BAD BRAINS ANNOUNCE ARE YOU READY: THE FIRST STUDIO RECORDING (INNER EAR – MARCH 1979)
OUT NOVEMBER 6 VIA TRUST RECORDS
Washington, D.C.’s Bad Brains – one of the most important and influential bands to emerge from the American underground music scene announce the November 6 release of Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear – March 1979) via Trust Records. For decades, the recordings circulated unofficially among tape-trading punks – an ask-a-punk rarity known only to a relative few. Now, nearly five decades later, the session has been newly mixed by Ian MacKaye and, in cooperation with Bad Brains, will receive its first official release, available on vinyl, cassette, and digital.
Captured in a single frantic hour at Inner Ear Studios in March 1979, the six-song session represents the earliest known studio recordings of Bad Brains and an extraordinary document of the band at the very beginning of its history.
Alongside the announcement, Bad Brains share the project’s first single, the previously unreleased original studio recording of “Pay to Cum.” Recorded more than a year before the song was officially released as the band’s debut 7”, this raw early version captures the speed, precision, and intensity that would soon help define hardcore punk. Of the six songs recorded that day, none would prove more consequential: “Pay to Cum” would became a blueprint for the Bad Brains sound and a bona fide hardcore classic. Rolling Stone would later describe the band’s early work as “unrestrained fury,” driven by “quick, sinister guitar lines” and “unhinged drumming.”
“The riff for ‘Pay to Cum’ started as a stream of punk rock vibes fueled by the Ramones, The Damned, and Return to Forever,” says Bad Brains bassist Darryl Jenifer. “It was a gift that served as a springboard into our sound – sheer, straight-ahead three-chord mayhem with a few breaks and a stop. The title actually meant nothing to us; it was just a fun-loving play on words.” Listen/share “Pay to Cum” here and watch the video – with footage was filmed by Barry Masterson at CBGB’s October 24th 1979.
Bad Brains
Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear – March 1979)
(Trust Records)
Release Date: November 6, 2026
Artist Links
Background Photo Credit: Atiba Jefferson
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