Fun Fun Fun Fest Interview: Jello Biafra

Punk’s politically-driven clown prince Jello Biafra will always be frozen in most minds as the frenetic frontman for San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys (1978-1986). Sarcastic, acrobatic, verbose: Biafra was the DKs’ public face, as he and the band crafted music of more skill, scope, and imagination than most two-chord hardcore thrash.

Unfortunately, that made the singer an easy target for censorship, a factor in the Dead Kennedys’ dissolution. Now 56, Biafra’s made three LPs since 2009 with his first full-time band since that breakup, the Guantanamo School of Medicine. They scrub up for Fun Fun Fun Fest today at 2:55pm in service of 2013’s White People and the Damage Done, then the head man takes to the Yellow stage Saturday for trademark (out)spoken word.

Austin Chronicle: What have you got planned this time around, as far as a spoken word set.

Jello Biafra: I haven’t planned it yet. Getting back into rock with Gitmo School of Meds has sorta chewed up the time I might have to hide for a couple of months and get one of my marathon spoken word shows together. I still make cameos every once in awhile. I’m doing one at a fundraiser for some Green Party candidates in the East Bay tomorrow night.

Some of it will probably be off-the-cuff comments about whatever’s going on that particular day I might want to say something about. I’ll probably also read some other pieces people who know the spoken word albums well will be familiar with. It’s gotten to the point where a lot of those earlier pieces, you look at ‘em today and think, “Y’know, I’m not going to say it’s any better now if I completely re-write the thing.”

The last time I performed these pieces was so long ago. It’s almost fresh for a new audience. Plus, as Penny [Rimbaud] from Crass put it, “If there’s something you feel strongly about, it’s not a bad thing to keep hammering that point home, again and again and again.”

AC: Also, not a lot of the issues you speak about change, so you have to keep hammering at these things.

JB: I never thought, growing up, I would find myself looking at the most corrupt era in America the whole time I’ve been alive! Even the Supreme Court is really open about saying, “Yo! We’re bought! What are you gonna do about it? The Koch Brothers don’t want to let people vote and want to buy some more elections? We’re down! That’s who we work for!”

AC: One thing I’ve figured out about you: We might be able to label you an “anarchist.” It doesn’t matter who gets into power, you’re not going to like them!

JB: I may be closer to that than anything else. Years ago, I was talking about this with Tim Yohannon at Maximum Rocknroll, and he was pointing out reasons he was a died-in-the-wool socialist. He made the point there needs to be a government entity transferring the wealth from people who have too much to people who don’t have enough. I’m totally down with that. Maybe that makes me more of a socialist? I don’t know. I also don’t like to put any of those restrictions or blinders on when I decide how I’m going to vote. I go issue by issue, candidate by candidate.

AC: Listening to the new Gitmo LP proves it’s absolutely ridiculous for your former bandmates to deny your authorship of this sound or Dead Kennedys songs.

JB: Widening the base of the pyramid, maybe. I don’t do that on purpose. My songs are going to come out sounding a certain way whether I want them to or not, because it’s just what happens. Even Buzz [Osborne] and Dale [Crover] from the Melvins told me that too, when they were working with me on the albums I made with them [2004’s Never Breathe What You Can’t See and ‘05’s Sieg Howdy].

They wondered if all the lies the DKs told in court actually might have had a point. As soon as they heard the stuff I was bringing in, they said, “Nope, this is the well from which most of it springs.” I won’t deny a lot of my favorite Dead Kennedys songs had more than one author. But I wrote about half of them myself, and then was the main writer in most of the others. I wound up rearranging most of the ones the others brought in, too. It’s what I do.

AC: What are your memories of the early Dead Kennedys shows here in Austin?

JB: I think the third one, by far, was my favorite. The audience was really up and on our side. None of the dumb, violent shit marring the first two shows happened. It was then I finally began to warm to Austin. Although the big positive memory of the first show at the Ritz in ‘82 was it was the only time I saw the original Dicks live in Austin, with Gary Floyd in full drag.

His already powerful stage presence was multiplied by at least 100. He had a long wig and makeup, with a big white bomber bra under a white shirt and cut-off shorts. It was something else.

The Dicks hadn’t moved out to San Francisco yet, and had only come out on a little tour with the Stains before they became MDC. So, they were struggling against an audience who had never heard of them before. But the value of the Dicks on the home turf was incredible.

Luckily, I had the privilege of spending a good, long period of time in Austin when I recorded the Prarie Home Invasion album with Mojo Nixon & the Toad Liquors at Arlyn. I got a little more immersed into cool people to know, cool places to go, places to eat, places to look for cool records. We’d knock off early every Sunday night so we could walk around the corner and see three or four sets of Junior Brown at the Continental Club.

I saw Johnny Paycheck there one night, too. Hardly anybody was there, but he had this big, badass bodyguard onstage, scowling and looking at everybody the whole time to make sure nobody would fuck with Johnny. Probably because, if he fought back, he’d violate his parole and go straight back to prison. That’s not the sort of thing you see in small venues in San Francisco!

And I still haven’t gotten over the shock that a certain main street in your town is pronounced “Guada-loop.” To me, that falls in the same category as calling your professional football team the Washington Redskins.