“Iggy left the Stooges and had a career – ditto Lou Reed with the Velvet Underground or Morrissey with the Smiths. Where’s Biafra’s solo career?”: East Bay Ray explains why the Dead Kennedys’ chemistry hit its peak on Fresh Fruit... and why it fell apart

A live shot from the side of the stage as Dead Kennedys play the Mabuhay in 1978. East Bay Ray wears a hooped T-shirt and plays a Strat while a shirtless Jello Biafra works the crowd in the background.

When California punks Dead Kennedys released their debut album, 1980’s Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, they’d already scored a hit single in the U.K. the previous year with California Über Alles.

Riding high on the optimism that overseas success had brought them, the band was determined to capitalize on its momentum, putting in hours of pre-production time in rehearsals prior to going into the studio. Their labors were rewarded, with Fresh Fruit… garnering favorable reviews in the press and charting around the world, though not in the U.S., which was always more resistant to the charms of the early punk bands.