Jeff Penalty

Jeff Penalty
Jeff Penalty performing with The Dead Kennedys in San Francisco in 2006. Photo by Neil Motteram.
Background information
Birth name	Jeff Alulis
Origin	Broomall, Pennsylvania, United States
Genres	Punk rock, hardcore punk

Jeff Penalty (b. Jeff Alulis) is a writer, filmmaker, and musician, known mainly for his documentary work and his position as a former lead singer of Dead Kennedys.

Penalty was born and raised in Broomall, Pennsylvania. He attended college at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he was a member of the fencing team and attended graduate school at the University of Southern California, where he earned an MFA in Writing for Screen and Television and fenced on the Men's Épée team. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Penalty's musical background was mostly as a drummer, performing temporarily with the Pennsylvania band Ralphus and the glam metal parody band Vaz Hoil. He also played drums with Sidekick and The Eyeliners on one occasion each. He shared vocal duties in the Massachusetts pop punk act Just About Done and sang for a short-lived California band called Stupid Ferrets.

In 2003, Penalty became the vocalist for Dead Kennedys, replacing Dr. Know's Brandon Cruz, who was with the band for two years following their reformation without original vocalist Jello Biafra. Penalty had a fascination with Dead Kennedys ever since he listened to their debut album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. He said singing for Dead Kennedys was "the realization of a dream I never even dared to have." Joining the band at twenty-five, he was considerably younger than his former bandmates. After performing over 50 shows with Dead Kennedys, in March 2008 Penalty announced he was parting ways with the band.

Penalty has since filled in on drums with pop-punk band The Dollyrots for tours of Canada and California, and on vocals for Reagan Youth for tours of California and Texas.

Penalty (under his given name, Jeff Alulis) directed and co-produced (along with Ryan Harlin of Techno Squirrels) Do You Remember? Fifteen Years Of The Bouncing Souls, which won the Best Documentary Feature award at the 2003 D.I.Y. Film Festival in Los Angeles. Alulis and Harlin have since gone on to direct/produce the documentary feature Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records, which was an Official Selection at the 2009 San Francisco Independent Film Festival.