Jello Biafra Quotes & Sayings

If you love god, burn a church. — Jello Biafra

I got out of that immediately was that now, all of a sudden, rock music had become a spectator sport, that corporate labels and their bands were the new establishment, and punk was there to fight them the way the activist hippies must have fought what the establishment must have been ten years before. And it was interesting to see the reactions in different parts of the country. — Jello Biafra

News footage came on the TV during dinner of bloody bodies coming back from battle in Vietnam, or the race riots in the South, people getting hosed in Selma, Alabama, or the Biafra war, where I got my name. In my household, it was explained and discussed with the children, as a way of educating us from when we first started grade school why racism and war were wrong, what this all really means. — Jello Biafra

Respecting other people's cultures is well and good, but I draw the line at where some branches of Islam, what they do to women. It's indefensible. — Jello Biafra

All of these reissues were not authorized by me, I do not endorse them, the live album was put out without my permission, and I've not seen a dime at this point, either. — Jello Biafra

You have to be down here in the States to realize just how tightly controlled the corporate media is and how much they practise Soviet-style censorship through creative omission. — Jello Biafra

My parents didn't hide reality. I watched cartoons and the news with equal fascination. — Jello Biafra

The boyfriend of the student music teacher came in: "Hey, kids, this is a real Air Force pilot." I asked him something to the effect of how it felt to be dropping bombs on children in Vietnamese villages. And it got very icy in there all of a sudden, and finally the teacher said, "Oh, well, Eric reads a lot of newspapers. Next question." — Jello Biafra

The last true punk band to get a major label contract was The Dickies. — Jello Biafra

I do fear for the generations of people who came of age thinking that pop-punk is what punk is, and that all the rebellion you need is just to stick your tongue out in the mirror every once in a while. — Jello Biafra

I went to Seattle as just another geek in the food chain, thinking, "Well, in my own puny little way, I'd rather be a part of history than just sit and watch it on TV." So, the fact that so many people are starting to ask the right questions and rack their brains for solutions does give me hope. — Jello Biafra

No matter what I do, my songs come out in a certain style, and if that sounds like Dead Kennedys, then there's probably a reason for it. Don't forget, I wrote most of those songs, music and lyrics. — Jello Biafra

As a human being with notoriety and a big mouth, I've felt most threatened during the first Bush Administration. Whenever there's a Bush in the White House, many people die, and the rest of us are threatened. I just didn't think it would happen quite so quickly. The so-called USA Patriot Act, and the announcement of trying people in military tribunals if Bush or Rumsfeld's or Ashcroft's people think they somehow qualify as terrorists, basically, this is McCarthyism run amok. — Jello Biafra

I've never been a big fan of subtle art. I like art that gets deep into my head and starts my brain spinning with new ideas and inspiration and my whole body is full of energy. — Jello Biafra

When "Search and Destroy" by the Stooges came on as a Nike shoe commercial, I got physically sick. That song meant the world to me, and I didn't feel this was the way it ought to be used. — Jello Biafra

The underground scene is still a cool way to meet a lot of cool people, see a lot of interesting bands and get a lot of food for thought, but people have to remain curious and get their brain activity food from other places besides punk. — Jello Biafra

Jimi Hendrix once said, 'You will never hear surf music again.' Well, tonight, you will hear 'serf' music again
S-E-R-F music. — Jello Biafra

You've got to have an ego as big as Mars to want to think that you, of all people, are better than anyone else to be president of the United States. People that vain, they want their place in history, and they want to be able to control how much they'll be worshipped by future generations. — Jello Biafra

Our biggest national security threat is the environmental destruction of our planet and the arms race with ourselves. — Jello Biafra

And we will NOT let Campbell's Soup, Old Navy, or anybody ELSE, HAMMER into the minds of girls as YOUNG as SIX YEARS OLD that they should ALWAYS hate their bodies and ALWAYS be on a diet! — Jello Biafra

It's very irresponsible as a parent to follow Tipper Gore or the Religious Right's advice and just take the offending CD or game away from the kid without discussing it. — Jello Biafra

To this day, we get letters at Alternative Tentacles from young teenagers who hide their Dead Kennedys albums behind their mirror or in the mattress of their bed. Wouldn't it be better if the parents just discussed this with the kids instead of creating this culture of sneaking and dishonesty within the family? The moral of the story being, you don't hide reality from your kids because then they grow up to be smarter, more aware adults. — Jello Biafra

What does it say about our country when people are so desperate for an alternative to our one-party state masquerading as a two-party state that they'll even elect a professional wrestler governor? — Jello Biafra

We need a new law that owners of SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) are automatically in the military reserve. Then they can go get their own goddamn oil. — Jello Biafra

I have very mixed feelings about Jesse Jackson. He's very good about labor, and human and civil rights issues, but not so good on cultural issues. — Jello Biafra

I think one of the beauties so far of the so-called Spirit of Seattle is there aren't any leaders, pop stars, or guru figures that everyone else is falling in line with and following. No [Nelson] Mandela, Havel, or Subcomandante Ski Mask riding in on a white horse and everybody else just wanting to follow them to the promised land. We're stitching it together and doing it ourselves. — Jello Biafra

Another part of what gave me a questioning, rabble-rousing, activist heart and soul is that when all these heavy events went down, my parents did not shelter the kids from it. — Jello Biafra

Patriotism does not mean giving blind loyalty and a blank check to George W. Bush. — Jello Biafra

I got turned on to rock music almost by mistake when I was seven years old. — Jello Biafra

When my sixth grade teacher opened the class with subtle praise for the guardsmen shooting four people to death at Kent State, I'd given up arguing with her by that point. But I was very riled up inside and vowed that I would never forget that. — Jello Biafra

Punk is not dead. Punk will only die when corporations can exploit and mass produce it. — Jello Biafra

I've been to enough other countries in the world to know what happens when you have socialized single-payer health care. It works. People don't get sick as much. They don't lose their life savings with a catastrophic illness like cancer or AIDS. — Jello Biafra

What I'm getting at is, you know, if we really want to get serious about helping all the people living in the street and getting people jobs, we could just hire half the people in the country to spy on the other half. — Jello Biafra

I never expected the movement against globalization and corporate rule to mushroom as quickly as it has, either. And right now the strongest electoral arm of that movement is the Green Party. I try to stress to people cynical about voting that the Greens are the most effective electoral arm of the so-called Spirit of Seattle, and it's great fun to cause trouble in the streets, but that's not going to accomplish much without insurrection in the voting booth at the same time. — Jello Biafra

I saw the Ramones, early on at a country-rock palace in Denver. They were opening for some record-company band, so the local music establishment, and I emphasize the word "establishment," was there in force, and the handful of us who knew the Ramones were up in front. And half the fun was, you know, not only were the Ramones the most powerful band I had ever seen at that point, but they made it look so simple - that anyone could do it, hell, even I could do it. This is what I should be doing. — Jello Biafra

Let me start by saying, I'm utterly disgusted with the former members of the Dead Kennedys. — Jello Biafra

The Sonics I found later and that was pretty important. — Jello Biafra

Method acting has had a major influence both in writing through the eyes of other people, and seeing through the eyes of other people, trying to address different ideas in a way that would go beyond preaching to the choir. — Jello Biafra

When there's people on the other side of the room trying to wipe out your life and things are stacked against you, you can get nervous. — Jello Biafra

We don't need a flat tax, but a flattening tax, to truly level the playing field. — Jello Biafra

Heavy Metal is the most conservative of all loud music. Let's face it, not even a gym teacher could get as many people to dress alike. — Jello Biafra

There's sort of an open offer to work with a guy in Los Angeles who does big band and orchestra arrangements who was at least an acquaintance to Les Baxter before he passed away. — Jello Biafra

I am an anarchist in my personal life. I try to live my life in a way that I don't need cops or baby-sitters to keep me from infringing on others. But I don't feel we have evolved far enough as a species to make anarchy work in society itself. We still need government to transfer the wealth from those who have too much to those who have too little, to make sure important projects get done, and keep territorial humans from screwing over and killing each other. — Jello Biafra

In San Francisco, most of the older activists, especially at Berkeley, were very hostile towards punks. The music, certainly, wasn't nice and mellow for them, and neither was our look or our attitude. While in Vancouver, the two most important early punk bands, D.O.A. and the Subhumans, were both managed by former yippie activists, who saw this as a logical extension of what they were already doing. — Jello Biafra

I was born in the late '50s, was a child of the '60s, then the '70s, then the '80s, then the '90s, and I have mental fingers in all those pies. — Jello Biafra

So basically the understanding on these so-called reissues is that they were done behind my back, without my permission, and the band informed me that I would no longer be paid on them at all. — Jello Biafra

That's the way both they and I travel sometimes. Pick road at random, and when it's time to pull over, you pull over and hope you can find a place to crash. — Jello Biafra

Balance the budget ? Tax religion. — Jello Biafra

What they're not doing is marketing the Dead Kennedys in the spirit of what the band stood for. — Jello Biafra

Shut up, be happy. Obey all orders without question. The happiness you have demanded is now mandatory. — Jello Biafra

Well, I don't think I'll ever stop being frustrated or feel fulfilled artistically. — Jello Biafra

A hairstyle's not a lifestyle. — Jello Biafra

All my different kinds of artwork have been designed to inspire people to think. They may not always agree with me, but at least they will have some feelings and some passion about whatever it is. — Jello Biafra

If you liked school, you're gonnnnna lovvvvve work! — Jello Biafra

Hardly anybody in America pays attention to local elections. — Jello Biafra

From the beginning, there was so much pressure in the early San Francisco punk scene for everyone to be different than everyone else, to flaunt your intelligence and insights instead of every band sounding alike, like what plagues punk music in particular today. — Jello Biafra

I went through a big Alice Cooper phase, which was probably a major influence on my writing style later, especially after Plastic Surgery Disasters. — Jello Biafra

I don't know whether I see it as slipping inside the villains, but part of what makes Ralph Nader and Michael Moore such effective speakers and communicators is that they know how corporate culture works, how our lawmaking bodies really work, and where the bones are buried. — Jello Biafra

Especially in local elections, because hardly anybody pays attention to those - but it's really important who's mayor and who's on the city council, county commissioners, sheriffs, district attorney, and of course the school board. — Jello Biafra

We've never had a situation where mass media has been so censored, at least in my lifetime. When I was younger, networks like NBC, CBS, were independently owned, and took their jobs as journalists seriously. There used to be documentaries like "The Selling of the Pentagon." — Jello Biafra

I'm totally down with insurrection in the street. I've had a great time with that over the years. Insurrection in the voting booth is the other part of the equation. — Jello Biafra

This is my home. Home is where the disease is. As long as I stay in America, I'll never run out of subjects for songs. — Jello Biafra

If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve. — Jello Biafra

Punk rock will never die, until something more dangerous replaces it. — Jello Biafra

The jury had down right contempt for punk rock grass roots ethics. — Jello Biafra

In the case of Michael Moore, having a deep, I'd even say passionate, understanding of other types of people in America who might be progressive thinkers without even realizing it. — Jello Biafra

If I go without rock for too long, I feel depressed. — Jello Biafra

Then as I got older, I always gravitated towards the hard stuff, Born To Be Wild, then Black Sabbath. — Jello Biafra

It depends on the situation. I mean, on one hand there's the argument that people should be left alone on the other hand, there's the argument to wade in a stop slaughters in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and what we probably should have done in Rwanda. — Jello Biafra

I enjoy getting people angry and getting underneath their skin, especially people who don't think. — Jello Biafra

You can spend the money on new housing for poor people and the homeless, or you can spend it on a football stadium or a golf course. — Jello Biafra

I think that what's perceived as punk out in shopping malls or in chain stores or on MTV has almost nothing to do with what punk is about. — Jello Biafra

I think Noam Chomsky is a national treasure - make that an international treasure. — Jello Biafra

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s. — Jello Biafra

I'm appalled at how many people my age, or even five or ten years younger, have no tangible memories of important history that happened when we were growing up. — Jello Biafra

I'm tired of being ruled by the Skull and Bones. The only place they belong are on punk-rock albums! — Jello Biafra

We didn't have money to put out everything we wanted to put out. — Jello Biafra

Any alternative culture that inspires a lot of passion and inspiration is also in danger of being set in its ways, almost from the moment it's born. — Jello Biafra

Even the most Bush-happy, flag suckling jack-arse knows deep-down inside that something is wrong. America is over and everyone knows it. The New World Order has a dying empire odor and changing the channel ain't going to make this go away. — Jello Biafra

I was the kid in the class who was looking for the angles to question things or make wise-ass remarks, not knowing enough to be afraid of being myself or showing intelligence. But I wasn't the only kid like that in my classes because of where I grew up. I'm really thankful I grew up in a town where there were a lot of other mutant kids. I'm from Boulder, Colorado, which went through a lot of dramatic changes when I was growing up. — Jello Biafra

I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco. — Jello Biafra

If I get even five per cent of my ideas out and documented before I die, I'll be lucky. I'm not in danger of running out of riffs or ideas anytime soon. They overwhelm me and it's hard to find time to deal with them. — Jello Biafra

Don't hate the media; become the media. — Jello Biafra

A lot of the best acting training I had was in junior high and high school. We had very demanding directors and did real plays. You put our plays up against any theater troupe of any age, and they usually did pretty damn well. — Jello Biafra

Once you get involved with bloodsport litigation, you can not only get drunk on your own greed but start to believe your own lies. — Jello Biafra

If voting could change anything, it would be illegal. — Jello Biafra

Looking back, I didn't realize until years later what a huge influence Red Skelton was in my stage demeanor with the band. I mean, I always liked things that were funny, and later I realized that having a sly sense of humor was a way to get attention and even respect in school. — Jello Biafra

In 1965, my father was just twirling the dial of the radio to find something that would make me go to sleep, and as soon as I heard rock and roll there was no stopping me. It was during the height of Beatlemania and the British invasion, but I gravitated toward the harder, heavier music going on then, you know, the early Rolling Stones, the good Rolling Stones, and Paul Revere and the Raiders, who don't get the credit they deserve for spearheading the American '60s garage sound. — Jello Biafra

For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground. — Jello Biafra

I got involved because I wanted to help inspire more people to get off their butts and register and vote - not just in this election, but in every other election from now on, you know? — Jello Biafra

I would hate to have "Holiday in Cambodia" become as tiresome to other people as hearing "Like a Rock" in a Chevrolet commercial. — Jello Biafra

I don't think it's too hippie to want to clean up the planet so you don't wind up dying of some kind of cancer when you're 45 years old. It enrages me that these big cancer-research organizations can't be bothered to man the front lines of environmental protest. — Jello Biafra

My attitude is if somebody blunders into the level of popularity; at least remember the human factor. These guys are still human beings and hopefully still have hearts and if you keep in touch with them rather than vilify them you may be able to encourage them to go in the right direction. What I'm hoping will eventually happen is that they will grasp the amount of power and financial clout that is now at their fingertips and use those as tools to help real people with real things the way punk politics was always designed to do before, but nobody had any money. — Jello Biafra

They've gone to great length to disguise the fact that I'm not in the band, even sending out a photo to promoters with my picture in it which then winds up in some of the ads on the flyers. — Jello Biafra

In many ways, I have no idea what would have become of me if punk hadn't happened, because the '70s turned out to be so stale, and so boring, and so backward compared to what had come just before. We were too young to have fully experienced the '60s and the fervor of the anti-war movement. — Jello Biafra