Jello Biafra, founding frontman of the influential punk band Dead Kennedys, has been hospitalized after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. According to a message posted on his social media pages, the 67-year-old singer, spoken-word artist, and political activist suffered the stroke on Saturday, March 7. He noted that it was “caused by high blood pressure.”
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As Biafra explained, “I hopped out of my bed because I needed to pee, and my left leg just collapsed under me and I fell to the floor. I couldn’t even break the fall with my left arm because it wasn’t working either. I tried to hop back up again, and I couldn’t, I realized I had ‘fallen and I can’t get up!’ It was this point I thought, ‘Oh s—, I’m having a stroke!’”
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He added, “I still have a lot of great stuff in me, but right now I gotta lotta of rehabbing to do.”
A note from Biafra’s record label, Alternative Tentacles, also reported, that he was “currently hospitalized but stable.”
The label added, “Speaking for the Alternative Tentacles family, we are all just very thankful he is okay and getting the care that he needs. We will update you all as we are able.”
More About Jello Biafra and Dead Kennedys
Biafra, whose birth name is Eric Boucher, co-founded Dead Kennedys in 1978 in San Francisco. The band is known for its blistering punk songs featuring satirical lyrics filled with political critiques and social commentary. Dead Kennedys’ best-known tunes include “Holiday In Cambodia,” “California Über Alles,” and “Kill The Poor.” All of those songs appeared on the group’s 1980 debut album, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables.
After Dead Kennedys disbanded in 1986, Biafra launched a solo career. That career has included a series of spoken-word albums and collaborations with other artists. He recorded several albums as a member of the band Lard, which also featured Ministry’s Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker.
Jello has been involved with a number of lawsuits with his former Dead Kennedys bandmates over songwriting credits. The group re-formed without Biafra in 2001.
Outside of music, Biafra is known for his involvement in left-wing politics. He ran for mayor of San Francisco in 1979 and was a presidential candidate for the Green Party in 2000.
Songfacts: Holiday In Cambodia | Dead Kennedys
This is one of the few Dead Kennedys songs that was written by the entire band – most were composed solely by Biafra. In a 2013 Songfacts interview with Biafra, he said it was still his favorite song, and explained how it came together: “The original ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ is more a straight punk song. We called them ‘chainsaws’ back then, ‘chainsaw punk’ after the Ramones song (‘Chainsaw’). The other guys didn’t like it. They didn’t want to play it. I was heartbroken, I was crestfallen, they’d never done that to me before. And then Klaus (Flouride – bass player) began noodling around on what became that signature bass line. I thought, ‘Hey, wait a minute. That’s cool. What would happen if we swiped everything from my ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ song – verse, chorus, bridge – but used that as the original root rhythm?’ Actually, we had a three-chord chorus and bridge that came from the original, and then the verse we swapped out. Eventually, Ray (guitarist East Bay Ray) came up with that signature guitar part when he enters the song. It was taking a while; we didn’t even play it at our first show, although we knew we had it under our belt. It was a pretty chief song for making me decide I ought to stick with these guys and it might turn into something really unusual, because I was playing around with some other people, too. Before we played, I came back out of the bathroom and back to Ray’s garage and heard that lick, and I was like, ‘Yow!’ And Ray told me he’d seen Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett at Winterland when he was a kid, and I took note of that. So when I was trying to get something to put on top of Klaus’ riff, I kept trying to get it to fit there, and fit there, and fit there, and finally, it appeared.”
(Photo by Lorne Thomson/Redferns)
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