Tim Hughes speaks to Klaus Flouride, guitarist with US hardcore band Dead Kennedys

Irrelevant, intelligent and revolutionary, Dead Kennedys are the ultimate anarchist punk band.

Bursting on to the San Francisco underground in 1978, their white hot fusion of hardcore rock, biting political comment and merciless humour made them heroes of the American left and the bête noir of the political establishment – particularly the Reagan administration which bore the brunt of their satirical mockery.

36 years on and Dead Kennedys are still at it – still ripping up stages with their peculiarly Californian brand of surf and garage-rock-influenced punk, and still throwing rocks at crooked politicians, the religious Right, greedy corporations and the wider commercial music industry.

“We mix politics with humour to help us survive the frustration,” says original member Klaus Flouride, insisting the band are still railing against the same issues as when they began. “All you’ve got to do is look at the world each day; you can either laugh or shoot yourself.

“There’s not enough coverage of the big issues. It was sad about Robin Williams, but he has been getting 15 minutes out of every hour on the news, while big stuff going on in Iraq and with the Ebola virus is being ignored. It’s strange.

“We are not looking to fix things or tell people what to think, but to point things out and make them think.”

Although the band split in 1986, Klaus and other members East Bay Ray and DH Peligro reformed 13 years ago – minus their frontman Jello Biafra with whom they had been embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute and court battle concerning the non-payment of royalties.

The place of Biafra, who lost the case, is now filled by singer Ron ‘Skip’ Greer from the band Wynona Riders.

So how have the band changed since their acrimonious split and timely reformation?

“It’s a living thing that grows – and so do we,”

says Klaus.

“We play better now because we’ve been playing for a bit longer.

“We are a little tighter and punchier and it’s still fun to do it. And anyway, I’d rather be doing this than watching TV. We also have an incredible amount of fun and go back-and-forth with the audience.”

And has he mellowed since the fiery 80s, when the band agitated and poked fun with breakneck punk anthems California Über Alles, Holiday in Cambodia and Rambozo the Clown? “I’m not 20 years old anymore and certain things do get older in the body, but we never just listened to punk,” he says. “There’s more music out there and we have lots of different influences.

“We are not just saying ‘screw the system’. We are part of the system – so which part do we start with: the sewerage system? The telephone system?”

And does he still consider himself an agitator? “Oh yeah,” he replies.

“I don’t know if our phones are tapped, but it seems the NSA (the US National Security Agency) gets everyone. But you can’t sit around and worry about it – and I still go to demos once in a while.”

Tomorrow they return to the O2 Academy Oxford – one of just three UK gig dates which follow appearances at Hardcore Fest in Belgium and Boardmasters Festival in Newquay.

Klaus says the band have been well-received. “It’s been pretty good; really good actually,” he says. “The songs are mostly familiar but the show is different. The diatribes between songs aren’t so long – but we still get going, and still like that.”

And is there any chance of a rapprochement with Jello Biafra who now gives spoken word performances and is still critical of his former bandmates in the wake of that court case, in which he was accused of not giving band members their fair share for writing credits and failing to flag up an alleged accounting error?

“It’s sad he has stuck,” he says. “But if he called me up and said let’s have a beer and talk about old times and where it went wrong, I’d be there for sure.

“We would even invite him to come on tour but at this point we are not even allowed to talk directly; we have to call his lawyer. It’s difficult, but I don’t have any hard feelings.”

CHECK IT OUT
Dead Kennedys play the O2 Academy Oxford tomorrow night.
Tickets are £17.50 from ticketweb.co.uk

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