Former Dead Kennedys Singer Jello Biafra Hospitalized Following Hemorrhagic Stroke

Jello Biafra, the outspoken former lead singer of San Francisco punk legends the Dead Kennedys was rushed to the hospital over the weekend after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke due to high blood pressure. In an Instagram statement on Monday (March 9), Biafra’s indie label, Alternative Tentacles, revealed that the 67-year-old singer (born Eric Reed Boucher) suffered the stroke on Saturday (March 7) at his home.

”I hopped out of my bed because I needed to pee, and my left leg just collapsed under me and I fell to the floor,” Biafra wrote in a statement. “I couldn’t even break the fall with my left arm because it wasn’t working either. I tried to hop back up again, and I couldn’t. I realized I had ‘fallen and I can’t get up!’ It was this point I thought, ‘Oh s–t, I’m having a stroke!’ I still have a lot of great stuff in me, but right now I gotta lotta of rehabbing to do.”

The statement said that Biafra is still hospitalized in stable condition.

Biafra was the public face of punk agitators the Dead Kennedys from 1979 through their initial break-up in 1986, howling his pointed lyrics that skewered politicians, the military, public figures, phonies, liars and hypocrites on such indelible punk broadsides as “California Über Alles,” “Holiday in Cambodia” and “Kill the Poor” from the group’s 1980 debut album, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables. He led the group through three more albums — 1982’s Plastic Surgery Disasters, 1985’s Frankenchrist and 1986’s Bedtime For Democracy — before their split in 1986.

While continuing to run Alternative Tentacles, Biafra collaborated with a number of other artists, including Ministry’s Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker in the band Lard, as well a punk stalwarts D.O.A., Nomeansno, Tumor Circus, Pigface, the Offspring and Sepultura in addition to releasing nine spoken word albums.

Along with making cameos in more than a dozen films, including 1988’s Tapeheads, 2006’s Punk’s Not Dead and 2019’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, he also mounted a campaign for San Francisco mayor in 1979 (coming in fourth place behind then incumbent Dianne Feinstein) and ran for president in 2000 as a Green Party candidate (coming in third behind consumer advocate Ralph Nader).

Though they haven’t released a full-length album since 1986’s Bedtime For Democracy, the DKs reformed in 2001 without Biafra and have continued to tour with a variety of singers, including Brandon Cruz (Dr. Know), Jeff Penalty and, currently, Ron “Skip” Greer (Wynona Riders).

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.