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interview by: Gabe Banner So you're a doctor? Back in the day, when I was in high school, senior year, I had an ambition to become a medical doctor. I went to Maryland University for a semester until my financial situation wasn't able to make me go anymore. That's right around the time we hooked up the band, around 77-78. Cause I had more musical experience than anyone else, HR dubbed me the doctor of music. And that was it. It just stuck with me. How do you feel about the tribute album? What's your favorite track? I like three of them. I like how they did Pay to Cum, I like Messengers and I like Moby, of course, cause it's so out, it's totally unexpected of what you would think for the song. This is why I like the record, cause brothers did it their own way. I was wondering, I was like, "are all these guys gonna be trying to play my solos?" And half of them didn't even play solos, when the solo parts came they changed the music around which I thought was creative. And I always stress to my fellow musicians to be yourself. Who were you influenced by musically? Being black and living in Washington, DC, of course go-go music. 1974-75 we used to go to the go-gos at the rec centers and stuff. A Hundred Years Time and EU was around then. And of course Chuck Brown. Also Earth, Wind and Fire and Stevie Wonder and all that music that we listened to in those time and a lot of fusion stuff like Chick Cora and Jon McLaughlin. We just kind of sat down and as inexperienced musicians we tried to emulate. We were very analytical of our music though and we just came up with our thing. What do you think about the state of punk rock today? I think a lot of them be frontin' these days. Cause the shit is a way of life. All the music back in the days was as way of life, reggae, rap, punk, all that, now all that shit is commercial and its like let's jump on the bandwagon. Not all the bands but as a general thing you can hear it in the music. Brothers ain't really saying something and convicted to anything. Cause the music was about awareness and brotherhood and sticking together and try and b ring some good things into this world. Now brothers can get paid off that shit so it's different but as long as everybody knows where there foots are coming from and try and do some positive things it's still cool. Everybody's singing about girlfriends and all that bullshit instead of about conscious things, unity. You gotta realize Reagan was the president back in those days. It was different times. How did you end up getting banned in DC? It wasn't just us that was banned in DC. The music that they were calling punk. We had played a couple of gigs. There was a show and the show was upstairs. There was a restaurant downstairs and the gig was upstairs and in those days everybody used to pogo. They got 50 people pogoing and the floor, which was the roof of the restaurant, was bouncing and this and that and the owner was like, "yo, you can't be doing this," and everybody's all punked out dress-wise and they just didn't know how to handle it. So that promoter called the next promoter and then the next one called the next one and it was like, "no, we can't be having this." DC was very conservative at that time. It was just what happens with anything when it's something new and people don't know how to accept it or handle it so they'd rather not deal. So they was like no more of this music in none of the clubs. So we was like screw that and we at that point rented a house out in Forrestville, Maryland and it had a basement so we said screw it, we're gonna do our own gigs, 'cause you can't stop the music..... What happened when you guys got back together for the God of Love tour ? HR, bugged out, man. He couldn't handle it. For whatever reason, he just bugged out and got negative and physical. He had to chill out. I guess he was doing something he really didn't want to do be doing at that time. He said he did and then once we were actually doing it he reacted negatively and you can't be that so it's better not to do it if brothers ain't into it. He just had to deal with his issues that he had to deal with, which we all have to do. I think he wanted just to play only reggae. We're all brothers and I think he said he wanted to do it just to do it for us. And now he's doing it for himself and not for us and that's the difference. We were supposed to do the Beasties tour on that God of Love thing when he got negative and shit and punched his brother and punched our manager Anthony. He wouldn't punch me or Darryl cause Darryl's fucking 6'4" and would knock his ass out. What happened in Kansas? HR cracked this kid in the head with the mic stand. The kid was heckling him and the, crack. It sounds kinda' funny but, you know, he could've killed that kid, that was fucked up. He got arrested for assault. The kid was pushing his buttons, he couldn't take it. It's rock and roll, shit happens. Motherfuckers be shooting each other on stage, doing all kinds of shit. We ain't trying to promote that at all though. Who would win in a steel cage match of all the past Bad Brains singers? HR, hands down.. Who else sang? There was AJ, Israel, Chuck Mosely, and there was some other ones that people don't know about that didn't even get that far. The whole thing with that is the Bad Brains is not a band, it's more a concept. That's why kept the name when we had different singers. It's more of a movement. It's God bringing the multitude together. HR and I came up with the concept. We just wanted to be positive. Living in DC and seeing all the hypocritical things that were going on we were like, yo, we want to express ourselves and say us as a new generation have to come together and look at this world that were inheriting here. We just gotta come together and the best way to express that was through the music. So that was the concept. Jah went through us mysteriously which some brothers didn't really know but here we are now where it's all good. So did you ever steal any bombs when you worked at the factory? Damn! You got all the info! How'd you know about that? Don't worry about it? Yeah man, me and H. That was in Virginia. That was some heavy shit. We worked in the fabrication department making the parts for MX missiles and shit. We was rolling up in there in our punk rock gear. We had to get up out of there right quick. Why'd you change your name to Soul Brains? Cause nobody ever got it really. Nobody ever understood the word "bad". After 20 years they're still taking it as a negative thing. People hear the word bad and take it to be a negative thing. So it's not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good? Yeah! Like James Brown, from the day! So how bad is your brain? They call me Dr. Know, so there you go. Can you prescribe medicinal marijuana? Absolutely. -courtesy of "While You Were Sleeping" -end of interview |
