Finding Joseph I: An Oral History of H.R. from Bad Brains Read online

  Ron St. Germain | Producer

  It’s the H.R. signature. Nobody sounded like him or moved like him. The way he was running around, just firing on all cylinders, he was on his own little planet. You could not help but look at this guy and be engaged. Then he was also saying something. He was the king. Kind of the Bob Marley of that genre. To front that Bad Brains stuff, the amount of energy, and the amount of power and strength required for those vocals is staggering. He put himself into it 150 percent every time. Unreal, the things he’s done with his voice. I mean, runs from the lows to the highs, the screams . . . unbelievable.

  Angelo Moore | Fishbone

  He sings with melody even though he’s singing with a lot of angst and edge. It has soul. It gives me another reason to sing punk rock with soul in it. Putting a lot of spiritual lyrics to his punk rock, which usually you don’t get. Punk rock is normally about destruction. He makes it liberating. PMA: Positive Mental Attitude. That’s another thing that stuck with me. Everybody should have it.

  Michael Franti | Spearhead

  Lyrically, all the songs were about things that were important to me. Things that were taking place in the world, social issues and human rights. As a young kid growing up in a suburban town and being one of the few black kids in my community who was really into skateboarding, and punk rock and hip-hop and all the rebellious things kids do at the time, to me, Bad Brains was the icon of my youth, and H.R was the leader.

  M-1 | Dead Prez

  What H.R. was writing for us was like a survival kit for the future. What happens when this shit breaks down? Where are your minds headed? That was the value of the music. Tomorrow’s survival kit.

  Al “Judah” Walker | Zion Train

  He became a member of the 12 Tribes of Israel, which is a Rastafarian discipline. Rasta has four major disciplines, but all four of the disciplines have one thing in common and that’s the faith that His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie3 is Yeshua [Christ] in his kingly character in revelation times, which is the time we are living in according to the Scriptures. That’s when he became Ras Hailu—Hailu means power, and Ras means head. He ate, slept and drank music. It was like an energy source to reaffirm the spiritual things that he deeply believed in. He was definitely a humanitarian, and a lot of injustices—not just in the music business but life in general—would tick him off. He had a militant spirit, and that militant spirit was his expression of being anti-Babylon and antiestablishment—another way to identify oneself as a rebel with a cause, not a terrorist or somebody destructive, but somebody that is expressing the opposite of what the system expects of us.

  William Banks | H.R. Band, Zion Train

  Every song has got something to do with a story. That’s him. When he got busted on his son’s birthday, he sang about it. When he got busted selling herb on Columbia Road, he sang about it on the next album. He called me up when he was doing one song for the Bad Brains and he was in jail. In the ’80s, dreads wasn’t no fashion. Back then, when you was dread,4 you lived it.

  Anthony Countey | Longtime Bad Brains Manager

  There were times that I thought H.R. was a healer. Kids would sometimes come to the show that were really sick. This kid came, I think it was in Arizona, and he had leukemia. He was really skinny and white as a sheet. He met H.R., and they talked for a long time. It was really intense. We came back a year later, and the kid was healed. The kid was fresh and strong. He was like, “Do you remember me?” H.R. was like, “Of course, I remember you.” If nothing else, that capability of having respect for somebody who was in front of you at any given moment, and being in that moment with them and being honest and treating them like your brother. He took everything seriously. Lovingly but seriously.

  Eric Wilson | Sublime, Long Beach Dub AllStars

  I think he feels more comfortable onstage than anywhere else. Just from observing him in-between the bands when he’s waiting to go onstage, he would just kind of sit behind the speakers and chill. He looks at ease when he’s in front of people playing.

  Vernon Reid

  We’re watching a show and he’s doing a song and he does a backflip and lands exactly at the end of the song, and it was like, “Game over!” I remember Corey being in the audience, and we looked at each other like, WHAT THE FUCK?! The only other person that I’ve seen do that was Nils Lofgren, ’cause Nils was a gymnast, but Nils used a little trampoline and he would run to the back of the stage and do a thing and boom, land—and it was incredible. H.R. did a standing somersault, which is one of the most difficult things. No run up. Standing. Boom! The only thing to compare it to was James Brown, the hardest working man in showbiz. Someone that can move like that changes the physical dimensions of the room, changes everything. H.R. would change the gravity of the room. He would do something and the audience would boil.

  Chino Moreno

  When H.R. performs, he definitely transcends. He’s somewhere else. It’s not staged at all and that’s what feels good about it. There’s no inhibition. He’s just in the music. The first time I ever saw him perform was with H.R., the group. It was probably one of the most intense shows that I’ve seen. It wasn’t like he was jumping around and doing flips or anything. He was just standing there singing with his eyes closed and his head back, completely lost in the music. It’s very honest, the way he lives. He is who he portrays himself to be. When you listen to records, you want to imagine what you’re hearing is true and what they are talking about is real. He’s a nomad, I guess, and I know there are many opportunities he’s had to do this or to do that, and it seems to me that if he wanted to, that’s what he’d be doing. He’s just gonna do what he wants to do and you respect him for that.

  Corey Glover | Living Colour

  Every performer who speaks directly from themselves and is dealing with their internal mechanism and pushing it out, something takes over—and sometimes that’s a very powerful presence. It’s subconscious. It’s guttural and raw and filled with every emotion you can think of. From extreme love to extreme hate; it’s all mashed together and it pushes itself out. When you get to that place, when you achieve that, magic happens. H.R.’s in touch with that. You may not get it from him everyday, but onstage you know he’s there. When you talk to him on the outside when he’s not playing, he’s very calm, very quiet. You can feel him thinking. It’s a weird sense to feel someone thinking constantly. His mind is churning, his mind is moving. To feel that from somebody is a powerful thing.

  ILL BILL | Non Phixion, La Coka Nostra,

  Heavy Metal Kings

  It’s a mixed bag what you’re going to get with H.R., depending on what day of the week it is. When they say a person is like a flip of the coin, he really is. And that’s what makes him who he is. I think H.R. is an uncontrollable substance. His gift is a gift and a curse. He’s so over-the-top and unrestrainable; it’s like everything that’s held him back a little bit also makes him who he is, so you can’t really have one side without the other. He’s trying to balance his own inner scale and maintain that balance. I would never pass judgment on him ’cause I think we all go through that in life. We all have our inner demons and our internal battles and conflicts. H.R. is a perfect example of that. He’s a testament to staying true to yourself as an artist, while at the same time, he’s almost too real for his own good.

  Nick Hexum | 311

  It must have been around the recording of one of our albums with Ron St. Germain in the early 2000s. We heard that H.R. wanted to come over and record some songs in our studio, and we were like, “Of course.” It’s just H.R. with an acoustic guitar doing the most beautiful songs that I’d ever heard and never heard again. I think H.R. wanted to have them recorded just to have them recorded. I don’t think he put them out or anything. But first he said, “I think we should take care of the money,” and he gets out a blank receipt book and pencil. He fills out what basically looks like a personal check with some ridiculous
number of dollars on it, and he’s like, “Okay, there you go. Now that we got that taken care of, we can record.” Totally straight-faced, then he goes in there and records the most beautiful music I’d ever heard him do. I guess he has a different understanding of money than the rest of us, and that’s a nice place to be.

  Mark Andersen | Positive Force DC

  H.R. is a bunch of different people. He is somebody who represents a whole lot more than maybe it’s fair to ask anyone to carry on his shoulders. There’s the Joseph who, onstage, is an absolute shaman. I mean, at his best, he is one of the most magnetic, electrifying, absolutely inspirational figures you will ever encounter. There is no front man better than Joseph at his best. No one. And most of the people that are big stars can’t touch him—not at all. They don’t even come close. So there’s that Joseph. Then there’s the Joseph that you know in personal life that is just extraordinarily generous, kind, thoughtful, and very very soft spoken. The kind of person that you would just want for your best friend. It’s this other Joseph that was absolutely encouraging and supportive of young punks like Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins and all these other folks in the early DC scene. Just an extraordinary, gentle soul. Then there’s the Joseph that walks in darkness, who’s utterly lost and apparently not willing to ask for help, and the contrast is heartbreaking. It’s not that he’s one of these three, he’s all three. And that, for a lot of people—especially those of us who love him, who revere him as one of our main inspirations—it’s a hard contradiction to navigate.

  Jimmy Gestapo | Murphy’s Law

  I remember seeing Bad Brains at Irving Plaza when they were playing as Soul Brains in the late nineties and just being like, “Wow, what the hell happened to H.R.? What’s wrong with him?” A lot of people in the hardcore community lose it. But with him, something’s completely different. I don’t know where he went, but something slipped and it just wasn’t him anymore.

  Sonny Sandoval | P.O.D.

  I’ve heard everything from “It’s just H.R. being H.R” to “H.R.’s out of his mind.” I’ve heard “He’s crazy” and also “He’s not crazy; it’s all just an act.” I’ve heard it all. Like, “Yo, H.R., he’s not all there.” And “He’s just high” or “He’s pulling a trick on everybody.” I think there is a fine line between genius and insanity. That is the mystique. Nobody knows what’s up.

  Alec MacKaye | Untouchables, The Faith, Ignition

  It was the late ’80s. I was working at 9:30 Club, and I hadn’t seen the Bad Brains in a really long time, as people or a band or anything. And I just felt this desire to tell H.R. as a friend how much he meant to me. What he had done musically and philosophically and how much it meant to me. I was afraid I might not see him again for a long time or maybe ever. I remember being in the dressing room. I was with my brother, and I saw H.R. I said, “I just have to tell you that you’ve really changed me. I owe you a great debt for changing my life when I was younger. While I had the chance, I wanted to tell you that.” At that moment, we had been talking pretty regularly and just having a conversation. When I said that, he got this look where he just went and he looked off beyond me and didn’t say anything. Then I asked him a question and he didn’t respond. He actually didn’t talk to me at all for the rest of the night. That was the end of that, and I just walked away. Like, what was that about? My brother was like, “I don’t know, man.” I thought he was thinking about what I was saying, but I don’t know.

  Al “Judah” Walker

  I heard about an incident with him hitting somebody with a mic stand. That’s when I knew, No, that’s not the Joe that I know. The Joe that I know wouldn’t hit anyone with a mic stand for no reason. Then I heard that he did it because somebody spit on him. The rest of the band members, they never saw anybody spitting on him. The H.R. that I remember might not be here now, but he’s in there somewhere. For those who have written him off as crazy or a devil, I would never classify him that way, and I think that they need to rethink that. They should have empathy and understand that mental illness is not something anybody can control. It’s not like you can control it, but I pray for him every day. I think about him all the time.

  Lori Carns Hudson | H.R.’s Wife

  I recognized right away that there was some psychiatric issue. It was obvious to me, and I didn’t know if anyone had tried to help him with that before. Most people would not really admit that there was something wrong. I don’t even like to use the word “wrong.” I think it’s just different. People would say, “Oh, he’s just eccentric. He’s just being a rock star,” and I said, “You guys are not facing reality.” He really needs some help, but it was partly him being resistant to that. That was a big part of it. I know that there are other people in his life who had tried before to get him to see a doctor, and he just wouldn’t.

  Norwood Fisher

  I’ve heard stories about things that happened along the course of Bad Brains’ history. What might be looked at like self-sabotage. On another level, what was punk rock about again? It was about rebelling and not becoming part of the status quo. So on one hand, somebody’s waving a lot of money and everybody needs to eat, and I could dig it, but on the other hand, there’s a punk rock ethic and H.R. is standing his ground, going, “I don’t want to go down that path.” I can understand maybe the frustration of the other band members at those moments when it was, like, right there. So as a fan, yes, I’m disappointed they didn’t get those opportunities to be a popular band. They didn’t get to take advantage. If it was H.R. sabotaging it, as the stories go, there’s some disappointment, but there’s some understanding, too. For one, it might be the punk rock ethic. Otherwise, that’s the pitfalls of rolling with a madman.

  Earl Hudson | Bad Brains, Human Rights,

  H.R.’s Brother

  He’s a carefree spirit, but you have to come to a realization that you can’t live your life carefree or you won’t have a roof over your head. That’s how stuff is run, how things come about. You have to work, and you have to care. I guess he’s fighting that now, but you have to come to a realization that that’s how things are. Because you can only lead people down a path so far. Everybody needs somebody, and no man is an island, and so on. But that’s a personal thing, and everybody struggles with that within themselves and with God. That’s how that is.

  Questlove | The Roots

  H.R is the person through whom I vicariously express my rage. More often than not, I grab early Bad Brains material to relieve the stress and the anger I feel. I can channel it through his music. Maybe he was an unwilling leader of a movement. Regardless, there was a movement that changed a lot of young fans. Still to this day, they look to him for inspiration, it’s an each-one, teach-one society. Stuff he did thirty years ago is still being discovered today. It will never die or be disposable. That’s a sign of true art. It’s as if he is a silent ninja. I’ve never seen anyone that charismatic or that in command of their performance. That’s the type of experience you see in older artists of Prince’s stature or James Brown’s stature or Michael Jackson’s stature. That confidence that puts them at that level. I know the thing that makes him H.R. is the fact that he just rebels against the system. I’ve heard billions of H.R. stories, but I just wonder what would have happened if certain decisions that he made in his personal life and his professional life were made so he could have made it to that level of success.

  Corey Glover

  To me, he is channeling something more raw and powerful than any of us could ever imagine. Just to be a fly on the wall of his mind would be . . . I don’t think I could take it. I don’t think any of us could take it. To this day I try to understand it. Every time I see Joseph it’s like, wow. All of us aspire to be that dude, and he got it and always had it. As a singer, I say this all the time, all I’m doing is a cheap imitation of H.R. For real. A real cheap imitation.

  William Banks

  Some people think about the market
and some people don’t. H.R. is type of person that don’t think about a market. H.R. is just straight up true to what he is. He lived the life of a rocker, a hardcore punk and he’s still doin’ it, and people don’t understand. He’s not living in a fancy house. He’s not driving no fancy car. He’s H.R., Human Rights, and he’s living his story.

  2. Prelude: Roots 1956 And Beyond

  When I was born, my mom didn’t see me for three days because I had pneumonia. She said that after the third day, she gave me her hand; I grabbed her one little finger and I stopped crying. After that everything was all right.

  -H.R.

  H.R.

  I was born on Feb 11, 1956 and my parents gave me the name Paul Denard Hudson. I came from a great childhood, great background, great family. I was born in England and later relocated to DC. I did spend a little bit of time in Jamaica, Texas, Alabama, New York, and from there we went to Washington, DC. We did stop in California, and we were in Waianae, Hawaii, too. My father, Leon, was in the Air Force, and my mother, Carmen, was a nurse. She has a beautiful face. My mother and father . . . both of them are so top ranking. They’re still together after all these years.

  Earl Hudson

  My mom’s from Jamaica, and my dad’s from Alabama. My dad met my mother while stationed in England, and Joseph was born in Liverpool. My father then relocated from England, taking my mother with him to America. They had me when they came back to the States.

  H.R.

  I remember as a child living in Jamaica . . . it was there that I heard my first reggae song. Anyway, I was about three years old, and my mother dropped me and my brother off at my Auntie May’s house in Kingston. My parents left and went on their way. They had to get some things together so that my mom could go to the US. I remember I closed my eyes and I said to myself, “I’m not going to open them up until my mom returns.” There was one thing that I needed, and that was my mother. It’s good to have your father, but you need to have your mother, too. I wanted to stay in Jamaica and my mother said, “Okay, you want to stay? I’m leaving you then, and I’ll come back another day.” I thought she was just joking around. She didn’t come back for almost a year, when she got the paperwork together to go to America with my father.