R.I.P. Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. Peligro

D.H. Peligro passed away. The long-time drummer for influential punk band Dead Kennedys, named Peligro, played off-and-on with the band for more than two decades, co-generating several of their albums. The drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers briefly worked with Peligro. The Los Angeles Police Department reported that he suffered head trauma after a fall. He was 63 years old.

Peligro was living out of a van in San Francisco when he met East Bay Ray. He talked about hopping a Greyhound to San Francisco at 17 with nothing more than his drum kit and a bologna sandwich. When original drummer Bruce "Ted" Slesinger left the band in 1981 Peligro was one of more than a dozen drummers to try out.

Dead Kennedys would gain international prominence, release three more albums, and weather a high-profile obscenity trial related to the release of 1982. East Bay Ray decided to quit the band in 1986. The members of the group decided to go their separate ways after a brief discussion about finding a new guitarist.

Peligro started his own band as well as playing with a number of other bands. He had an addiction to heroin that he would struggle with for the rest of his life. He was brought in by his friends in the Chili Peppers to replace founding drummer Jack Irons, who had left the band after his high school friend died of a heroin overdose. Although Peligro co-wrote a few of the songs that would end up on the band's fourth album, Mother's Milk, he was only with the Peppers for a short time before being fired. He ruefully admitted that if he had stayed with the group during their rise to massive prominence, he would have died.

The members of the Dead Kennedys discovered in the late 1990s that they had been getting under-paid on royalties. In response, Peligro, Klaus, and Ray reformed with a new group of singers, with Biafra taking frequent shots at the group for what he perceived to be trading on the band's name and image. The members of the Kennedys won a court case that secured the rights to most of the band's back catalog, but they continued touring together.

In his memoir, Dreadnaught: King of Afropunk, Peligro mentioned that he had a relapse as recently as 2015. While touring as a Black man in the punk scene of the ’80s, he was exposed to a lot of racism that contributed to his struggles with addiction. Even though he played, wrote, and acted in a few short films, he created art up until his death this week.