An Interview with Jello Biafra on 10.17.2005
Issue 203 / November 2005 More from this Issue
By Dave Madden
Jello Biafra has finessed the serious activist-cum-comedian technique since the late '70s. Whether fronting the Dead Kennedys or a host of other musical projects (Lard with Al Jorgensen, No WTO with Krist Novoselic and Kim Thayil, et cetera, et cetera), running for mayor (he came in fourth!), performing and recording spoken-word, fighting financially-crippling censorship battles, outlining his campaign for potential President-ship (he was drafted as a nominee for the Green Party in 2000) or running his label, Alternative Tentacles, Biafra maintains a caustic, clever wit while pushing his need for personal, political and global reform.
Biafra's latest album, his sophomore joint venture with the Melvins, Sieg Howdy!, is as solid as Alcatraz. Biafra's poison pen meets those post-Sabbath thrashy grooves the Melvins are famous for, and with a dose of Tool's Adam Jones's obtuse, alternate tuned prog-mania on several tracks and remixes by hip-hop gods Dlek and Sir Al Jourgensen, you've got yourself a deal! The crew (yes, this sounds like a crew, not a project) stomps with both animated glee and seasoned know-how as they address the irony of perverts put into power at airport security ("The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism"), religious zealots ("Caped Crusader") and re-tool a classic with "Kalifornia Uber Alles 21st Century" (this time blasting Governor Ahnold, Fox News and Enron).
Judging from the album and my conversation with Biafra, he still retains an ever-boundless fervor and the epic personal agenda he refuses to give up. Thank God.
SLUG: When I was 16, the only tape my friends and I could agree on while skating was Bedtime for Democracy. At the time, I don't think I really got the message of "Chicken-Shit Conformist Like Your Parents", but the song was a catalyst of sort to start me thinking about what was going on outside my insulated skate world.
Jello Biafra: (laughs) I thought that one would be pretty blunt. I learned, really early on, after no one could figure out what "The Man With the Dogs" was about, that I would rather take away all the obscure art and just whack people over the head with what you want to get through to them. After all, in a Disney-fied society where people actually believe what they see on television, there's a value to shock value.
SLUG: Absolutely -- which is how I responded to Dead Kennedys covers. I mean, your new album (with the Melvins) is called Sieg Howdy! At first I laugh at the ridiculousness then sigh after the realism sinks in.
JB: Yeah, sometimes I think I should quit writing all these worst-case scenario pieces because they keep coming true. "Islamic Bomb" came true before the album even came out --you know, Pakistan, with our help, gaining nuclear technology, which of course the C.I.A. thought they'd never get and then selling little gift-wrapped, do-it-yourself, build-a-nuke kits to Libya, North Korea and Iran for sixty million dollars a piece. So both in the nuclear way and in the suicide-bomber way, globalization -- that we direct -- is once again spawning real terrorists who want to kill our ass.
SLUG: What scares me now is that it seems that Bush, unlike a lot of presidents we've had, is not just a figurehead, following orders, but very passionate about carrying out his personal Conservativist, traditional values and apocalyptic agenda.
JB: Yeah, I don't agree with that at all. I think he's like Reagan where he was put in to pretend to be the President because he looks good on television and can act like a rootin' tootin' tough cowboy. The difference is at least Reagan knew he wasn't really President. He was just an actor put there to pretend to be President to soothe the populace while his friends looted the country. Bush is so dumb he doesn't know how dumb he is: he really thinks he is President. And all they have to do is steer him along like someone rolling down a Hot Wheels track, or something, and say, "Okay, this is what's going on, this is what needs to be done", and he'll immediately think he thought of it himself. I mean, why do you think they had that receiving device under his suit at the debates? Just feed him his lines, he says them and he thinks he's being spot-on point. You'll notice that he didn't even try to answer a lot of the questions in those debates. He just kept running around and acting like some loose circus animal that needed a chain around his ankle to keep him from mauling his own audience while he said, over and over again, "Fight terror. Spread freedom. Fight terror. Fight terror." "What about the number of homeless people in the U.S.?" "Fight Terror!"
Jello Biafra has finessed the serious activist-cum-comedian technique since the late '70s. Whether fronting the Dead Kennedys or a host of other musical projects (Lard with Al Jorgensen, No WTO with Krist Novoselic and Kim Thayil, et cetera, et cetera), running for mayor (he came in fourth!), performing and recording spoken-word, fighting financially-crippling censorship battles, outlining his campaign for potential President-ship (he was drafted as a nominee for the Green Party in 2000) or running his label, Alternative Tentacles, Biafra maintains a caustic, clever wit while pushing his need for personal, political and global reform.
Biafra's latest album, his sophomore joint venture with the Melvins, Sieg Howdy!, is as solid as Alcatraz. Biafra's poison pen meets those post-Sabbath thrashy grooves the Melvins are famous for, and with a dose of Tool's Adam Jones's obtuse, alternate tuned prog-mania on several tracks and remixes by hip-hop gods Dlek and Sir Al Jourgensen, you've got yourself a deal! The crew (yes, this sounds like a crew, not a project) stomps with both animated glee and seasoned know-how as they address the irony of perverts put into power at airport security ("The Lighter Side of Global Terrorism"), religious zealots ("Caped Crusader") and re-tool a classic with "Kalifornia Uber Alles 21st Century" (this time blasting Governor Ahnold, Fox News and Enron). Judging from the album and my conversation with Biafra, he still retains an ever-boundless fervor and the epic personal agenda he refuses to give up. Thank God.
SLUG: When I was 16, the only tape my friends and I could agree on while skating was Bedtime for Democracy. At the time, I don't think I really got the message of "Chicken-Shit Conformist Like Your Parents", but the song was a catalyst of sort to start me thinking about what was going on outside my insulated skate world.
Jello Biafra: (laughs) I thought that one would be pretty blunt. I learned, really early on, after no one could figure out what "The Man With the Dogs" was about, that I would rather take away all the obscure art and just whack people over the head with what you want to get through to them. After all, in a Disney-fied society where people actually believe what they see on television, there's a value to shock value.
SLUG: Absolutely -- which is how I responded to Dead Kennedys covers. I mean, your new album (with the Melvins) is called Sieg Howdy! At first I laugh at the ridiculousness then sigh after the realism sinks in.
JB: Yeah, sometimes I think I should quit writing all these worst-case scenario pieces because they keep coming true. "Islamic Bomb" came true before the album even came out --you know, Pakistan, with our help, gaining nuclear technology, which of course the C.I.A. thought they'd never get and then selling little gift-wrapped, do-it-yourself, build-a-nuke kits to Libya, North Korea and Iran for sixty million dollars a piece. So both in the nuclear way and in the suicide-bomber way, globalization -- that we direct -- is once again spawning real terrorists who want to kill our ass.
SLUG: What scares me now is that it seems that Bush, unlike a lot of presidents we've had, is not just a figurehead, following orders, but very passionate about carrying out his personal Conservativist, traditional values and apocalyptic agenda.
JB: Yeah, I don't agree with that at all. I think he's like Reagan where he was put in to pretend to be the President because he looks good on television and can act like a rootin' tootin' tough cowboy. The difference is at least Reagan knew he wasn't really President. He was just an actor put there to pretend to be President to soothe the populace while his friends looted the country. Bush is so dumb he doesn't know how dumb he is: he really thinks he is President. And all they have to do is steer him along like someone rolling down a Hot Wheels track, or something, and say, "Okay, this is what's going on, this is what needs to be done", and he'll immediately think he thought of it himself. I mean, why do you think they had that receiving device under his suit at the debates? Just feed him his lines, he says them and he thinks he's being spot-on point. You'll notice that he didn't even try to answer a lot of the questions in those debates. He just kept running around and acting like some loose circus animal that needed a chain around his ankle to keep him from mauling his own audience while he said, over and over again, "Fight terror. Spread freedom. Fight terror. Fight terror." "What about the number of homeless people in the U.S.?" "Fight Terror!"
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