Interviewer: Andrew Denton, host of "Denton", Channel 7 network. Denton: "Alright, we'll jump straight to our second guest then, one of the original punk rockers, the leader of the legendary Dead Kennedy's. In 1979 he seared his way into the American conciousness with this rather elaborate prank." ROLL NEWS FOOTAGE OF JELLO'S ELECTION CAMPAIGN Denton: "He's here on slightly more serious but equally subversive business, touring the country, lecturing about the conservative conspiracy to crush free speech. Please welcome: Jello Biafra." Pleasantries exchanged. (continuing the subject of previous segment on - regarding the Beatles Anthology and their new song Free As A Bird) Biafra: "But look at it this way, with all the endless marketing of ordering the old stars through the mail, reminiscing about the good old days, blah blah blah, even... now they've found a way to just not have a cheap TV commercial, (but) an ongoing news documentary prime time commercial to order the Beatles box-set, and you fell for it, but you probably could every year, if you're in luck, if they could just get the FBI to cough up all those tapes that they made when they tapped John Lennon's phone." Denton: "Wow, the `F.B.I tapes of the Beatles'" Biafra: "Oh yeah, coz then they could just uh...Paul (McCartney) I'm sure would see nothing wrong with it, when he counted the money, he'd just put a little musical backing to it, and you have endless new Beatles quote unquote songs till the next millenium. Denton: "Yeah, but half of them's gonna be Yoko, they're not gonna sell, they really aren't.. Biafra: "No, they would edit that out" Denton: "Oh, I see, right..." Biafra: "With a computer, you can just about edit just about anything now, as you well know.." Denton: "I know, in fact, that comment of yours has just gone, I'm sorry. That campaign that you ran for the mayor of San Fransisco, one of your platforms was that between 9 and 5, in the main street of San Fransisco, every business man must wear a clown suit. How was that received?" Biafra: "It seems to be the one the main stream media picked up on, maybe the only one they rememeber, I dont know, I..." Denton: "It's the one we like" Biafra: "No, there were alot of good ideas, though. I thought it was very practical to have police officers to stand for election in the districts they patrolled, keeping in mind how violent police officers are in America - you've seen the video of Rodney King - the Los Angeles police did that to fans of my band as well, on more than one occasion, and that wouldn't happen if people got to vote on who their cops were, I thought that was very practical. And even the clown suits was in actually in reply to Diane Feinstein, who was the encumbant mayor who was re-elected and who is now in the United States senate as a lobyist for Indonesia, for all practical pursoses. Anyway, she said she wanted to clean up San Fransisco, and she mean't the other end of Market Street. I thought `no, the stuff where the dirty stuff goes on is Chevron headquarters, Bank of America headquarters' and thats where I thought they should wear the clown suits." Denton: "Well, it would be a very nice look. You actually are considered by the Moral Majority as a threat to American society. What is it about them that scares you." Biafra: "Basically that they're not very tolerant people, they're fundamentalist Christians - I have nothing wrong with people believing with God or having spiritual values, but when one group has a very narrow interpretation of the Bible or the Koran or whatever, and decides that they should force it on everybody else by bending the law, by harrasing people through violence and through censorship, I figure it's time to object." Denton: "Well lets talk about censorship. Last year, for some reason, Mickey Mouse cartoons were taken off air? Why was that?" Biafra: "I never heard about that, and I'm not sure I believe it. You aren't thinking of Mighty Mouse, are you?" Denton: "Sorry, I WISH Mickey Mouse had been taken off air, but Mighty Mouse, yeah" Biafra: "Ok, this is the perfect example of how the Religious Right operates. Ok, there was an episode of Mighty Mouse... was that shown in Australia?" Denton: "Yeah, absolutely" Biafra: "Ok, so you know who Might Mouse is. Ok, Mighty Mouse sniffed a bouquet of flowers, the petals broke off and went up his nose. Reverand Donald Wildmon, a long time very well funded right winged extremist activist who's tied in with a lot of right wing Senators and Republicans Presidents and things, sent out a mailing to people about this show, and somebody had put me on his mailing list as a prank, so I actually got to read this thing. (JELLO PUTS ON HIS BEST DONALD WILDMON VOICE) `Dear friends, CBS has declared war on our Children' that was the first sentance - very subtle this Donald Wildmon, he has a way with words, even if he does have no chin. And no tolerance either. Basically what he said was Mighty Mouse, by sniffing these flower petals was promoting cocaine use to young children on the air, and because Wildmon has so many people on his mailing list who then fill out the pre-printed postcard to all the companies that bought ads on Mighty Mouse saying that they were gonna boycott them and to the network that did that. Also Wildmon was talking about blacklisting Ralph Backshey (spelling?) who drew that episode and did Lord of the Rings and did Fritz the Cat earlier, therefore was a devil worshipping pornographer who'd snuck on TV. I mean, funny as this sounds, these people are taken seriously in America, not just by people who start boycotts, enough to intimidate a network into pulling mighty mouse off the air, but, they are able to get people to vote them into power, slowly but surely, and they always start by bashing music, library books, you name it." Denton: "Now, you're touring Australia discussing all these things. What relevance does this have to Australians?" Biafra: "Oh, It has in a very big way. One of the first ways the extreme right wing religious groups try to get their foot in the door claiming they're `protecting children', `saving families' is to bash music, especially if it's made by black people. Let's go back a little earlier to Brisbane. (In) Queensland a few years ago, there was a bust of Rocking Horse Records where the police acting on a complaint from an extreme fundamentalist Christian minister, confiscated records by Sonic Youth, myself - or actually by Dead Kennedy's, and even an instrumental album by the Champs, a 1950's instrumental combo by Glen Campbell and Jimmy Seals because..." Denton: "Oh, it had Glen Campbell on it, well that's fair enough" Biafra: "Because, no but because it had a song titled the Shag, and there were no words to the song, and it was an instrumental. And then the preacher would go on about `homosexuality this' and `Satan that' - it was just a bigot who was able to get the police to do what he wanted, and they even claimed they were acting on a complaint funnelled back down to them by a, uh... what do you call your state legislatures, parliaments?" Denton: "Uh, yeah, sometimes." Biafra: "Okay, well whatever, a member of this, uh... gang of idiots had ordered the cops to do this at the request of this fundamentalist preacher (who) knew what strings to pull. And now it seems to be happening again. I got a fax of an article from a paper in South Australia dated November 4th (1995) I think and it talked about the Australian Recording Industry Association wanted to have a mandatory label, which I call a Tipper Sticker, named after Tipper Gore, a noted anti-music bigot in the United States, probably saying something to the effect of `explicit lyrics parental advisory' and what not, but anyway, what they wanted to do was not only require member lables put this on so-called obsene records, and obviously they're not gonna say Glen Campbell or Men at Work are obsene, the're gonna say something more interesting is obsene. Anyway, they were going much further than these people in America do, they wanted to set up a hotline so people could call up the ARIA and report obsene records - which is just inviting these crackpot fundamentalists to call up the ARIA from this little town in Queensland and decide what everybody else in Australia gets to buy in the record store. And they went even further to say that if the offending label was found quilty of non-Tipper Stickering an album, they'd be kicked out of the ARIA, who would the report them to the police. I mean, here we have a cartel of major recording labels in cahoots with the cops and probably with the fundamentalists - what is their motive? I would say for the ARIA, it's to wipe out independant underground music that doesn't knuckle under to the ARIA. Denton: "Ok, in ten words or less, 'cause we're out of time..." Jello: "Already?!" Denton: "Yeah, that's it, this is television!!" Jello: "The worst form of censorship today is the whole story never getting out 'cause TV is so dumbed down and short!!!" (audience cheers wildly) Denton: "No - what you don't understand is that there are other people who are gonna talk too! You can't stop other people from talking by talking for the whole show, you can't stop their freedom of speech..." Biafra (a bit taken aback): "Oh, oh, I didn't mean it that way..." Denton (playfully on the offensive): "Yes you did! You want to talk for the whole hour! We're not gonna let you! get your own bloody show if you want to talk for a whole hour!" Biafra: "I have my own bloody show, it's later on in the month! At Sydney it's at the Enmore and I don't know where the other places are, but anyway..." Denton: "Seriously, you're going 'round Australia with the band & everything tour?" Biafra: "Uh, no, it's me...this time 'Spoken Word' performance, which is kind of a catch-all term that other people like Henry Rollins and Exine & John Doe from X have both done, Dave Alvin and many more; Anyway, it's a catch-all term where you can read poetry, you can harp on censorship, or whatever, you can...it can be theatre , it can be just all or none of the above. Infotainment, in my case." Denton: "Infotainment, that's an interesting thought. We must try it here in Australia sometime. Jello, it's been a pleasure, I'm Sorry we had to cut you off, but that's how it is on commercial TV." Biafra: "That's what I said before." Denton: "Go buy something. Thanks"