Punk & Hardcore
East Bay Ray, guitarist and founding member of Dead Kennedys, has Parkinson’s disease. The band’s management announced it on Tuesday 22 September on social media, in a brief statement that says neither when he was diagnosed nor how it affects his playing.
“Ray plans to continue performing and touring with Dead Kennedys for as long as his health allows,” the statement adds, “and he wants to express his gratitude to everyone for their continued support.”
Raymond Pepperell, his real name, is 67 and the only member Dead Kennedys have kept without interruption since forming in San Francisco in 1978: forty-eight years of the same guitar, the tape-echo tone and clean rockabilly twang that kept Californian punk from sounding like London’s. The current line-up has toured since 2001 without Jello Biafra, the original singer. Just last week Pepperell put out “Area 51”, a solo single.
The immediate schedule hasn’t changed: four shows in October, all on the US west coast. 6th at Seattle’s Showbox, 7th at Portland’s Roseland Theater, 9th at San Francisco’s Regency Ballroom, and 11th at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium in Riverside, California.
Text by Marçal Bonastre