody asks ques-
tions. You make a big stink about.
the American flag. Guess who else
made a big stink about desecrating
the flag-the Nazi party right after
they took over Germany. Bush is
doing the exact same thing. Back in
82 I read an article in the Wall
Street Journal linking people with
names like Richard Secord, William
Colby. William Casey with running
heroin and opium out of Laos
through the bodies of Gls in the
o here we have our
own intelligence commu-
nity bringing in massive
Vietnam War to America.
And sending whole bat-
talions on missions on
behalf of drug lords, not
the South Vietnamese
government. And guess.
what name has popped
up in that as well-
George Bush. That is
amounts of drugs, ruin-
ing the lives of countless
people, and yet saying we who's running our coun
need to crack down on
people as part of a war
on drugs; make them pee
in jars at work, have the
cops sweep the ghettos.
William Bennet has even
proposed sweeping
Washington DC and
locking suspected drug
users on barges floating
in the Potomac River.
lives of countless people, and yet
the same people bringing in the
drugs are the ones saying we need
to crack down on people as part of a
war on drugs: make them pee in jars
at work, have the cops sweep the
ghettos. I mean, William Bennet has
even proposed sweeping Washing-
ton DC-and the city proper is
almost all black, mind you-and
locking suspected drug users on
barges floating in the Potomac River
and leave them there. If it's part of
the war on drugs, then concentra-
tion camps are okay. How close are
we to somebody busting down our
door and saying. "Hey, you oppose
concentration camps? You must be
on drugs. Let's lock you away." That's
try now, make no mis-
take. That's what "Full
Metal lackoff is about.
Any summarization?
That's hard to put into
an advertising slogan
that sounds catchy at the
end of an interview. Keep
asking questions, find
out what's really going
on and do something
about it, yet be true to
yourself without being an
asshole about it. There's
a way, no matter what
you want to do where
you can still give some-
thing back to other peo-
ple and society at large.
The lawyer I had for the Frankenchrist
trial was a criminal lawyer, not a
constitutional lawyer who would
argue before the supreme court. He
was a Perry Mason. Of course, most
cases that would come his way
would be drug dealing, murder, rob-
bery, whatever. He said the reason
he took my case on for no fee was
because he wanted to give some-
thing back to his profession, and he
was tired of people picking on the
First Ammendment and the U.S.
Constitution. In other words, even if
somebody does want to go for the
nice house, the two-car garage, the
2.3 children, there is still room to
give something back and dig doing it
at the same time.
89