Jello Biafra

Engaging and thought provoking, the ranting and intelligent Jello Biafra questions everything that is held sacred. During an average presentation, he will cover censorship, the legalization of drugs for taxable profit and social responsibility, government follies and mistruths, educational overhaul, and why he isn't nostalgic about punk rock's "glory days."

Challenging what you might have thought you held unquestioned and dear to your heart, he takes those beliefs and tears them up, forcing you to rebuild them from scratch.

Born Eric Boucher in Boulder, Colorado, he left town after high school. First, he did what many youth do—he formed a band. He became the leader and vocalist of Dead Kennedys, a pioneering punk rock band featuring smart, political lyrics with furious music.

After first calling himself Occupant, Jello Biafra picked his name at random out of a notebook. Years later, he said he chose it because he "likes the way the two images collide in people's minds."

Jello's controversial spirit raged on as he turned toward social commentary, and ran for mayor of San Francisco in 1979. While he did not win, he became a magnet for the vote of those dissatisfied with the leading candidates. During his campaign he never lost his sense of humor, wearing T-shirts from an opponent’s previous campaign, and vacuuming leaves off another opponent’s front lawn. With 6,591votes, he finished fourth out of ten candidates, with 3.5% of the total vote.

Biafra ranks as the first musician to be put on trial, because of the content of a record album (in 1985, three years before 2 Live Crew). The Frankenchrist album released with his group, Dead Kennedys, contained in its original release a reproduction of a painting by Swiss artist H.R. Geiger. Obscenity charges followed, under the urging of Tipper Gore and the Parent's Music Resource Center, after a woman spotted the record in her daughter's collection.

It was because of this painting that Jello's house in San Francisco was raided and torn apart by a squad of Los Angeles and San Francisco police officers. Former L.A. deputy city attorney Michael Guarino, regrets the episode. Stating, "about midway through the trial we realized that the lyrics of the album were in many ways socially responsible, very anti-drug and pro-individual."

Biafra practices what he preaches by recording albums of his spoken-word pieces on his own record label, Alternative Tentacles. As a devoted advocate of free speech, artistic freedom, and just plain getting your ideas out in the open, he created A.T. as a means for out-of-the-mainstream artists to record and distribute their work.

If Evolution is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Evolve, is a triple-CD opus which takes on the topics of the media and the Clintons, censorship, and the death-penalty appeal case of journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal.

His album, entitled Become the Media deals with the rise of independent media. Biafra was involved in the Seattle protests of the WTO. He recorded a music EP under the moniker "No WTO Combo" with Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) and Krist Novoselic (Nirvana).

At a past spoken-word show, he said, "One of the worst forms of censorship is what people are not being told." His live performances take that idea head-on, with Biafra weighing in on the entire spectrum of social, political, and artistic topics.