by Howie Abrams
Earl Hudson
He was acting weird, but he signed the contract. We rented a house in Beverly Hills and recorded out in California. We all signed the contract at the dinner table.
Deb Jones | Management Assistant
We rented a house for two to three months and H.R., I guess, wanted to bring me into the family. He wanted to make sure I was aware of Bad Brains—what they stood for and what he stood for. He made sure I read the bible, made sure that I knew about Rastafari and made sure I was schooled in their camp before I could start working with them. H.R. had a whole suite to himself. He had his own bathroom and everything. It was California and it was very hot, and I remember him having the temperature up to the max. He had a separate thermostat up there, and it would be so hot. I would go visit him and he would sit me down, literally crossed-legged in his suite, and he would give me the bible and I would have to read through it whether I understood it or not. I had to repeat certain phrases or certain passages of the bible so that he was satisfied that I knew something about what was going on with him and his beliefs.
Al Anderson
He was very much into his Rastafarianism. I really think his faith had a lot to do with his courage to continue to do music, ’cause it seemed to be a time when he wasn’t really interested in music anymore, but he went into the spiritual world. Now he’s back.
Guy Oseary
Everything was going pretty good. There were moments making the album where I started to see a glimpse of H.R.’s other side. It was quite concerning, as he’d go in and out of this other side. The first time you see it, you could just chalk it up to, I don’t know, that was weird. And maybe the second time, Wow, that’s really weird. And the third time, Whoa, is this guy clinically ill? Sometimes it was humorous, so you don’t quite know: is this playful, or is there a serious problem here? It became quite obvious later on that there were some serious issues. I remember when the recording was going on and he was having a really bad time. People tried to shelter me from knowing that side, but it was hard to shelter. There was a moment while making the record where he kind of lost his mind.
Mark Andersen
The record comes out, and the music is great, but it’s like H.R. isn’t there with a couple of exceptions. The lyrics just don’t make sense. It doesn’t work. And then they came back to DC for a free show down here. A wonderful gesture, and it should have been a triumph, but it’s like Joseph doesn’t want to be onstage. He’s hidden back behind his sunglasses; he’s impenetrable. He’s cut himself off. He kinda wanders onstage, wanders offstage in the middle of songs. He’s kind of singing the lyrics but he’s got this crazy grin on his face. I was there in the front row. This wasn’t Bad Brains.
Al “Judah” Walker
I went to the show at Trax in Southwest DC around ’95 and I couldn’t get in because the line was wrapped around the whole club. I already knew that the amount of people outside was the same amount as inside, so I didn’t even try to get in there. About twenty minutes later, I saw Joe come out of the side door. We greeted and he said, “Come, let’s go on the tour bus.” And once we got on the bus, I don’t know . . . there was something very different about him.
Juan DeCosta
These guys are getting ready to be rock stars, for real. This shit is getting ready to happen, then this muthafucka, as usual, H.R. fucks it up some kind of way. He’s just that dark cloud. You’re having this perfect day, and all of a sudden, here comes the dark cloud who screws up everything. There are so many different layers to what was happening. He’d turned to Rasta and didn’t want to do the punk anymore. I knew there were some struggles in the band with that. This is your brand; this is what you are famous for. You don’t want to do this anymore, but this is what the people want. I love Rasta. I love the music. I love the vibe, but if I go see Bad Brains, you’re gonna Pay to Cum baby!
Jose Gonzales
Sometimes it seems like he’s playing a joke on everybody and amusing himself by being zany or by not paying attention or standing still. Originally, it was my belief that he just didn’t want to participate in punk rock music anymore, but it went beyond that. I think he was very tired of being what they wanted him to be. He did a complete turnaround and said, I’m not going to be that super maniacal front man anymore. I’m just gonna stand here and deliver my message, but not the way you want me to deliver it. I want to deliver it the way I want to deliver it.
John Stabb
The Bad Brains are doing songs that they are full-on into, and he doesn’t have any enthusiasm about it. It’s obvious onstage that he’s just bullshiting his way through the songs. If you still feel it in your heart and you want to do this material, then that’s fine and that’s cool and everything, but I don’t think he wants to be up there unless he’s just doing the reggae songs. To me it’s a big cop-out. It’s like dissing your audience. Why is he bullshitting through the punk stuff, and then he’s so into the reggae stuff?
12. Shitfit 1995
Kids were bouncing off the walls, and the group was playing and it kind of broke out into a riot, I think. I needed a little break, so I spent some time in solitary confinement.
-H.R.
Anthony Countey
He was completely unpredictable at this point. I didn’t know what was really going on with him. It’s not like anything understandable happened. We went on tour with the Beastie Boys in Canada, and he didn’t make it onstage for the first show. I really don’t know what was going on with him. He just didn’t want to go onstage. I don’t know why. He had a girl in his dressing room; it was all very strange. He never showed any sign of going onstage. Then he got violent and that was the end of that.
Guy Oseary
This is the launch of our album, and we couldn’t get a better tour. About ten minutes go by before Bad Brains are supposed to go on at the first show. Fifteen minutes go by. Twenty minutes go by, and Abbey Konowitch and I look at each other and go, “Something’s wrong.” We start walking out of the arena and I see Mike D from the Beastie Boys, and he’s like, “Yo, what’s up with your boy?” I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t good. So I walk up to the tour bus, and H.R. won’t come out of the back of the bus. I said, “H.R., you gotta get out here. What’s going on here?” And he said, “They’re not following correct protocol, and I wasn’t asked what the correct protocol was.” And I’m not quite sure what he’s talking about. He finally comes out of the room, and he literally looks back and takes the back of his hand and smacks Earl. And he’s down, his brother is down. Next thing we know, he got into a physical fight with his manager, Anthony. He pulled a whole wad of hair out of his head. He was losing it. The police showed up. I think he had some marijuana on him, so they deported him. Ironically, I was at the airport the next day flying back to LA, and he was on my flight. I didn’t say hi. I just saw him sitting there, and I was so angry at him. He didn’t see me, but I was so upset . . . they were a beautiful group of guys, musically unbelievable, the Beastie Boys are supporting them, and on your first night, to just not even make it to the stage.
Mark Andersen
Joseph flips out and puts Tony Countey in the hospital. He broke bones in his face, just really dangerous violence. And Tony, to his credit, perhaps because he had nothing but love for Joseph, doesn’t press charges. You know, the prophet of love and revolution is beating up one of the best friends he has in the world. Anyone who knows Tony knows how much blood, sweat and tears he’s left out on that trail. It shows his love that he didn’t press charges.
Terry Anzaldo | Head of Promotions,
Maverick Records
We were getting some airplay on the “God Of Love” single and we were feeling good about everything, and our staff was out there on the road with the band bringing radio to their shows and things of that nature. People were excited. Then we got the call from Guy who witnessed the catastrophe that had happened o
n the opening night with the Beastie Boys. It was very frustrating. Are we gonna lose the excitement from the outlets that we had set up? Somehow we regrouped; sat down with the band, and put them out on the road with then up-and-coming buzz band, the Deftones.
Anthony Countey
H.R. actually came back within days and said he was sorry that all that happened. He wanted to start up again, so we headlined some shows back in the US.
Deb Jones
We were on tour with the Deftones and H.R. didn’t make it to one of the shows because he was given the wrong directions to the club. He did not have a flat tire or anything like that. At that time he was traveling with a girlfriend who he insisted be handcuffed to him all the time. I don’t know how she put up with it. It was at least ten days or two weeks out on the road that she was along with us. She and H.R. had the back room of the tour bus and they were handcuffed together every time I saw them.
Chino Moreno
We played a few shows, and the third or fourth show was in San Diego. The night before we were in Los Angeles. H.R. had taken off for the day and went and bought a limousine. He decided he was not gonna ride on the tour bus but instead follow the bus in his limousine. He was gonna drive it. I remember being at the venue—we did soundcheck, and he hadn’t shown up yet, so people started saying, “I hope he shows up.” We played our set and it was time for the Brains to go on, and he still hadn’t shown up. I was talking to Darryl and Doc and they were like, “You wanna come up and do a few songs?” I ended up going up there and doing four or five songs with the band.
Guy Oseary
H.R. calls me and says, “I’m at a car dealership and I’m going to buy a car, but they need to know that I have someone validating that I have money and can pay for this car. It’s a used car. Will you talk to the guy here?” I said, “Okay,” and he puts me on the phone with the guy. I said, “I work at the record label, and he’s an artist on the label. Can I ask you what kind of car he’s getting?” He tells me he’s getting a 1978 stretch limo, and I asked him to put H.R. back on the phone. He puts him back on the phone and I go, “H.R., you’re buying a limo from 1978?” He goes, “Yeah, it’s beautiful.” And I said, “Who’s gonna drive you?” And he said, “Scotty,” who was a guy who worked at our record company that had taken him there ’cause he needed to get a car. So, now he thought Scotty would be his driver. Anyhow, he ended up buying the car. He had that limo and actually took me to lunch in the limo. I sat in the back, and he looked back at me and said, “I hope one day one of my artists can drive me in a limo to lunch.”
Keith Morris | Circle Jerks, Black Flag, Off!
We’re backstage at a Beastie Boys show at this outdoor shed space. People want to hang out as bands do, chittin’ and chattin’ and carrying on, and a couple of hours later, after everybody has cleared out, the people that are putting on the concert, Goldenvoice, said, “People, it’s time to go.” Everybody’s walking out, and I’m with Flea and Anthony Kiedis and a couple of other friends, and we are walking out the doors to the parking lot, and there’s H.R. in the stretch limo, driving around. It seemed that he had been driving around the parking lot for at least a couple of hours. Maybe he didn’t know where he was at; maybe he didn’t care. Maybe it was just something for him to do; maybe, quite possibly, he couldn’t find the way out of the parking lot.
Anthony Countey
The tour with Deftones moved on to Lawrence, Kansas. Then, it was REALLY over. He clocked a kid in the audience with a mic stand. That brought everything to a grinding halt.
Chino Moreno
There was a lot of tension at that time with the band, you could see it. At any minute, anything can happen, and that’s what happened. I think there were four or five more shows and everything unfolded. Man, I remember H.R. had this girl handcuffed to him for a few days. Every time I saw him get off the bus, she was handcuffed to him. He was in a good mood, smoking and hanging out, but I remember thinking, This is wild! Anyway, the show was good. We had a good show, but they only played half a set or something. I was in the crowd watching, and all of a sudden, right in the middle of the set, I saw a mic stand go up and BOOM! A couple of minutes later the cops showed up. I saw them arrest H.R. and take him out. What they were saying was that some dude was spitting on him. The show was over. The tour was over.
H.R.
We were in Lawrence and the group was performing, and everybody in the audience was in pandemonium. I saw a pistol and I took the microphone stand and I went up, and I came down, and I hit the person in the head. I don’t know if it was the one who had the gun or what, but I knew I had to get off of that stage. I don’t even know to this day if they really did have a gun pointed at Darryl or not, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Now we have a lot more organization—better security, bouncers, road crew and technicians—and for that reason, we’re not that vulnerable and the kids aren’t really a threat to our existence or the sound. At first, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to stop the music, but the kids were going just wild, jumping up and down, jumping on the stage, jumping all over the equipment, the amplifiers—even me, grabbing my legs, grabbing my pants. I remember them pulling down my pants, and I was trying to vocalize and do my songs and, at the same time, keep my pants on. They put me in protective custody over there in Lawrence.
Chino Moreno
There had been no bad energy before the show. He was fine. Right before they went on, I smoked with him in the alleyway behind the club and he was happy. He went onstage and he was killing it. It was so out of the blue. Perhaps he did see someone with a gun. Perhaps somebody did spit on him, I don’t know. He was singing, and then it was, like, D’oh! He kept singing, so he wasn’t so frustrated that he couldn’t carry on. I remember him walking out in handcuffs and being like, “What’s going on?”
Earl Hudson
I think somebody spiked him. Somebody put something in some herb or something. He said this one kid spit on him and he hit the dude over the head with the microphone stand, but I’m back there playing drums, so I didn’t see it. He swung that shit like it was a feather, and dude got crowned. The kid didn’t press charges, but he still went to jail. Luckily, he didn’t hurt the kid too bad. I almost pissed on myself. He was dealing with a lot of stuff. It might be drug-induced, I really couldn’t say.
Deb Jones
That particular day we were in a college town and we had a lot of college guys at the show—plus some right wing skinheads, which H.R. absolutely disapproved of. I didn’t see any big threatening vibe. I only saw some pockets of skinheads hanging out. They were chanting, “Oi Oi Oi,” and having beers. Anthony felt something was in the air and H.R. felt it. What I learned later, and we didn’t know at the time, was that H.R. had unfortunately been given certain drugs—mushrooms—and lost the plot. They had blown up their advance for their merchandise. They had blown up tens of thousands of dollars in deals for them because of this madness. It seemed like we were getting right to the very edge. I knew that Maverick was already disappointed to the point where we were screwed if we didn’t pull it together. The influences around H.R. were not positive, and I wish I had been more savvy at the time.
Guy Oseary
That was the end of it for me. I was just like, this guy is a screwup and I couldn’t do anything to help him. I don’t know how old I was, but I didn’t have the education or the experience. I probably still don’t, but at that time, I didn’t have any experience on how to deal with his psychosis. That was the end of me with H.R. and the end of me with the Bad Brains.
Anthony Countey
He did hurt a kid at a show in England once who spit on him. That’s what the kids were doing at the shows. It was ridiculous. We tried to stop it from happening, but at some shows, it just would not stop. He perfectly roundhoused a mic right in the side of this kid’s head. He cut him right above his eye. If he was off a half-an-inch, he would’ve killed th
is kid. He would have hit him in the temple with a very heavy microphone. The same thing happened in Lawrence. H.R. just picked up the microphone stand and hit the kid, swinging it like a baseball bat. There’s no point in being angry. H.R. was unpredictable, and I knew that from the beginning. We knew that, especially in 1995. Always hoped that things would get better, that the brotherhood and camaraderie would pay off or work out. You couldn’t blame him. His decisions are out of his hands somehow.
You can sit down and get somebody an appointment. They can go to the appointment and they can get nothing done, or they can get something done. It’s up to them. He was not interested in recognizing anything or getting anything done about it for a very long time. He could’ve absolutely had the very best people in the world, psychologists and stuff. Brilliant people who work with people who are really incredibly creative and brilliant like H.R. But the person has to want to do something about their situation.
Creativity is such a secret event or mysterious occurrence. It’s not like you can put your finger on it and just know what the fuck is going on. There are things in life that we don’t know about, and that’s one of the things we live with as intelligent people. We know that we just don’t fucking know. Maybe someday we’ll know. Who knows?