Jello Biafra

Jello Biafra
Jello Biafrais the former lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys, and is currently a musician and spoken word artist. After he left the Dead Kennedys, he took over the influential independent record label Alternative Tentacles, which he had co-founded in 1979 with Dead Kennedys bandmate East Bay Ray. Although now focused primarily on spoken word, he has continued as a musician in numerous collaborations...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPunk Singer
Date of Birth17 June 1958
CityBoulder, CO
CountryUnited States of America
I realized later on that a lot of times I'd go back to Colorado to hide from all the mayhem in San Francisco so I could get songs written.
A lot of the best acting training I had was in junior high and high school. We had very demanding directors and did real plays. You put our plays up against any theater troupe of any age, and they usually did pretty damn well.
The boyfriend of the student music teacher came in: "Hey, kids, this is a real Air Force pilot." I asked him something to the effect of how it felt to be dropping bombs on children in Vietnamese villages. And it got very icy in there all of a sudden, and finally the teacher said, "Oh, well, Eric reads a lot of newspapers. Next question."
My attitude is if somebody blunders into the level of popularity; at least remember the human factor. These guys are still human beings and hopefully still have hearts and if you keep in touch with them rather than vilify them you may be able to encourage them to go in the right direction. What I'm hoping will eventually happen is that they will grasp the amount of power and financial clout that is now at their fingertips and use those as tools to help real people with real things the way punk politics was always designed to do before, but nobody had any money.
My parents didn't hide reality. I watched cartoons and the news with equal fascination.
The United States has been declared under martial law...All constitutional rights have been suspended. Anyone interfering with the collection of urine samples will be shot. Anyone failing to attend morning school prayer will be shot. The number one enemy of progress is questions. National security is more important than individual rights. Sports broadcasts will proceed as scheduled. Shut up, be happy, obey all orders without question. At last everything is done for you.
We have to wipe out Bushism itself, before it wipes us out. That means showing up and voting smart in every election, big and small. I think that in many ways that, the local elections are even more important than the national elections. It's the mayors and the city councils and county comissioners and the school boards and the legislators that decide how to spend the money they fleece off of us in taxes.
Once you get involved with bloodsport litigation, you can not only get drunk on your own greed but start to believe your own lies.
I do fear for the generations of people who came of age thinking that pop-punk is what punk is, and that all the rebellion you need is just to stick your tongue out in the mirror every once in a while.
Yes, I think it's a freedom of expression issue. My feeling is the best way to counter bad speech is with more speech.
We didn't have money to put out everything we wanted to put out.
They've gone to great length to disguise the fact that I'm not in the band, even sending out a photo to promoters with my picture in it which then winds up in some of the ads on the flyers.
I got involved because I wanted to help inspire more people to get off their butts and register and vote - not just in this election, but in every other election from now on, you know?
Method acting has had a major influence both in writing through the eyes of other people, and seeing through the eyes of other people, trying to address different ideas in a way that would go beyond preaching to the choir.