See Jello Biafra Join Supergroup Dead Cross for ‘Nazi Trumps F–k Off’
Former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra joined the supergroup Dead Cross Wednesday night for a revised version of the pioneering hardcore group’s 1981 single, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.” This time, though, it was “Nazi Trumps Fuck Off” and each of the band members wore T-shirts with that phrase emblazoned on it and a photo of Trump’s head crossed out.
“Sorry, Mariah Carey was supposed to do this song, but that turned out to be fun with fake news,” Biafra told the audience, according to fan-shot video. “So now, more than ever, Nazi Trump, fuck off!” He then blazed through the hardcore rager with the band, which features Faith No More frontman Mike Patton and ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. When it was done, Biafra offered a new brand of jingoism to the crowd: “Make America smart again.”
The performance comes less than two weeks after alt-right protesters and neo-Nazis clashed with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia over the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue.
Anti-fascist punk slogans from the Eighties like “Nazi punks fuck off” and “No war, no KKK, no fascist USA” (from M.D.C.’s “Born to Die”) have started trickling into the mainstream since the election of Donald Trump. Green Day appropriated the latter – turning it into “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” – at the American Music Awards last year, and that band’s singer recently signed off of a Facebook post about the Charlottesville riot with “Nazi punks fuck off.”
Dead Cross issued their self-titled debut earlier this month and are touring through September. Patton told Rolling Stone earlier this year how much fun he had singing the type of hardcore punk he loved as a teenager. “For me to make a record like this, it’s entirely a musical adventure,” he said. “I just think it’s fun, and it makes me smile and laugh a lot.”