Jello Biafra is no stranger to creating political music. It started with the seminal hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys and he continues to rage on, championing many causes. “Werewolves of Wall Street” is one of many anthems for the Occupy Wall Street Movement that appeared on Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine 2013 album, White People and the Damage Done. It a scathing attack on corporate greed and how profits are driven by trampling on others (“we love to fire people because it makes the stock goes up”). Biafra also refers to the need to stand up to corporate greed and give them a figurative “silver bullet right between the eyes”. The song is also timely in height of the Republican Tax bill which primarily benefits the rich.
Biafra politics goes beyond writing about them in his music. In 1979 he finished fourth in a ten person race for Mayor of San Francisco. In 2000 he ran to become the Green Party presidential nominee. He finished a distant second to Ralph Nader, but he became an active campaigner for Nader. Even though he was never elected for public office, he does vocally support left ring causes and through his music and interviews you can get a fairly clear view of what his political platform would be. For example, in a 2013 interview with The Guardian, Biafra mentioned how he supports the idea of a maximum wage. In Biafra mind, there is “a far worse addiction problem in this world than meth or crack or heroin is wealth addiction” and to him the only solution “is to put them in rehab”. Maximum wages are part of that rehab program and part of the symbolic “silver bullet”. Biafra for President 2020!