42 Facts About Jello Biafra

Jello Biafra is the former lead singer and songwriter for the San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys.

Jello Biafra has occasionally appeared in cameo roles in films.

Politically, Jello Biafra is a member of the Green Party of the United States and supports various political causes.

Jello Biafra ran for the party's presidential nomination in the 2000 presidential election, finishing a distant second to Ralph Nader.

Jello Biafra is a supporter of a free society and utilizes shock value and advocates direct action and pranksterism in the name of political causes.

Jello Biafra uses absurdist media tactics, in the leftist tradition of the Yippies, to highlight issues of civil rights and social justice.

Jello Biafra has a Jewish great-grandparent, but was unaware of this until he was in his mid-40s.

Jello Biafra began performing with the band under the stage name Occupant, but soon began to use the stage name Jello Biafra, a combination of the brand name Jell-O and the short-lived African state Biafra.

Jello Biafra initially attempted to compose music on guitar, but his lack of experience on the instrument and his own admission of being "a fumbler with my hands" led Dead Kennedys bassist Klaus Flouride to suggest that Jello Biafra simply sing the parts he envisioned to the band.

On May 7,1994, punk rock fans who believed Jello Biafra was a "sell out" attacked him at the 924 Gilman Street club in Berkeley, California.

The crash injured Jello Biafra's leg, causing an argument between the two men.

However, Jello Biafra returned to the Gilman club a few months after the incident to perform a spoken-word performance as an act of reconciliation with the club.

Jello Biafra has been a prominent figure in the Californian punk scene and was one of the third-generation members of the San Francisco punk community.

The Dead Kennedys disbanded during the trial, in December 1986, due to the mounting legal costs; in the wake of their disbandment, Jello Biafra made a career of his spoken word performances.

Jello Biafra has a cameo role in the 1988 film Tapeheads.

Jello Biafra plays an FBI agent who arrests the two protagonists.

Rather than informing his bandmates of this mistake, the suit alleged, Jello Biafra knowingly concealed the information until a whistleblower employee at the record label notified the band.

Jello Biafra maintained that he had never denied them royalties and that he himself had not even received royalties for re-releases of their albums or "posthumous" live albums which had been licensed to other labels by the Decay Music partnership.

Jello Biafra complained about the songwriting credits in new reissues and archival live albums of songs, alleging that he was the sole composer of songs that were wrongly credited to the entire band.

Jello Biafra was ordered to pay $200,000, including $20,000 in punitive damages.

The band became yet another side project for Ministry, with Jello Biafra providing vocals and lyrics.

Jourgensen claimed in 2021 that Jello Biafra was in the works on a new Lard album.

Jello Biafra worked with Nomeansno on the soundtrack, which led to their collaboration on the album The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy the following year.

Jello Biafra provided lyrics for the song "Biotech is Godzilla" for Sepultura's 1993 album Chaos AD.

Together they have released two albums, and worked on material for a third collaborative release, much of which was premiered live at two concerts at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco during an event called Jello Biafra Five-O, commemorating Jello Biafra's 50th birthday, the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Dead Kennedys, and the beginning of legalized same-sex marriage in California.

In June 1979, Jello Biafra co-founded the record label Alternative Tentacles, with which the Dead Kennedys released their first single, "California uber alles".

Jello Biafra has been the owner of the company since its founding, though he does not receive a salary for his position; Jello Biafra has referred to his position in the company as "absentee thoughtlord".

Jello Biafra is an collector of unusual vinyl records of all kinds, from 1950s and 1960s ethno-pop recordings by the likes of Les Baxter and Esquivel to vanity pressings that have circulated regionally, to German crooner Heino ; he cites his always growing collection as one of his biggest musical influences.

Jello Biafra's collection grew so large that on October 1,2005, Biafra donated a portion of his collection to an annual yard sale co-promoted by Alternative Tentacles and held at their warehouse in Emeryville, California.

In 2006, along with Alternative Tentacles employee and The Frisk lead singer Jesse Luscious, Jello Biafra began co-hosting The Alternative Tentacles Batcast, a downloadable podcast hosted by alternativetentacles.

Jello Biafra became a spoken word artist in January 1986 with a performance at University of California, Los Angeles.

Jello Biafra's ninth spoken word album, In the Grip of Official Treason, was released in October 2006.

Jello Biafra was featured in the British band Pitchshifter's song As Seen on TV reciting the words of dystopian futuristic radio advertisements.

Jello Biafra made a whistlestop campaign tour along the BART line.

Jello Biafra paid $900 and got signatures over time and eventually became a legal candidate, meaning he received statements put in voters' pamphlets and equal news coverage.

Jello Biafra has expressed irritation that these parts of his platform attained such notoriety, preferring instead to be remembered for serious proposals such as legalizing squatting in vacant, tax-delinquent buildings and requiring police officers to run for election by the people of the neighborhoods they patrol.

Jello Biafra finished third out of a field of ten, receiving 3.79 percent of the vote ; the election ended in a runoff that did not involve him.

Jello Biafra chose death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal as his running mate.

When gay rights activists accused Nader of costing Al Gore the 2000 election, Jello Biafra reminded them that Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center wanted warning stickers on albums with content referencing homosexuality.

On September 18,2015, it was announced that Jello Biafra would be supporting Bernie Sanders in his campaign for the 2016 presidential election.

On February 28,2020, Jello Biafra announced that he would be supporting both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential election.

Jello Biafra then decided to travel to Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories, at his own expense, and talk with Israeli and Palestinian activists as well as with fans disappointed at his cancellation.