Dead Kennedys were one of the first, and certainly one of the most influential, US hardcore punk bands. The San Francisco band split following the release of their fourth album, 1986's Bedtime For Democracy, the tensions between vocalist Jello Biafra and his bandmates East Bay Ray (guitar), Klaus Fluoride (bass) and D.H. Peligro (drums) spilling into the public in 1998, when Biafra was sued by the trio over alleged unpaid royalties. A Californian court subsequently found Biafra and Alternative Tentacles, the label he co-founded with East Bay Ray guilty of "malice, oppression and fraud", and the singer was ordered to pay out the money with-held.
In a new interview with Guitar World, East Bay Ray suggests that lingering bitterness over the case means that the band won't be reuniting with their former anytime soon, despite receiving offers to do so, from festivals such as Chicago's Riot Fest.
“It’s not an issue for me or Klaus,” the guitarist insists [Peligro died in 2022]. “It’s Biafra that turns down any offers for us to do something; we don’t have any problem. He got caught with his hands in the till and wants to blame us for getting caught, but he should never have put his hands in there in the first place.”
In the interview, East Bay Ray also shoots down the idea that Biafra was the band's main songwriter during their time together.
“We actually wrote as a band, where in effect, due to the chemistry between us, it was a case of two and two equaling five,” he says. “None of us has had a solo career that was bigger than Dead Kennedys, which, to me, shows the power of a bunch of talented people getting together and creating something that was far greater than the sum of its parts.”
“Jello didn’t bring in the songs,” he insists. “I know he’s created the myth that he wrote them all, but the question here is that if he did, why didn’t he ever do anything significant after leaving the band?
“Iggy left the Stooges and had a career; ditto Lou Reed with the Velvet Underground or Morrissey with the Smiths. Where’s Biafra’s solo career with a bunch of great songs? The songs were written in numerous different ways. [Holiday In] Cambodia started as a jam in the rehearsal studio.
“Other times, I’d have ideas for riffs that I’d put on cassettes and Biafra would find lyrics in his notebook. Klaus was important, too, in that he was the most trained musician in the band, and he was good at putting things together. Very few songs were written by one person.”
The band have upcoming shows in Spain, Portugal, Australia and New Zealand on the docket.
