Jello Biafra talks politics and punk

Jello Biafra (centre) and the Guantanamo School of Medicine

The Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida began on Monday, the same day hardcore punk icon Jello Biafra and his latest band, the Guantanamo School of Medicine, fled the country – only to end up in Harperland. The Canadian leg of their tour began Tuesday, and wraps up tonight at the inaugural edition of the Expérience MTL festival.

Biafra’s songs are as topical now as they were when he was frontman for Dead Kennedys. Their classic “California Über Alles” underwent a folk-style evolution with a quarter century of topical rewrites, addressing the reigns of governors Jerry Brown, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Biafra and his new band will soon be launching an EP, SHOCK-U-PY!, to be followed by an LP, White People and the Damage Done, both on his own Alternative Tentacles label.

I spoke to Biafra on Monday, about elections, occupations and the spirit of punk rock.

Lorraine Carpenter: You’ve got a presidential election happening. How should your people vote?

Jello Biafra: People should generally pay more attention. I would advise them not to give up on voting just because the choices are Corporate Cartoon Character A and Cartoon Character B. The [American] agenda will be largely the same. Sure, Romney and his business thugs are more vicious than the Obamaton, but they both work for Wall Street. Of course I’d feel less terrified on a daily or hourly basis with the Barackstar in there.
I’m registered Green — I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want and get it. The Obama administration hasn’t been quite as much of an international outlaw about global warming as Harper’s people have, but they haven’t exactly been helpful.

LC: You got involved with the Occupy movement. Do you hope that that will evolve into something that could actually change the system?

JB: I think it already has. People can be part of this movement in their daily lives without getting their heads cracked open by the cops or sitting in endless meetings arguing about 9/11 conspiracy theories. Doing something is better than doing nothing.

A lot of the success of this depends on people staying true to their convictions five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, when they become parents and homeowners and have precious things to protect and can easily fall into a conservative viewpoint. You can actually hang onto these [convictions] and be a happier person.
Even the mere act of making a conscious effort to divorce yourself from the corporate food chain by patronizing as few chain stores and restaurants and buying as few products from multinational corporation as possible, even that is positive action. Ask yourself, how can I give less money to people who are wrecking my life and wrecking the planet? That’s what I hope the ripple effect of occupy will be.

LC: What can people expect from your set Friday night?

JB: We’re probably gonna do a lot of the new songs that nobody up there has heard. I think even people who show up expecting a retro act are both relieved and excited when we come out like gangbusters playing a bunch of new material instead of one Dead Kennedys song after another.

To me, that reflects the same spirit that’s we’ve always had with Dead Kennedys and other bands from that time, when no two punk bands were supposed to sound alike and punk meant something new, not a bunch of formulas you could buy at a chain store like Hot Topic.

LC: Your stuff is so topical, too. It’s exciting to hear such current subject matter, especially when not a lot of people are doing it.

JB: I also try to make it so that people can listen to it years from now and the words will still mean something and pack a punch. [He talks about the re-writes of “California Über Alles.”] All those worst-case scenario songs I’ve written about the forces of darkness in our world, when my paranoid imagination runs wild – sometimes I think I should quit writing them because they keep coming true. ■

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine play Expérience MTL tonight, Friday. Aug. 31, 3-11 p.m., $12