Lifeless Kennedys Guitarist Claims Jello Biafra Is Holding Again Reunion

Followers wishing for a reunion from the Lifeless Kennedys and Jello Biafra must petition the previous singer, founding guitarist East Bay Ray has claimed.

Ray (whose actual title is Raymond Pepperell) has served because the guitarist for the San Francisco punk icons since their formation in 1978, stepping away from his position solely in the course of the band’s inactive interval between 1986 and 2001. 

Although the Lifeless Kennedys reformed within the twenty first century, they’ve not as soon as been fronted by Biafra, whose relationship with Ray and drummer Klaus Flouride (aka Geoffrey Lyall) stays fraught to today. As Ray defined in a current interview with Guitar World, he’s open to the idea of a reunion with the traditional lineup, although Biafra stays the sticking level in any potential plans.

“It’s not a difficulty for me or Klaus,” Ray explains. “It’s Biafra that turns down any provides for us to do one thing; we don’t have any downside. He bought caught along with his palms within the until and desires accountable us for getting caught, however he ought to by no means have put his palms in there within the first place.”

Ray’s claims relate to a 1998 lawsuit wherein Ray, Flouride and drummer D.H. Peligro (aka Darren Henley, who would cross away in 2022) accused Biafra and his Different Tentacles label of withholding royalties. In 2003, Biafra was ordered by California’s Court docket of Enchantment to replay the excellent royalties with extra punitive damages.

Ray, Flouride and Peligro reunited the Lifeless Kennedys in 2001, with numerous singers fronting the band till the appointment of Ron “Skip” Greer in 2008. Makes an attempt to reunite the traditional members of the Lifeless Kennedys have taken place through the years, together with by Chicago’s Riot Fest in 2017.

“Lifeless Kennedys had a honest invitation to play a reunion present at Riot Fest in Chicago this fall,” Ray wrote on social media on the time. “Jello Biafra turned it down. Klaus Flouride, DH Peligro and I have been wanting ahead to doing it.”

The Lifeless Kennedys’ authentic eight-year run resulted in a string of singles and 4 studio albums, together with their 1980 debut Recent Fruit For Rotting Greens. The conclusion of the band’s lawsuit in 2003 gave members the fitting to reissue previous Lifeless Kennedys albums, together with a 2022 launch of their debut which left Biafra displeased.

“We really wrote as a band, the place in impact, as a result of chemistry between us, it was a case of two and two equaling 5, you already know?” Ray rold Guitar World. “None of us has had a solo profession that was larger than Lifeless Kennedys, which, to me, exhibits the ability of a bunch of proficient individuals getting collectively and creating one thing that was far better than the sum of its elements.

“Jello didn’t carry within the songs. I do know he’s created the parable that he wrote all of them, however the query right here is that if he did, why didn’t he ever do something important after leaving the band?” he added. “Iggy left the Stooges and had a profession; ditto Lou Reed with the Velvet Underground or Morrissey with the Smiths. The place’s Biafra’s solo profession with a bunch of nice songs?”