The DIRTY ROTTEN IMBECILES‘ history begins on May 2, 1982 around 4:00pm, in the city
of Houston, TX. It was on this day that the musically aggressive quartet we now know as
D.R.I. made their first Dirty Rotten noise and called it a song. Back then it was Spike
Cassidy (guitar), Kurt Brecht (vocals), Eric Brecht (drums), and Dennis Johnson (bass).
The group started practicing at Kurt and Eric’s parents home, where the brothers lived
amongst the „Madman“ (their father). They practiced a few nights a week around 5:00pm,
just as the Madman would be on his way home from a hard day at work. He would open his
front door only to be blasted with 120db of the band’s horrendous attempt to make music.
The Madman would then pound on their jam room door until he was let in so that in turn,
he could throw them out of his house calling them such things as „… you bunch of dirty
rotten imbeciles“. This is how D.R.I. got their name.
2 months later, on July 2,1982, the band played their first show at Joe Star’s OMNI, in
Houston. On November 6th & 7th of 1982 D.R.I. recorded their first release, the Dirty Rotten
EP, stuffing 22 songs into 18 minutes on a 7″ EP that played at 33 rpm’s. Only 1000 copies of
this EP version were pressed, making it now a very rare collector’s item. Demand caused
this EP to be pressed into a 12″ LP version, released in 1983, appropriately called Dirty
Rotten LP. Leaving the underground music scene thriving for more, DRLP became a major
success and also an
inspiration for many new bands at the time. Soon after D.R.I. was labeled the fastest band
in the world.
In 1983 D.R.I. moved to San Francisco, where they lived in their van and ate at soup
kitchens in between gigs. Dennis Johnson quit the band and returned home to Texas. He
was replaced with Sebastian Amok, and within a few months D.R.I. found themselves on the
„Rock Against Reagan“ tour with the Dead Kennedy’s. At the conclusion of this tour, they
replaced Sebastian Amok with Josh Pappe.
Their next release was the 4 song, 7″, Violent Pacification EP, in 1984. After touring in the
summer of 1984, Eric Brecht got married and left the band. He was replaced with Felix
Griffin.
D.R.I.’s second full length release, Dealing With It , came in March 1985. The group
toured extensively in support of the album. Sometime during the recording of the album,
Josh took a leave from the band. Mikey Offender (bass player of the Offenders) was asked
to play for the album, although Spike played bass on the songs that Mikey didn’t have time
to learn. The songs on DWI pointed slightly towards a metal direction, but still remained
very hardcore. Almost legendary is the band’s recording of „Madman“, where Kurt’s dad is
mad and disturbs a
rehearsal. The band gains a real cult status, supported by such fans as Dave Lombardo
(Slayer), who tells everyone he’s influenced by D.R.I.