About
Bad Brains were formed in 1977 in Washington, D.C. by the members of a jazz fusion group called Mind Power. The band featured Gary Miller on lead guitar, Paul Hudson on rhythm guitar, Darryl Jennifer on bass, and Earl Hudson on drums. While the four were expert musicians, they were becoming frustrated with the stylistic and thematic limitations of their music, and were looking for a newer and more exciting sound. A good friend of the band, Sid McCray, was a recent convert to punk rock, and when he exposed the musicians to the music of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, they were immediately convinced this was the new style they were looking for. These events coincided with the members discovering Rastafarianism after seeing a performance by Bob Marley, and they began alternating their high-speed bursts of punk rock with languid reggae tunes that explored the musical space of dub. The group introduced themselves to the Washington, D.C. punk community with a free show at their house that immediately made them the talk of the town. They initially performed with McCray on lead vocals, but he soon dropped out; Paul Hudson took over as their vocalist and began using the stage name H.R., while Miller dubbed himself Dr. Know.