‘They said we incited riots’: explosive punks Bad Brains on drugs, self-destruction and recording from jail

Young, black and fuelled by self-help mantras, they were reputedly the best live band on Earth. As their wild first sessions are rereleased, the group talk about scaring club owners – and getting kicked out of the UK Old punks might not agree on much – who was first, who was fast

Young, black and fuelled by self-help mantras, they were reputedly the best live band on Earth. As their wild first sessions are rereleased, the group talk about scaring club owners – and getting kicked out of the UK 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.

Continue reading...