New GoFundMe campaign for Bad Brains vocalist H.R. due to his health condition

Hardcore punk legend H.R. (a.k.a. Paul D. Hudson) of Bad Brains has been facing medical issues which have left him financially depleated. In 2016, a crowdfunding campaign helped with the costs of brain surgery he underwent in 2017, in order to cure his struggle with SUNCT headaches. This rare condition has symptoms of bursts of moderate to severe burning, piercing or throbbing pain in their brain.

H.R. has been suffering from this condition since 2014 and, in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, spoke of his ongoing struggles.

In H.R.’s words:

I have sharp, stabbing pains every couple of minutes in my brain for a couple of hours. Then it goes away — and then it comes back.

The brain surgery he underwent, besides his mental health struggles over the years, have left him in financial debt. For this reason, H.R. is still unable to tour.

H.R. was also diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2013, a condition that has led to periods of homelessness and well-documented manic behavior prior to being medically managed. In the aforementioned interview with Rolling Stone, H.R.‘s wife Lori Carns claims that a past arrangement regarding Bad Brains royalties worsened H.R. financial troubles. She claims that the band had H.R. sign a contract which awarded him a $20,000 advance, while retaining only 2.5% of the rights to the band’s royalties.

Carns said:

They basically wrote a new contract between Darryl and Dr. Know and Earl and H.R.. I thought something was a little off about it so I was having an attorney look at it. But they were offering a monetary advance, so while I was at work, H.R. just signed it and sent it off. He basically signed away the majority of his royalties.

H.R. said:

They offered me a certain amount of money, and we only had three days to get it done. And I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ But then later on, they switched up and changed the name of the band and started using my concepts for new sales.

Carns also revealed that H.R.‘s health issues are being managed with medication for now, but there are hopes to see more specialists and undergo another surgery in the future. For this purpose, this new GoFundMe campaign was launched.

H.R. spoke of his plans:

My plan is to take it easy now and take a break. I need to get together with another surgeon and see what I can do, do some investigating so we can work it out.