Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter.
North American punk pioneer Jello Biafra has suffered a stroke which has landed him in hospital. The former Dead Kennedys frontman turned solo artist has cancelled all tour dates.
In a press release from his long-running indie label Alternative Tentacles, Biafra said he had a hemorrhagic stroke in the middle of the night. He attributed the stroke to high blood pressure.
”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,” Biafra recounted. “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 shit, I’m having a stroke!’”
Born Eric Boucher in Colorado, Biafra rose to prominence as the frontman for San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys. In the late ’70s and ’80s the band was one of the biggest bands in American hardcore, mixing razor sharp political commentary with calculated-for-maximum-reaction humour. The band is considered one of punk rock’s most iconic and important acts.
After acrimoniously leaving Dead Kennedys, Biafra embarked on a solo career that’s continued today. His post -Dead Kennedy’s has seen him collaborate with Vancouver-via-Victoria prog-punk legends NoMeansNo, as well as front the hyper-political Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine. As one of North America’s true punk forefathers, he’s had a close association with Vancouver’s Joe Keithley of D.O.A., teaming up with the long-running West Coast punk legends for 1990’s Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors.
Biafra has released multiple spoken word albums, addressing everything from America’s military-industrial complex to race relations and police brutality to the reshaping of the US landscape by multinational corporations. And’s remained both politically active and, just as importantly, outspoken about the American government no matter who’s been in the White House.
On that last front, it’s hard to think of a time in U.S. history when his voice—and really anyone whose work has ever been impacted by Biafra’s legacy—has been more needed. There’s a war going on Stateside, and leaders are sorely needed to lead the resistance. (For more on lifelong artist and agitator go to this article here.)
Biafra is currently in hospital in stable condition.
He has pledged to keep working down the road.
“I still have a lot of great stuff in me,” he said. “But right now I have a lot of rehabbing to do.”
Video of Dead Kennedys – We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now (In Studio)
