Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra
Photo: MTV News

At the rate they're going, Dead Kennedys are likely to end up spending more time in court than they logged onstage over their nine-year career, which ended in 1987.

The latest chapter in the legal battle was written two weeks ago when frontman Eric Reed Boucher — or, as he's more commonly known, Jello Biafra — sued his former bandmates for misrepresenting themselves by touring with what he calls a "Biafra impersonator" (Dr. Know's Brandon Cruz) and leading promoters to believe that Biafra is performing on the recent Dead Kennedys tour by using his image in photos promoting the gigs.

"I don't object to them playing cover versions of the songs," Biafra said on Tuesday (March 26). "Anybody has a right to do that. But they've engaged in deliberate bait-and-switch tactics. We've had witnesses report that [Cruz] was imitating my voice and stage moves rather than what he did in Dr. Know. And their agent was very evasive about who was and who was not in the band."

Biafra filed the suit in Alameda Superior Court and named guitarist Ray Pepperell (East Bay Ray), bassist Geoffrey Lyall (Klaus Flouride) and drummer Darren Henley (D.H. Peligro) as defendants. In the suit, he also accuses them of not dissolving their music partnership assets, even though they were ordered to by a San Francisco court in 2000.

"I didn't want to sue them, but it was the only recourse I had left to stop them from turning Dead Kennedys into their own little Enron," Biafra said. "They made it clear they don't intend to stop what they're doing or be honest. And on top of that they have not paid me a dime in Dead Kennedys royalties for over a half a year."

Guitarist Pepperell said he was perplexed by the lawsuit. "Brandon is not an imposter," he said. "He has a substantial career as the singer of Dr. Know, and since the beginning, he's been billed on the shows as himself."

The guitarist acknowledged that some promoters mistakenly pulled old photos from the Internet when they publicizing the new gigs, but that such actions were committed without the knowledge or permission of the band. And since December, the band's Web site has credited Cruz and posted his photos.

"I don't know why [Biafra] is making baseless and imaginary charges," Pepperell said. "For us, we're concerned about his behavior. It saddens us."

This is Biafra's latest attempt to prevent his former bandmates from exploiting his name. When word of the band's first concert LP, Mutiny on the Bay, surfaced last year, Biafra issued a statement decrying its release as well as his former bandmates' campaign to bring the Dead Kennedys back to life.

"I have now had to ask them to please remove my name and likeness from all their releases and promotional material," Biafra's statement read. "Don't get me wrong, I'm as proud as ever of the Dead Kennedys and grateful for how much we mean to people, but I'm totally embarrassed by what they're trying to do" (see "Dead Kennedys Remastered, Reissued And Recorded Live").

Whether he truly feels he's suffered financially or he's just ticked off that his former bandmates replaced him with former child star Cruz — who performed alongside Bill Bixby in the '70s sitcom "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" — the singer is seeking punitive and compensatory damages over $25,000.

Even if Biafra wins, his reward will seem paltry next to the $200,000 a jury ordered him to pay Pepperell, Lyall and Henley in May 2000 for unpaid royalties (see "Biafra Ordered To Pay Ex-Dead Kennedys $200,000").

That case was originally filed in 1998 and stemmed from a handshake agreement in which all four members agreed to share equally in the group's royalties (see "Dead Kennedys Prepare To Square Off In Court" ). Biafra hit his former partners with a countersuit that alleged they were trying to punish him for not allowing them to use the Dead Kennedys 1980 single "Holiday in Cambodia" in a Levi's TV advertisement. He also accused Pepperell of skimming merchandising and other funds, but the jury unanimously sided against the singer. Biafra appealed the decision last year and expects that case to return to court this summer.

Even amidst all the process servers, lawyers and judges, it's hard to forget that Dead Kennedys were one of hardcore punk's most influential outfits, merging scorching, uptempo songs with equal doses of politics and sarcasm. Some of the band's more memorable output includes "Kill the Poor," "Too Drunk to F---" and "MTV — Get off the Air."

The band's jones for juries may have kicked in after the highly publicized 1987 lawsuit in which an angry mom sued them for distributing pornography to minors because their 1985 album, Frankenchrist, contained a poster by H.R. Giger depicting a collage of genitalia. Almost overnight, the case turned the band into guardians of freedom and Biafra into a well-versed spokesman for First Amendment rights. The case was dismissed after ending in a hung jury. Perhaps if his new case winds up in court, Biafra won't feel like hanging the jury yet again at its conclusion.

• Dead Kennedys

Photo: Manifesto Records

Though it sounds like an oxymoron, live Dead Kennedys is exactly what fans are going to get this fall when the band issues Mutiny on the Bay, its first official live album.

Hitting store shelves alongside the concert disc on September 11 will be reissues of the DK discs Plastic Surgery Disasters, Frankenchrist, Bedtime for Democracy and Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death. The four albums — which constitute the bulk of the San Francisco Bay Area punk band's catalog — have been out of print for nearly a year due to a legal dispute between singer Jello Biafra and his ex-bandmates East Bay Ray, Klaus Flouride and D.H. Peligro. A December ruling held that Biafra must share control of the group's catalog with his former bandmates (see "Ruling Resurrects Dead Kennedys Rarities").

"All the back catalog's been remastered from the original analog tapes, and in particular Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death just sounds 10,000 times better," guitarist East Bay Ray said Thursday (July 12), referring to the Kennedys' 1987 collection of classics, B-sides, rarities and compilation tracks. "The quality is just vastly superior." Mutiny on the Bay, which Manifesto Records will release along with the remastered studio albums, compiles material from shows in the Dead Kennedys' home turf. The bulk of it comes from two concerts in 1986, but three or four tracks are from 1982, Ray said. "It's way better than all the bootlegs I have." Mutiny includes such DK classics as "Holiday in Cambodia," "Kill the Poor," "Too Drunk to F---" and "MTV — Get Off the Air." "I have multi-tracks of some live shows, and over the last few years I've been listening to them and picking out the best performances," Ray said. "It's been ready for about two years, but Biafra was being difficult." Following December's ruling, which paved the way for the reissues and the live disc, Biafra filed a motion for a new trial and said he will file an appeal.

In a statement issued via his Alternative Tentacles record label, Biafra said he opposes the release of "a subpar live album and the rest of the DK back catalog behind his back and without his permission." "I have now had to ask them to please remove my name and likeness from all their releases and promotional material," the statement read. "Don't get me wrong, I'm as proud as ever of the Dead Kennedys and grateful for how much we mean to people, but I'm totally embarrassed by what they're trying to do." The reissues, originally released between 1981-87 on Alternative Tentacles, were digitally remastered by John Cuniberti, who was the recording engineer for many of the Dead Kennedys' studio sessions. The remastered version of 1982's Plastic Surgery Disasters will include material from the 1981 EP In God We Trust, Inc. Flouride has transferred 60 hours of live video material to VHS, and the strongest footage will be compiled for a video release, Ray said.

The ex-bandmates also hope to put out an album titled Live at the Death Club, featuring the Dead Kennedys' original five-piece lineup, sometime next year.

"Klaus, D.H. and I are disappointed that Jello wants to continue dragging this through the courts," Ray said. "It's time to move on to more music and less lawyers." Mutiny on the Bay's track listing:

• "Police Truck"
• "Kill the Poor"
• "Holiday in Cambodia"
• "Moon Over Marin"
• "California Uber Alles"
• "MTV — Get Off the Air"
• "Too Drunk to F---"
• "Goons of Hazard"
• "This Could Be Anywhere"
• "Forward to Death"
• "I Am the Owl"
• "Hellnation"
• "Riot"

• Dead Kennedys

Jello Biafra
Photo: MTV News

Ex-Dead Kennedys member Jello Biafra blasted his former bandmates Monday, saying he was "totally embarrassed" by their plans to release early recordings and other rarities without his permission.

In a statement issued through his label, Alternative Tentacles, Biafra also said he has filed a motion for a new trial and will appeal a San Francisco Superior Court decision awarding the other Dead Kennedys $200,000. Last year, a jury decided Biafra failed to promote the band's back catalog and pay back royalties to the three other members.

"The jury's verdict is outrageous and both legally and factually incorrect," Biafra said.

In the statement, Biafra acknowledged an "accounting mistake," and said he has already paid East Bay Ray, D.H. Peligro and Klaus Flouride back royalties. Biafra also said he offered them future payment, an offer they declined.

The other Dead Kennedys plan to release live albums, home videos and remastered versions of the group's original releases, beginning this spring (see "Ruling Resurrects Dead Kennedys Rarities").

The legal action began after Biafra opposed allowing Levi's to use the Dead Kennedys' "Holiday in Cambodia" for a television commercial. "I could think of no worse way to stab Dead Kennedys fans in the back than to turn around and trash everything we ever stood for and allow one of our best (and my favorite) songs to be used to sell products by a global corporation with controversial labor practices," Biafra said in the statement.

• Dead Kennedys

Dead Kennedys
Photo: Virus

The Dead Kennedys will be coming back to life — sort of — in the wake of a December court ruling that upheld an earlier judgment that former frontman Jello Biafra must share control over the group's catalog with his former bandmates.

The other members of the influential hardcore group plan to begin releasing new live albums, home videos and remastered versions of original releases culled from more than 60 hours of unreleased live tapes.

Previously unheard material will start becoming available as early as the spring, according to a statement released by the group, minus Biafra.

"There's a whole generation of kids who are into the band but never saw us live," D.H. Peligro, the band's former drummer, said in the statement. "It's about laying it down for the people." A jury ruled in May that Biafra must pay $200,000 in damages to his former bandmates, who had sued him for allegedly failing to promote the group's back catalog and for allegedly failing to pay back royalties. A San Francisco Superior Court judge upheld that decision December 22.

Biafra will have a vote in all future band decisions, but the group will be run as a democracy, the bandmembers said in their statement.

The members' partnership, Decay Music, is in talks with several labels about releasing the new material.

A spokesperson for Biafra, who has said he doesn't plan to be involved in any re-release of the band's catalog, could not be reached for comment at press time.

• Dead Kennedys

A San Francisco Superior Court jury slammed ex–Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra on Friday, finding him liable for nearly all charges brought against him by his former bandmates.

Damages stemming from charges that Biafra's label, Alternative Tentacles, failed to promote the group's back catalog and failed to pay back royalties, among other complaints, totaled nearly $200,000, including $20,000 in punitive damages.

"It's the ugliest thing I've ever had done to me in my entire life," a disheartened Biafra (born Eric Reed Boucher) said after the verdict was read. "What they're basically doing is punishing me for sticking to the principles of the band and underground and independent culture."

Guitarist East Bay Ray (born Ray Pepperell) and bassist Klaus Flouride (Geoffrey Lyall) maintain that they and drummer D.H. Peligro (Darren Henley) are the true guardians of the band's democratic values, but they admit that the legal triumph was bittersweet.

"'Happy' is not the word, because we didn't want it to have to get this far, and we weren't out to defeat Biafra at all," Flouride said outside the courtroom. "[In an earlier press report] Biafra was saying that it's absurd that it has to be settled in a court, [that] this is a stupid way to settle things, and it's stupid that it had to get this far, that it had to be settled here.... We tried our darndest to settle it."

Ray said, "He just needed to talk to us."

Peligro was not at court to hear the verdict, but the other bandmembers and their attorneys spent the morning pacing the halls of the San Francisco Superior Courthouse and wandering in and out of the courtroom where the trial has been held for close to three weeks, waiting for the jury, in its third day of deliberation, to come out with a decision.

Biafra was visibly stunned as ruling after ruling was read against him by the court clerk.

The normally outspoken singer quietly answered attorney David Phillips' inquiries into his personal finances as Phillips asked the jury to award his clients more than $170,000 in additional punitive damages. They awarded only $20,000.

A handful of people — including old friends of the entire band — sat in the court gallery to hear the verdict. Most were surprised at the sweeping vote, particularly the jury finding that Biafra and the label had failed to promote the band's back catalog. Several witnesses, including Offspring frontman Dexter Holland, had testified that record companies generally do not promote the back catalog of defunct bands.

Biafra holds that his high-profile activities serve to promote the band. Ray, Flouride, and Peligro said they believe that Biafra should have prioritized promotion of the Dead Kennedys catalog over his solo releases.

Biafra was awarded $5,000 in his countersuit against Ray, in which he accused the guitarist of taking a portion of the band's royalties without his consent, as a fee for managing the business side of the band's four-man formal partnership, Decay Music.

The jury decided that Biafra and Ray were liable for fraud, as well as for breaches of fiduciary (partnership) duty, but only Biafra was found to have committed the acts with malicious intent. Biafra said he plans to appeal.

In addition, the jury found that Decay Music owns the band's catalog, which includes such sarcastic punk classics such as "Kill The Poor" and "California Uber Alles." Biafra had argued that the songwriter for each track owned that work.

Judge Anne Bouliane will have the final say on the ownership issue and two other points decided as an advisory by the jury. Bouliane is expected to rule Wednesday on ownership of the catalog, whether the Decay partnership is run by majority rule or unanimous consent and whether Biafra was given "reasonable notice" of a September 1998 meeting at which the other three partners voted without him to terminate Alternative Tentacles' license to manufacture and sell the band's music. The jury voted in favor of Ray, Peligro, and Flouride on all three issues.

While Biafra's lawyer argued that majority rule would give the other members the power to override his vote on future decisions, Ray and Flouride said the partners plan to make decisions democratically.

Biafra disagreed. "Obviously if they take [the catalog] somewhere else, I'm gonna have no involvement," Biafra said. "The last thing I wanted was for Dead Kennedys to be the ugliest memory of my whole life."

• Dead Kennedys

Former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, owner of record label Alternative Tentacles, hid discrepancies in royalty payments from his ex-bandmates, guitarist East Bay Ray said Friday, May 5.

"I felt that he was trying to cover up that he owed [royalty money], covering up to his partners," Ray said on Friday in San Francisco Superior Court. But while on the stand in the third day of the band's civil trial against its former singer, Ray admitted that he, too, had made some accounting errors.

Ray (born Ray Pepperell), bassist Klaus Flouride (Geoffrey Lyall), and drummer D.H. Peligro (Darren Henley) are suing Biafra (Eric Reed Boucher) for allegedly mismanaging the band's royalties and catalog. Biafra is countersuing Ray, accusing him of mismanaging Decay Music, the bandmembers' four-man partnership responsible for distributing royalties and making band decisions (see "Dead Kennedys Prepare To Square Off In Court").

Band-founded Alternative Tentacles, owned solely by Biafra since 1986, is responsible for promoting the group's catalog.

Former Alternative Tentacles General Manager Kristen Von Till (born Kristen Lange) said she noticed in early 1998 that Decay had been receiving royalties based on a $10.98 retail price per CD, while other artists on the label were being paid based on an $11.98 retail price since 1989. Von Till said Biafra told her, "Ray couldn't find out about this discrepancy or Ray would go after him."

She said that she told Ray later that year about the discrepancy and then showed him records to back up her claims.

Biafra's attorney, John Stewart, accused Von Till of violating legal instructions and improperly sharing Alternative Tentacles documents with Ray, including royalty sheets for bands such as the Butthole Surfers and D.O.A. At the time, both sides in the dispute were under legal orders to communicate only through their lawyers.

Stewart pointed out accounting errors Ray had made in calculating the percentage of Decay's royalties he took for himself as payment for handling the partnership's business and accounting. Ray testified that he had not informed the other partners of his error for six or seven months. "I didn't know how to handle the [accounting] problem," Ray explained.

Former attorneys for both sides are expected to testify Monday.

• Dead Kennedys

Lawyers for the two feuding factions of Dead Kennedys are preparing for a trial set to begin on Monday, barring another continuance.

Former bandmembers Klaus Fluoride (bass), D.H. Peligro (drums), and East Bay Ray (guitar) are accusing frontman Jello Biafra of wrongfully keeping more royalties than he's entitled to and mismanaging the group's independent label, Alternative Tentacles, among other issues. The three are seeking $75,000 in royalty payments and several hundred thousand dollars in damages.

In turn, Biafra has lodged a countersuit alleging, in part, that his former mates are seeking vengeance because he wouldn't allow the use of the band's 1980 single "Holiday In Cambodia" for a Levi's TV ad, a move he viewed as a corporate sell-out. Biafra is also accusing Ray of skimming merchandising and other monies collected by the guitarist for the other bandmembers.

Jury selection for the San Francisco Superior Court proceedings had been expected to get underway this week, but some last minute legal wrangling has caused a delay.

The politically charged Dead Kennedys were at the forefront of the budding California punk scene when the group first formed in 1978. The band initially topped punk playlists with the single "California Über Alles" in 1979 and went on to churn out such classics as "Let's Lynch The Landlord," "Kill The Poor," "Nazi Punks F*** Off!" and "Too Drunk To F***," among others.

The group broke up soon after fighting pornography charges stemming from a poster by H.R. Giger included in its 1985 album, "Frankenchrist." That case was dismissed after the trial resulted in a hung jury. The group's last album was the posthumous compilation "Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death" released in 1987.

Biafra, who finished fourth in a run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979 and is currently running for U.S. President under the auspices of the Green Party, went on become an in-demand spoken-word performance artist. He also put his energies into developing Alternative Tentacles as a multi-artist label. The roster, in addition to Biafra and the Dead Kennedys catalogue, now hosts roughly 20 acts including NoMeansNo, Facepuller, Wesley Willis, and D.O.A.

The bandmembers filed the current suit in 1998, in which they contend that a handshake agreement in the band's formative years called for all four members to share equally in the group's royalties.

Biafra's lawyer, John K. Stewart, told MTV News that there are motions before the court to determine what evidence will be presented to the jury, and that has caused the current delay.

Stewart expects the jury selection to start on Monday and the opening arguments to get underway a day or two later. The trial is not expected to last more than three weeks.

Among the more notable figures on Biafra's witness list as industry experts are The Offspring's Dexter Holland and Reprise Records President Howard Klein. Holland's participation is up in the air, however. APBnews.com reports that the frontman had been subpoenaed for a pretrial deposition and had yet to show up. A spokesperson for Holland's management told MTV News that he has not been able to locate the vacationing singer.

• Dead Kennedys

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