Old punks might not agree on much – who was first, who was fastest, where to file the Faith/Void split LP in their record collection – but for those who saw them in their prime, Bad Brains were, unequivocally, the best live band on the planet. YouTube footage bears this out: frontman HR, born Paul D Hudson, is equal parts straining sinew and raw electricity as he bucks and contorts, punctuating rapid-fire snarls and otherworldly croons with impeccably timed backflips. The band surge around him, forging blisteringly fast punk informed by everything from the Damned and Dead Boys to P-Funk, Stevie Wonder and Chick Corea’s Return to Forever.
Young, black and fuelled by an ideology that united the 1930s self-help mantras of Napoleon Hill with Rastafari, they were outliers in the already outre 70s punk scene. But while Bad Brains helped change the face of American punk as it morphed into hardcore in the early 80s, and inspired artists as diverse as Rage Against the Machine, Deftones, Lil Jon, the Roots and Beastie Boys, defeat was never far from glory as they balanced feted live performances and a scintillating run of records with an excruciating capacity for self-sabotage. The band’s roots thread back to Central High, a school in Maryland where middle-class military kids HR and his younger brother Earl (drums) met Dr Know (AKA Gary Wayne Miller, guitar) and Darryl Jenifer (bass).
Jenifer hailed from Washington DC’s south-east projects. It was the delusional teenage phase: it never was serious, it never was real.” Things got real, though, when McCray discovered punk, introducing the band to Sex Pistols, Dead Boys and Ramones. While easily chalked up to youthful braggadocio, this radical self-belief was largely the product of the band’s adherence to PMA – positive mental attitude – as a guiding credo.
Be a doctor or a lawyer or something,’” says HR from his Texas home. The energy was there – tons of energy! – and you hear that coming through. At the time, I didn’t have a chance to think about how good they were.
They came, they played, they packed up. It was like, did I record these guys?!” After another demo session, Bad Brains hit their stride with a series of landmark releases: 1980’s brief, brilliant 7-inch Pay to Cum was followed by a self-titled album and then by Rock for Light, produced by Ric Ocasek. These years were turbulent, marked by triumph and tribulation: the band were banned from a number of Washington venues.
For all the chaos, this period cemented the band’s legend as a force to be reckoned with. The excitement of their music was matched by a zeal amplified by their burgeoning Rastafari beliefs. We’re giving the crowd the vibration to destroy Babylon.
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