Jello Biafra
| Jello Biafra | |
|---|---|
Biafra performing with the Guantanamo School of Medicine in 2011
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Eric Reed Boucher |
| Also known as | Occupant, Count Ringworm, Osama McDonald |
| Born |
June 17, 1958 Boulder, Colorado, United States |
| Genres | Punk rock, spoken word, hardcore punk |
| Occupation(s) | Vocalist, speaker, record label director, Green Party politician |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Labels | Alternative Tentacles |
| Associated acts | Dead Kennedys, The Witch Trials, The Melvins, No WTO Combo, Lard, Revolting Cocks, Brujeria, Mojo Nixon, 1000 Homo DJs, Tumor Circus, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, NoMeansNo |
Jello Biafra (born Eric Reed Boucher; June 17, 1958) is the former lead singer and songwriter for the San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys. He is currently both a musician and spoken word artist. After he left the Dead Kennedys, he took over the influential independent record label Alternative Tentacles, which he had co-founded in 1979 with Dead Kennedys bandmate East Bay Ray. Although now focused primarily on spoken word, he has continued as a musician in numerous collaborations.
Politically, Biafra is a member of the Green Party of the United States and actively supports various political causes. He ran for the party's Presidential nomination in 2000, finishing a distant second to Ralph Nader. He is a staunch believer in a free society, who utilizes shock value and advocates direct action and pranksterism in the name of political causes. Biafra is known to use absurdist media tactics, in the leftist tradition of the Yippies, to highlight issues of civil rights and social justice.
Eric Boucher was born in Boulder, Colorado, the son of Virginia (née Parker), a librarian, and Stanley Wayne Boucher, a psychiatric social worker and poet. He also had a sister, Julie J. Boucher, the Associate Director of the Library Research Service at the Colorado State Library (who died in a mountain-climbing accident on October 12, 1996). Biafra is 1/8th Jewish.
As a child, Eric Boucher developed an interest in international politics that was encouraged by his parents. An avid news watcher, one of his earliest memories was of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Biafra says he has been a fan of rock music since first hearing it in 1965, when his parents accidentally tuned in to a rock radio station. Boucher was informed by his high school guidance counselor that he should be spending his high school years preparing to become a dental hygienist.
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