by Howie Abrams
13. New Sun 1995-1998
For me, not having a permanent place to live was a test. I may have been selling out arenas, but at the same time, it was selling me out because I had no place to live.
-H.R.
Marco ALDACO | FRIEND
I’m driving along Hollywood Boulevard and I see H.R. looking up at the sky and I say, “Oh shit, H.R.’s in town.” I wasn’t gonna say nothing. He’s cool. He’s doing his thing, getting some fresh air, getting out and about, checking out the birds. I knew that there had been some issues, and maybe he needed to come inside and hang out for a minute. So I told him, “If you wanna come over sometime and clean up you’re more than welcome.” I figured I might see him in a week or two, but the very next day, he was there and said, “I’m gonna take you up on your offer.”
I didn’t really want to ask him too much and get personal, just like, “How you doing? You okay?” Once I got to know him, I started figuring him out as far as when it was good to talk about things, and when it was not good to talk about things, so we basically got to know his little dark side and mood swings. To be in Hollywood that way is not a nice thing. You’re on the streets, and there’s just way too much stuff to deal with. The fact that maybe some people did recognize him was not really cool; to see a legend that you love going through a situation. On my part, compassion kicked in, and I said, “We’ve got to do something for H. We can’t have this if I can help. I’m gonna help.” So we had a little space for him in the office where he could just chill. We made a little bed for him. He didn’t really eat much, a lot of vegetables. He was cool most of the time. He learned a little Spanish.
After a while, he said, “Listen, man, I wanna get back with the Brains. Call Earl. Call my brother.” I was always getting calls from his mom, Carmen, checking in on him. “How’s my son? Make sure he’s okay, take care of him.” I put him on the phone, and it was nice that he had a place where they could check in on him. We tried to help as much as we could, but he’s an adult. We knew there was an issue, and through his belief in Rasta, he would not take any medication. Whenever he was doing good, we did what we could to put a little money in his pocket. One day, we had a little fire. We had an electrical stove, and I never knew that if you turned the stove on just a little bit—it’s gonna simmer low. So we were partying in the office, having a good time talking, and I guess somebody must have turned the stove on a bit. We didn’t want to say it was H. I get a call about 11:30 from one of the neighbors, who says, “Get over here. Your house is on fire.” The fire department was thinking it was an electrical fire caused by this stove we used from the ’60s, maybe even the ’40s, when this building was built. Again, I didn’t want to say it was H. I didn’t know who it was. We had heard that he flooded a couple of other apartments. Sometimes things happen. Nothing survived. Everything caught on fire. He pretty much burned the house down. I didn’t want to blame it on him or our other roommate, Stuart, ’cause we were all messed up.
Eric Wilson
He’s been homeless since I’ve known him. When he stayed at my house for a bit, he got a little weird. I didn’t like it. He gave my girlfriend a dress. I don’t know what he meant by that, if he had a crush on her or what, but I was telling him, “Nah, dude, you can’t get on her. That’s my girlfriend.” One time I was driving down Ocean, and he was walking down the street with a suitcase and a suit on. It looked like he was going to work or something. I didn’t want him to see me because I was a little discouraged from last time with my chick and stuff. That was the mother of my kid. I mean, I was around H.R. quite a bit on the road, too, and I’ve never seen him have any type of aggression or anything. I’ve seen him talking to himself and stuff, but I haven’t seen him have any bad trips.
Andy Rondon
Totally breaks your heart when you hear about him not doing well, because there were times in his life when he was cruising around, driving a limousine—living in it off and on. That was right around the time Bad Brains did that deal with Maverick Records. They got some dough, and he got a big, extensive wardrobe. I did a show on the Sunset Strip one time with another local band and he showed up dressed as His Royal Highness or something, with a turban and a cape. He was that kind of brother. We would start playing together and do a few shows, and everything would be great. Every show got a little bit nicer and a little bit bigger, and then this pressure came. Professional pressure. And I think at times throughout his career, that’s when he would run into walls. It’s hard to give you any kind of clinical explanation. There were times backstage before a show where we wouldn’t know what was going to happen. We didn’t know which Joe we were going to get up onstage. There would be times when he would just be angry at us. Everything would be cool, and it would be packed at the club and everyone is excited. We did shows with Sublime, and then he would do those things. He would refuse to come onstage.
Marco ALDACO
One day, one of the bookers from House of Blues got a hold of me because they were doing some sort of benefit gig for Bradley Nowell from Sublime. I heard a female voice on the phone—I’m not sure if it was the girl from No Doubt—but she asks if she can speak to H.R. “I want to invite him to a show,” she told me. I said, “H, there’s someone for you on the phone.” He jumps on the plane the next day to come to Los Angeles, and then he’s at the Hollywood Palladium onstage. Somehow MTV gets involved where they put out some news from the Palladium.
Opie Ortiz | Long Beach Dub AllStars
It was a weird time. We were all heavily medicated with alcohol because Brad [Nowell] had just passed, and we were trying to do a benefit show. Brad really looked up to H.R., Eric looked up to him, we all looked up to him as a leader. And for him being there, it just solidified a lot of things for us. When we jammed, it was like, “We have H.R. I don’t give a fuck who else is playing. Oh, KRS One is going on after us? Okay, cool.” There were times like that which made us as proud as can be to have him there. Whether he was fully one hundred percent or not, he still sang and he still killed it.
Miguel Happoldt
We felt blessed to be hanging out with him and that he got on a record with us, but we could tell that he wasn’t doing good. The business side wasn’t good and his health wasn’t that good, but he could still sing perfectly. It was one of those things for us where it was like a family, and we felt bad that he wasn’t really living anywhere specific, so we put him up in a hotel. It was like, “Where’s he going to go after this?” It was sad, but because we were on this big label, we could give him some cash. I feel like we did a good thing. There was just a lot that we couldn’t do. It’s one of those things where it’s like, “Oh well, if this is the end of our little chapter with Joe, at least it will end on a high note.” But it didn’t. We went on tour after that, and we did Red Rocks, and we did a bunch of other shows with him. When you spend that kind of time with somebody, you can see the personality shift. A lot of it was how quiet he had gotten. Not like he was ever chatty or anything, but he got really withdrawn.
Ras MG/MARSHALL GOODMAN
When Long Beach Dub Allstars was created, we stayed in touch with everybody that we came across over all the years with Sublime. Barrington Levy, Half-Pint and other people. That’s how we got a lot of our guest artists. We’d heard that H.R. was around, and that’s how we got the man to do the “New Sun” song, which is phenomenal. We bring H.R. in to write in the studio. With any musician, you never really know what you’re going to get, but we had this song together for him. He went and sat behind the piano and had his microphone set up behind the piano and just kind of sat there for a while. So, he was just sitting back there playing the piano as he’s singing. If you listen to the solo vocal track, you hear piano tickles and stuff. He did like five vocal takes, because he wanted to dub all these harmonies, and everything started blossoming. When it was done it was just a full vocal extravaganza like I knew he could do. We were lucky enough to get him on that day
to do it.
Eric Wilson
We did a tour with the Dub Allstars, H.R. and Born Jamericans. That was pretty cool. We arranged for him to be on a tour bus together with us, but he wanted to have his own car, so his tour manager rented a car and they followed us across the country. It was a trip.
Noel Baker | H.R.’s Manager (1998–2004)
While we were doing those dates with Long Beach Dub Allstars, in Colorado, we got to hook up with Darryl Jenifer at Red Rocks. That was the first time H.R. and Darryl had been onstage together in a long time, and that made a mark for the Bad Brains to get back together. It just went from there.
William Banks
He was living on the streets around then and living in different people’s homes. He’s like a chameleon to me because he adapts to his environment wherever the environment is. H.R.’s living what he’s supposed to be living. H.R. is so mystical. You can’t put nothing on that man. He got his road, and he’s choosing that road, and he’s taking it. Some people choose to live in a house, married, kids, picket fence . . . you choose those lifestyles. That man is nothing but music, and H.R.’s been music all his life.
Toby Morse | H2O
What’s crazy is he was moving away from punk [with Human Rights]. That’s the punkest thing of all: living off the radar, living by your own rules, living how you wanna live and being happy. It’s not about money, it’s about being happy and doing what you want to do. How is he surviving? Jah’s protecting him!
William Banks
Joe used to stand up in a neighborhood where Ras Michael lived, right where guys was selling cocaine on the block. He’d stand there with his arms crossed in the morning and they’d be wondering, Why is this guy standing there? Why did H.R. do it? Maybe he was trying to tell them something or give them a message to stop selling it—to stop doing it. H.R. could go where some people can’t even walk down the street without getting harassed. He could walk right there. You begin to understand his mindset.
Israel Joseph I
What some men call mental illness today is what people back in the days called “shaman.” H.R. is a prophet; a man who leads people spiritually. He is a shaman, and shaman like him and Lee “Scratch” Perry are supposed to be sitting around acting crazy and out of their minds. They are not dealing in this world. He is not supposed to be normal. He is not supposed to be sitting around like, How are you doing? Welcome to MTV. I’m H.R. and we are going to play a little number for you. No man! H.R. is and another place. I understand it’s hurting his relations with other humans. Look at Jesus: he had disciples around him, and they did not understand the brother, yet they knew something special was going on. This brother has got something to say and is connected in places where we are not connected. Something is happening with this man. He is a little out there, but something’s up.
14. Soul Brains 1998-2013
I only wanted to be in a group that was positive and uplifting, so I decided to change the band name and give that a try.
-H.R.
Anthony Countey
H.R. called me about them wanting to be called Soul Brains moving forward. I said, “If you want to do Bad Brains, I will do that, but I’m not inventing a new band for a band that already has a name.” I asked, “Are you going to write new material?” And he said, “No.” “Okay, call it what you want, but if I’m going to do it, I’ll do Bad Brains.” I didn’t do it because it felt too weird, especially changing their name. To come up with a new name was like, What is this? Whose material are you playing? You’re playing the material of a band called Bad Brains? It was way too confusing for me to be involved like that.
H.R.
I wanted us to have a more positive outlook on life. I didn’t want to be into bad anything.
Noel Baker
I started off as Joe’s road manager with Human Rights. He was getting ripped off by a former manager, and I ended up becoming the manager for H.R. from that point on. H.R. said to me out of the blue, “Let’s reunite the Brains and call it the Soul Brains.” We had gotten an offer from the San Francisco Maritime Hall for $20,000, so at first we were gonna do a one-off and they decided not to do it. It took me talking to Dr. Know every day for six months to get him to come through. They had a jaded past from what H.R.’s actions had been. They had some history that wasn’t as positive as you’d like it to be, and they were a bit apprehensive about reuniting. It took some convincing, but we did it. We ended up doing a whole West Coast tour and, from there, we didn’t stop.
Earl Hudson
Soul Brains started because we wanted to appease H with changing the name. He wanted to change the name. He didn’t want that connotation of bad even though we all know bad, meaning good, is tough. But he didn’t think that’s what people thought it meant. This is when Noel came into play, so we called it Soul Brains and we were still doing rock and reggae.
Noel Baker
H.R. was in a stable place with stable people and he could trust somebody to do his business and conduct it the way it needed to be done. I think that he wanted to see those guys and he wanted to bring money back to the band and to himself. Some of this is just to entertain himself and see how far he can push authority with a punk rock attitude, and some of it is a little insanity. He just likes to push the envelope. He likes the shock value.
He’d go out on these little adventures. H.R. had a video camera for a while. He shot all these videos of himself roaming around the subways, and singing and observing things. He just takes in the world. He’s an eccentric individual and a lot of people would just stop and talk to him. He’d meet with people he hadn’t seen in a while. I’ve seen him do it all day long.
Norwood Fisher
I didn’t exactly know what was going on, but rumor had it he was going from place to place. I’d see him on the streets and I’m like, “Hey, that’s H.R. Get in the car man, get in the car. Let’s go.” We had our studio called the Nutsack, and we were like, “Come on with us, we’ll just go to the Nutsack.” It was a period where he was wearing one white glove or a silver glove, and he was dressed like a general. He stayed at the studio for a minute. It made me think about the Bad Brains song “Big Takeover.” He was exercising that right. I’d heard a lot of stories about him going and staying at people’s houses. Next thing you know, he’s fucking the dude’s girlfriend, acting like, It’s my house, until they got him out. He was doing the “Big Takeover.”
Chino Moreno
H.R. does things how he wants to. As many times as I’ve hung out with him, I was never able to pinpoint what is up with him. I’ve never seen the dude drugged-out or anything. He’s an introvert and just doing his thing. We were in Malibu where we rented this place for three or four months. Deftones were writing a couple of records. He came out there and stayed with us for a week and every morning he’d get up, eat some cereal and just kick it. Just talking, very normal, and when it was time for us to rehearse, he’d strap his guitar on and just sit and hang. It was like having another band member. We actually recorded some vocals with him that could maybe be made into something. We had one track called “Pink Cell Phone,” which was very cool.
Toby Morse
We played a show with Soul Brains in Japan and some of the shows go really late over there. It was us, MC Hammer, De La Soul, Dancehall Crashers and Bad Brains. They weren’t going on until five in the morning. All the kids were lying over the barricade, falling asleep, but all of the American bands on the bill were so hyped to see them right up front. Me and my wife were so jet-lagged and tired, and we’re like, “I don’t think we’re gonna make it. Let’s go back to the hotel and chill for a little bit.” As we’re coming into the hotel, the elevator opens up and H.R. comes out with what looked like a birdcage on his head and a guitar. He looked at me and my wife and said “Peace and blessings” to us. It almost seemed like he floated out of the elevator and floated towards us. I swear to God. Me and
my wife looked at each other and said, “We’re staying,” and jumped in the shuttle van with him and went back and watched Soul Brains. Something about him is surreal. Even if he’s onstage playing a guitar that’s not plugged in, I don’t care, it’s H.R. and he’s amazing.
Sonny Sandoval
When I first met H.R., he came to the studio to be on our record. He came in with this huge Haile Selassie headdress and this cage with some birds up in there, some parakeets. He’s very soft spoken; he’s not a blabbermouth; he’s not telling everybody what’s up. So it’s like, Did he bring these birds on purpose? Why did he do that? Is he crazy or is he making a point? What’s going on? I’m sure he was wilder and crazier back in the day, but for all the years that I’ve been privileged to know him, he’s always listening and paying attention to what’s going on—very reserved. And I think that’s a matter of respect.
H.R.
The kind of music we were playing, people didn’t want to gamble with that, so it took a little extra effort and a little more time than we had originally anticipated to get things going. Some people were leery of us and didn’t want any part of the group or me. Then, after bouncing around and hitting my head against the wall, I said, “I can’t take it anymore. Please, Jah, help me.” And I would pray, and the Lord said, “Okay, I will provide for you.” The Lord was saying he wanted to see if this was authentically part of my reality. “Did you, in your heart, really understand the message of Rasta?” The Spirit said, “Yes, I believe in you. You passed the test, now go on and reform the group.” And I did.