‘Fearless Vampire Killers: The Bad Brains Photographs’ Captures the Hardcore Excitement of the Influential Punk Rockers – Photographer Glen E. Friedman documented a band that disregarded racial stereotypes and changed the landscape of punk.

by Kyle Eustice

April 10, 2025

“It was a really beautiful time in punk. Rock ’n’ roll at the time wasn’t providing the energy we needed as teenagers.”

Photographer Glen E. Friedman’s resume reads like an ’80s alt-kid’s dream. Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Run-DMC are a mere handful of the bands that have stepped in front of his lens. Add professional skateboarders like Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, and Jay Adams, and a perfect intersection of subcultures that effortlessly defined an era presents itself. 

On April 1, Friedman released his latest book, Fearless Vampire Killers: The Bad Brains Photographs, the title a reference to the band’s “F.V.K. (Fearless Vampire Killers)” single, taken from their 1982 self-titled debut album. Shot between 1981 and ’82, the photographs illustrate the raw, kinetic, and often frantic energy of a Bad Brains show, which made them punk rock legends. 

The preface, written by Bad Brains frontman Paul “H.R.” Hudson, explains the meaning behind that song, one he describes as “a warning to the kids, to let them know what to look out for.” He goes on, “We wanted to encourage kids as they encouraged us, with our attitude that was different — that’s what I was singing about … just to be more positive and refreshing compared to a lot of other bands.” 

Friedman recognized this early on. He’d heard about “these Black guys from D.C. who played really fast” through word of mouth, and was intrigued. At the first couple of Bad Brains shows he attended, there were never more than 20 people in the room, but there was something magic happening. 

“It was like nothing else,” Friedman told the Voice, during the interview that follows. “A lot of punk bands back then, everyone had really individual takes on punk rock. It was a really beautiful time in punk. Rock ’n’ roll at the time wasn’t providing the energy we needed as teenagers.

“[Bad Brains’] greatness was undeniable. Their mastery of their instruments was undeniable, and everyone respected that. And besides that, it was fucking hella fun to see them play.”

“When I saw them for the first time, they only had the first single out, ‘Pay to Cum,’ and you literally could not tell what he was saying because he was speaking so fast. It was just exciting. The whole set, they came out with all these hardcore anthems, like ‘P.M.A.,’ ‘Fearless Vampire Killers,’ and ‘How Low Can a Punk Get.’ After you saw them, you were fanatical about them.” 

The photos in the first section of the book were taken during the summer of ’81, at the New York City club A7, at Avenue A and East 7th Street, and later at 2+2, located at 2 Second Avenue, in the East Village, where Bad Brains didn’t hit the stage until 3 a.m. In every black and white shot, H.R., shirtless and wearing a ratty pair of Adidas paired with slacks, seems to be in another realm, singing from the soul and pouring every ounce of emotion he has into the performance. Backed by bassist Darryl Jenifer, drummer and brother Earl Hudson, and guitarist Dr. Know, H.R. commanded the stage — and Friedman’s camera caught it. 

Friedman took a total of 90 black and white photos of Bad Brains, all shot in New York City, along with a small selection of color images he shot in ’82 at the Whiskey A Go Go and the Ukrainian Culture Center, in Los Angeles. Friedman admits that “not every shot is excellent by any means,” but F.V.K. was made for “those deeply interested in the Bad Brains,” punk, and his own photography.

Fearless Vampire Killers concludes with an afterword by Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha, who calls his first Bad Brains experience a “historical encounter,” one “where sound, fury, and Black resilience intersect.” This caps an intimate look at a band — ultimately torn apart by internal strife and H.R.’s long-undiagnosed mental illness — that permanently changed the landscape of punk rock and influenced countless others, not just to challenge racial stereotypes but to completely disregard them. (The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

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Village Voice: I was surprised to read you were initially hesitant to take photos of Bad Brains.

Glen E. Friedman: I didn’t know the Bad Brains and didn’t want to make pictures of anyone that I didn’t know. It took me a little while to get the nerve up to actually take photos of them. It was probably about the fifth show that I saw them. By that time, I had taken pictures of the Stimulators and got one in SkateBoarder magazine, showing the energy of punk rock. It was young and exciting, and it was new. People who weren’t born at the time can’t understand how revolutionary that really was. 

It sounds like it took a minute for H.R. to warm up to the idea too. Why do you think that is? 

Back then, people weren’t in pictures that much. To be photographed at a gig, that’s kind of like a rock star thing. So with someone like me, who’s very up close, intentional, and intense, I’m framing those moments and making those moments on film to get the excitement and intensity to share with other people. And because of my skateboarding days, I was able to do that. 

If you see those moments, you need to snap, but you need to focus and make sure the flash is working and that everything is on point right in that exact moment. You miss a lot of those moments because the clubs are mostly pitch-black. The way you see the images in most of the photos in that book, it didn’t look like that to people in the club. Focusing was no easy task.

And as you stated, you weren’t a voyeur, you more of an active participant?

I skated, slammed at punk shows, and went to hip-hop clubs without my camera. I carried my camera less than a quarter of the time I went to punk shows. To be a part of all three of these cultures and have a very meaningful part in all three of them meant so much to me. It’s really gratifying and makes me feel good that I did what I did and that I worked as hard as I did. Quite honestly, I had no idea that they would stand the test of time or that they would go beyond the era that they were created.

What was special about them? 

We hadn’t really heard anyone play their instruments with such ferocity, and plus, H.R.’s vocals, he was like a speed talker. It was just exciting because it’s the energy that we all had as teenagers.

In the book, you say Bad Brains was at their creative peak in ’80 and ’81. But I thought Quickness (1989) and I Against I (1986) were amazing albums too. 

The era I saw them was most well-represented by the Black Dots demo. The other stuff, like Rock for Light, I thought was crap. It was very poorly produced, even though it was produced in a big studio. All the records after that, each one had a good song or two, but mostly I didn’t really care for them. I remember when they started playing reggae in ’82. A lot of the New York heads, they were just moshing at this by this point, and they liked the reggae, but I didn’t like that. I never was a reggae fan. If I wanted to do reggae, I’d hear Peter Tosh or someone else play. I’m not here to say anything bad about them, but reggae didn’t hold my interest. They didn’t play that at the beginning. It was a different time, and they were incredibly influential, incredibly inspirational, and just fantastic.

How old were you in 1980? 

I was 18.

“I’m not a documentarian. I did it to inspire people. I didn’t do it to document the moment … I did it to frame it, compose it, and make it look as beautiful and as inspiring as it was to me.”

So you feel that people who didn’t get introduced to Bad Brains until Rock for Light really didn’t get to see the raw form of them?

Yeah. I Against I had “Coptic Times.” That’s probably the best song that they made after the ROIR [Reachout International Records] cassette [in 1982], in my opinion. That’s probably the last great recording that they made. It just had the ferociousness, intensity, and aggressiveness of the earlier stuff.

Have you seen them play since? 

I saw them many years later, at one of their first reunion shows, and H.R. just stood still the whole night and was wearing glasses. It was very disappointing. It was over 20 years ago, and everyone was slam dancing and doing what they were doing. It was here in New York, at the Irving Plaza, but it was nothing like earlier shows. It was really kind of depressing actually, but kids who were all there were happy to see them play, because they had never had the opportunity to see them play at their peak. But as someone who had seen them play at their peak, it was very disappointing. But their influence is undeniable. Their greatness was undeniable. Their mastery of their instruments was undeniable, and everyone respected that. And besides that, it was fucking hella fun to see them play.

That’s the one word that kept popping out in H.R.’s preface — fun. They wanted to have fun, and I think they accomplished that for a lot of years. It’s really sad to see what has happened to the group as the years went on, the disintegration. Has that been tough for you to witness?

I knew H.R. in the early ’80s, and then I saw him again at Lollapalooza years later. He seemed like a completely different person. I think there was some schizophrenia lurking in there and it was very different. He barely recognized me. I don’t mind that, but I just felt bad for him. He was speaking in a different voice, so it was very peculiar. He was there, though he wasn’t playing. He was just there hanging out because the Beastie Boys were there, and he was always friends with them. It was the trajectory of what happened with them that was very bizarre, unexpected, and unfortunate. That’s why I was convinced by Zack de la Rocha and [Fugazi and Minor Threat’s] Ian MacKaye to literally print every single photo I ever took of them. The book leaves out almost none. 

You could tell by looking at the proof sheets that I left out almost none of the images and in fact, most of them are used in the order they were actually taken as well. I switched the order a few times just because of how they looked on the page, but that’s the minority of cases. I think it shows a progression of the band and the night that we photographed. If you look at the shots at A7, H.R. comes out with a jacket on and by the end of the show, he’s shirtless. The band is dry at the beginning and sweaty at the end. At A7, you see the American flag was behind Reagan Youth and behind the Bad Brains until about a couple songs in and all of a sudden the flag is no longer on the wall. There’s some great stuff in that book as far as helping people understand the energy, intensity, and closeness of it all during that era. 

Were they all small venues? 

The Whiskey a Go-Go, in L.A., was equivalent to CBGBs in many ways as far as size is concerned. And then that Ukrainian Hall show was the biggest show, and I didn’t shoot many pictures there. That’s why they look the way they do; they’re with a longer lens because you had a bigger stage, it wasn’t as intimate and the lighting of my pictures is different than it is on the beautiful black and white shots of the other shows. Most of the images were taken in clubs, very small places.

What were the challenges of shooting in places like that? 

People don’t recognize that there’s very little light. Because of my skateboarding background, I was able to predict a little bit more accurately than most where someone was going to be, but also the flash, because it’s so bright, gave you a depth of field that gave you some room for error.

You easily bridged the gaps between skateboarding, punk rock, and hip-hop. When you look back on your career, what’s the feeling you get about what you’ve accomplished or documented?

I don’t consider it documentation either, honestly. I’m not a documentarian. I did it to inspire people. I didn’t do it to document the moment. I didn’t do it to capture the moment. I did it to frame it, compose it, and make it look as beautiful and as inspiring as it was to me. I’m very proud that I was able to do it and that I had the fortitude to do it at the time that I did. There were always other people. Wherever I was photographing, rarely was I the only one. There were other people there, but I had my own take on it. I did it a different way. It was my blood. It was my life. I was living it. I wasn’t a voyeur. I didn’t shoot skateboarding because I only wanted to get in the magazine. I was making skateboarding photos because I wanted other people to be inspired by the incredible things that I was seeing that I knew had never been done before or seen before by anyone, anywhere on the planet. It was very exciting to me as a youth. I had never been involved in something that was so unique and so special. 

What I was seeing, I took very seriously. The same thing happened with punk rock a couple years later. All these things happened one after the other. It was a natural progression of when I was exposed to them just before they became more accepted or understood. None of them were mainstream, by the way, except hip-hop became mainstream. But during the period that I was doing it, they were all fringe activities done by subcultures. I think the work speaks for itself for people who have the artistic eye and understand composition, intensity, and integrity. I think that the images and photographs I created with the subjects stand alone in their quality.   ❖