Punk in Trouble: The Battle of the Dead Kennedys

The Dead Kennedys, scheduled to play their first-ever Russian shows this week, are a legendary punk band without a legendary punk.

Today's Dead Kennedys consists of only three of the band's four original members -- famed frontman and songwriter Jello Biafra, who personifies the band for many of its fans, left when the band split in 1986. The others re-formed the band two years ago, without Biafra.

The reunion occurred in 2001, after band members East Bay Ray (real name: Ray Peperrell, guitar), Klaus Fluoride (real name: Geoffrey Lyall, bass) and D.H. Peligro (real name: Darren Henley, drums) won their lawsuit against lead singer Biafra (real name: Eric Boucher) in 2000, and Biafra was found guilty of defrauding his former bandmates of nearly $76,000 in royalties and ordered to pay just under $200,000 in compensation and damages.

Although Biafra is currently appealing the verdict, the decision also allowed the trio to take control of the band's back catalogue of songs, power formerly held by Biafra's Alternative Tentacles Records, a label the band itself formed in 1979 and which, until the decision, owned the rights to all of the band's songs. After the verdict, East Bay Ray, Fluoride and Peligro reissued five remastered Dead Kennedys albums on Manifesto Records. Biafra makes statements on his label's web site (www.alternativetentacles.com) strongly advising fans against purchasing the CDs.

Currently in the middle of a 25-date European tour, which began last Wednesday with a show in Milan, the band performs classic Dead Kennedys songs with its new vocalist, Brandon Cruz, who is also frontman for another veteran U.S. punk band, Dr. Know.

During a phone interview from Pisa, Italy last week, East Bay Ray said the band would perform exclusively original Dead Kennedys songs during the Russian concerts -- on Friday at Moscow's B2 and a Saturday show at St. Petersburg's Dvorets Molodyozhi -- which are no different from the others on the tour, none of which include any new songs. He added that the band has no immediate plans to visit a recording studio.

"We'll play a mix of some of the classic songs, like 'Holiday in Cambodia,' 'California Uber Alles' and 'Let's Lynch the Landlord,' and we'll play some of our favorites, 'In-Sight,' 'Forward to Death' and 'Buzzbomb.' About 20 songs or so," he said.

Although critics of the new Dead Kennedys might disagree, East Bay Ray said the band did not get back together in order to capitalize on the current popularity of music from decades past.

The band's reunion, East Bay Ray said, "happened by accident," when Peligro suggested the trio perform some Dead Kennedys songs at the launch party for a live album, "Mutiny on the Bay," which the three had culled from live 1980s concert material and released in 2001 without Biafra's consent.

"We weren't advertised to play ... we rehearsed ... at a rehearsal studio and people heard the sound of the Dead Kennedys coming out, loud and large," he said. "The rumor hit the street and the record release party was sold out three weeks in advance -- 700 people, with 200 or 300 outside the door that night hoping to get in.

"We played the songs and the promoter said he'd never seen so many smiles at a punk rock show. About two-thirds of the audience were younger people who hadn't seen us before."

A talent agent who attended that performance approached the band after the show.

"He said 'This is really good. We should take this to see if other people want to see it.'"

One person who didn't want to see it was Biafra, who today focuses mostly on spoken word performances and albums, as well as on running Alternative Tentacles. In a telephone interview from San Francisco this week, he said he had reacted to the news of the band's reunion -- without him -- with disbelief.

"They did it out of greed. [East Bay] Ray and Klaus [Fluoride] don't really like the music anymore, as far as I can tell," Biafra said. "At least, [judging by] the way they acted over the last several years. You know, they bragged on stage that they don't even bother to rehearse and, at least in America, they charge very high ticket prices and play a lot of sort of oldies by, I guess, bands like Quiet Riot and Great White.

"I can't really speak for them," Biafra continued. "Because of the way they have treated me and treated our fans over the last several year. I can't really trust that their motives are good ones."

In addition to these statements, Biafra said the trio has intentionally avoided any mention of the fact the new Dead Kennedys perform without the famous former frontman.

"That's very deliberate on their part to try to disguise that as much as possible," he said. "Many times in America their shows have had advertisements with my picture in them, even if I'm not there ... or advertised as a full reunion tour with all the original members."

Biafra added that several concert promoters have informed him that, on the European tour, East Bay Ray, Fluoride and Peligro have only told concert venue representatives about Biafra's absence when they specifically asked about the singer.

During the band's heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, Biafra was an outspoken, very visible presence as frontman -- one who is still adored by fans today and would have been impossible to replace to the satisfaction of fans.

East Bay Ray disagrees.

"Brandon, the lead singer, is actually more athletic than Biafra," he said. "He works out, does skateboarding, does surfing, does snowboarding, so he's in very good physical condition. That's different. The way of looking at it is: The message stays the same, just the voice has changed."

But Biafra, who said he first met Cruz 20 years ago, said the current lead singer was "just like a Hollywood rich kid" back then.

"He was a big TV star and stuff, but otherwise I don't really know him at all," Biafra said. "I'm very sad to hear reports from fans about the shows -- that he's been calling me a terrorist and comparing me to Osama bin Laden and saying I don't love my country because I don't support [U.S. President George] Bush and his stupid war on terrorism and all."

Cruz first entered the public eye at the age of 6 when he starred in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," a situation comedy that ran on U.S. television network ABC in the early 1970s.

"I didn't write these lyrics, but I believe every fucking word of them," Cruz was quoted as saying of Dead Kennedys songs in The New Yorker in 2002. In the same article, he revealed that he has received death threats from Dead Kennedys fans.

"Another thing that bothered me about Cruz is that, you know, a professional actor as he is, he says the band meant so much to him, my lyrics meant so much to him, and then he never memorizes the stuff, so he gets them wrong again and again on stage. And he doesn't care," Biafra said. "You know, now that we've taken your money, what's the matter, we can just run off to the next town or the next country.

"I also got reports that Peligro was dedicating 'Holiday in Cambodia' to our troops overseas in Afganistan, saying they [the band] supported the war," Biafra said. "That's exactly the opposite to what Dead Kennedys, the real Dead Kennedys, stood for. I mean, these guys have just stolen the name and turned it into a bad joke of the original."

It has long been acknowledged that Biafra wrote the majority of the band's songs, and he is officially recorded as author or co-author of nearly all of them.

But, though Biafra wrote the songs, East Bay Ray claims to be "the intellectual of the band."

"He [Biafra] was the one who could write the good lyric to express the idea, but the ideas ... didn't originate with him," East Bay Ray said. "The lyrics were his, mostly, not all of them, but the good percentage of them."

Biafra, not surprisingly, denied these claims, attributing them to the fact that the court ruling allows East Bay Ray, Fluoride and Peligro to legally control -- or sell the rights to -- the songs.

"They say it's finally democracy, but it's more like Russia under the oligarchs, where I'm never told what is going on and I'm hardly paid anything now," Biafra said.

The clash between the former members of the Dead Kennedys began, Biafra said, when he refused to agree to allow its song "Holiday in Cambodia" to be used in a Levis' jeans commercial. He added that, as a result of the ruling, he will receive no royalties for any use of the songs until he pays the three other members an additional $140,000 in damages.

	Alternative Tentacles Records Biafra charges that the Dead Kennedys don't tell promoters that he's not their singer.

"If I don't give them [the money], they'll sue me," he said. "That's how greedy they are."

After the trial -- which continued for more than two years in a San Francisco court -- Biafra, as owner of Alternative Tentacles, was ordered to pay damages of just under $220,000 to the four band members, including Biafra himself. The sum includes damages for "failing to promote" the band's back catalogue of songs.

"It was about royalties," East Bay Ray said. "Biafra was running a record label. He was picking money that was supposed to go to the Dead Kennedys and spending it on himself. Someone working at the label told us about this. We went to Biafra and spent a year trying to negotiate with him, and he would not acknowledge the issue. So we went to a trial. He forced us to sue him. The verdict was that Biafra committed fraud and had to pay the royalties to the band. That's all there is to it."

The general consensus among Dead Kennedys fans is that suing your former bandmates in as un-punk as it gets, but East Bay Ray objects.

"Why aren't they criticizing Biafra? He countersued. He sued us," East Bay Ray said. "He has four lawsuits against us. Where's the person who'll criticize Biafra? He's a hypocrite."

But Biafra denies ever witholding royalties from the band, and blames the situation on an accounting error that he says Alternative Tentacles discovered, and rectified.

"There was no stolen money," he said. "They made this story up in an attempt to ruin me and steal the rights to Dead Kennedys so they'd never have to pay me again.

"They claimed there was some huge conspiracy, but I'm not the type of person who steals money. Alternative Tentacles is one of the few honest underground music labels in America. We pay all our bands the royalties and we pay them on time. And this is the thanks I get."

But if Biafra's statements are true, how did the trio win its case? Biafra says by lying, and by encouraging witnesses to lie.

"They lied like crazy on a witness stand. ... I thought the truth was strong enough, but it was a jury not of other musicians, punks or people from the underground, it was a jury of yuppies and doctors saying they wanted me punished because I was not enough of a capitalist.... It didn't seem to matter that I was the one paying my own money to keep our albums in print all those years and pay them the royalties so they even would never bother getting a job. You know, if people want more money, maybe they should go get a job."

There has not yet been a decision on Biafra's appeal.

"We've been trying to get a hearing for nearly a year on all the money that's been disappearing, since [East Bay] Ray got control of it all. And still they stall," he said.

In the midst of so much malice, many fans wonder if the members of the Dead Kennedys still believe in punk.

In spite of the lawsuits, East Bay Ray said the three remaining members still live by the Dead Kennedys' principles of cooperation and mutual assistance.

"Our basic message is think for yourself. That hasn't changed," he said. "I mean, unfortunately, a lot of our songs still apply nowadays. ... It's kind of sad how much is still relevant. In the political songs, not in all of our songs."

East Bay Ray claims it was Biafra who drifted away from what the band stood for.

"Biafra's paradigm has shifted from telling people to think for themselves to telling them what to think," East Bay Ray said. "He hasn't seen the show. A long time ago, he said he'd let the audience decide: We're coming back to Europe for the second time and playing bigger places, so judge for yourself. That's the message."

Biafra hasn't seen the show, but he appears to have made his decision about the new Dead Kennedys. If he doesn't back the new Dead Kennedys, however, he said his basic worldview hasn't changed since his punk days.

"I believe in the ideals, that's why I put so much energy now into trying to fight Bush and this horrible war he wants to start. ... More than ever America is turning into the old Soviet Union, only with a horrible taste of capitalist greed thrown in.

"To me, punk was more a state of mind. ... When we were around ... the purpose was often to just completely mindfuck the audience. [Laughs] We didn't care if we were popular. It was a lot more fun that way."

The Dead Kennedys perform (without Jello Biafra) at 11 p.m. on Friday at B2, located at 8 Bolshaya Sadovaya Ulitsa. Metro Mayakovskaya. Tel. 209-9918.