When talking about Big Blue, the Dead Schembechlers see red

By John Benson

Rumor has it the band is made up of Ohio State graduates.

There’s a moment in last year’s HBO documentary “Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry” where punked-up Woody Hayes look-alike and Dead Schembechlers singer Bo Biafra loses his control and mutters an expletive about the Wolverines to himself. While he quickly apologizes on camera for the utterance, the truth exemplifies the untamed emotion that exists among the Scarlet and Gray faithful about the team to the north.

“I live to stick those [expletive] in the neck,” said Biafra. “I exist to stuff the University of Michigan. That is why the band is here.”

Cloaked in anonymity using aliases, the Dead Schembechlers — Biafra (vocals), Bo Thunders (guitar), Bo Vicious (bass) and Bo Scabies (drums) — are rumored to be Ohio State University graduates who emerge yearly to play a Columbus gig the day before the big game.

From its earliest song “I Hate Michigan” and the depressed ’90s Buckeye era tunes “I’m So Down I Can’t Get Up to Hang Myself” and “Why Does John Cooper Want Me to Blow My Own Brains Out” to current material “You Lost to Appalachian State” and “Rich Rodriguez is a Weasel,” the Dead Schembechlers don’t hold back when it comes to the 100-plus year rivalry between Ohio State and the University of Michigan.

After meager beginnings in the early ’90s, the Dead Schembechlers were starting to garner OSU versus Michigan pregame attention annually around Columbus. However, the High Street riots of 1996 left fingers pointing at the group while local officials banned them from playing within city limits.

“There was a very unfortunate circumstance,” Biafra said. “There was a very ugly game that year, and we had planned on performing on a flatbed truck outside of the Horseshoe. Things got out of hand, and there was madness in the streets that we may or may not have been involved in it — depends on whose photographs you look at.”

For the next few years, the group soldiered on in the suburbs before being allowed to perform again in Columbus proper. This year, not only is the group playing at Columbus’ Lifestyles Community Pavilion the night before the game but it has also added its first Cleveland show Thursday at the Beachland Ballroom.

“[This] is really an amazing thing,” Biafra said. “We’re not in this to make money. We’ve never made a dime on this, and the only night we would have made a profit was the night Bo Schembechler died, and we gave all of the profits of that show to the Bo Schembechler Heart of a Champion Fund.”

While there is little denying the Wolverines abhorrence that exists in Biafra’s soul, the mention of the former Woody Hayes assistant and former University of Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler is the one area of conflict and contradiction. Just prior to Schembechler’s death in 2006, Biafra said he learned from a reporter that the Go Blue legend knew about the band named in his honor.

“He really got a kick out of it,” Biafra said. “His statement was something like, ‘I still matter in Columbus.’ That’s probably the biggest understatement in all of sporting history. We hated Bo Schembechler the Wolverine, but we love Bo Schembechler the former Ohioan and former coach for Woody Hayes.

“You talk about a man who really brought out the best and worst in human nature, it was Bo Schembechler. That’s also why we’ll be donating a portion of the proceeds again to the Bo Schembechler Heart of a Champion Fund.”

Finally, we would be amiss if we didn’t ask Biafra what his prediction is for the upcoming big game Saturday in Columbus.

“Without a doubt, the game will go the Buckeyes’ way,” Biafra said. “The Buckeyes have never lost to University of Michigan. When you see reports they have, these are just lies and manipulations by the liberal Wolverine media. Now when I use the word ‘liberal,’ it has nothing to do with politics.

“We couldn’t give a damn about the presidential election unless one of these candidates comes out and says they will bring a nuclear first strike against Ann Arbor to end the Wolverines’ reign of terror against our country, our nation. So my thinking is it’s going to be one of the bigger victories for the Buckeyes, and the final score will be 756-3. The Wolverines might get on the board, but that will be in the closing moments.”

After a brief pause, he quipped, “We hate their guts.”