Spike Cassidy

Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (often abbreviated and referred to as D.R.I.) is an American crossover thrash band that formed in Houston in 1982 and would later relocate to San Francisco.

The band is currently composed of two of its founding members, lead vocalist Kurt Brecht and guitarist Spike Cassidy, as well as bassist Greg Orr and drummer Rob Rampy.

D.R.I. never gained a mainstream audience, but the integration of their hardcore punk roots with thrash metal influences was a stylistic catalyst for their contemporaries – most notably Suicidal Tendencies, Corrosion of Conformity, Stormtroopers of Death, the Cro-Mags, Nuclear Assault, Adrenalin O.D., and Cryptic Slaughter – alongside whom they are considered to be one of the major pioneers of what would later be called "crossover thrash".

These bands had a heavy influence on modern thrash metal.

To date, D.R.I. has released seven full-length studio albums.

Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (then-called US D.R.I. ) was formed in Houston in May 1982 by former members of the hardcore punk band Suburbanites.

The original line-up consisted of Spike Cassidy on guitar, Kurt Brecht on lead vocals, Eric Brecht on drums and Dennis Johnson on bass, which was basically the Suburbanites with Cassidy on guitar.

Cassidy's roommate played guitar in the Suburbanites.

The group started practicing at Kurt and Eric's parents' home.

The noise made by the band allegedly drew regular complaints from Kurt and Eric's father.

This led to the band gaining their name when they were described as a "bunch of dirty rotten imbeciles."

This was also an inspiration for the song "Madman," which featured a clip of Kurt and Eric's father interrupting a band practice to complain about the noise.

They initially went under the name US D.R.I for a brief period before shortening it to D.R.I. Presumably, the "US" stood for the band, as mentioned in interviews off of the extended version of the Dirty Rotten CD. Photos of the band can be found with the original US D.R.I logo.

The "Skanker Man" logo was designed by original drummer Eric Brecht as a high school art assignment to create a "corporate" logo.

He received an "A" on it.

Two months later, on July 2, 1982, the band played their first show at Joe Star's OMNI, in Houston.

On November 6 and 7, 1982, D.R.I. recorded their first release, the Dirty Rotten EP, fitting 22 songs into 18 minutes on a 7-inch EP.

Not long before its release, US D.R.I. had changed their name to just D.R.I., and only 1000 copies of the EP version were pressed, making it now a collector's item.

Demand caused this EP to be pressed into a 12-inch LP version, also released in 1983, aptly titled Dirty Rotten LP.

In 1983, D.R.I. relocated to San Francisco, where they lived in their van and ate at soup kitchens between gigs.

Dennis Johnson quit the band and returned home to Texas.

He was replaced with Sebastion Amok, and within a few months D.R.I. embarked on their first tour, appearing on the "Rock Against Reagan" tour with MDC and the Dead Kennedys.

After the tour, Josh Pappe was brought in to replace Sebastian Amok who would eventually join The Dicks, another Texas band.

Their next release was the four-song 7-inch EP Violent Pacification in 1984.

After touring in the summer of 1984, Eric Brecht got married and left the band.

He was replaced with a 17-year-old Felix Griffin.

Also in 1984, one of their songs, "Snap" appeared on the anti-war benefit compilation P.E.A.C.E. along with other famous hardcore and punk bands such as Crass, D.O.A., Dead Kennedys and MDC.

When Felix joined D.R.I. in 1984, he brought a new audience to the shows.

The next three years the band toured and started developing a new genre, (along with other pioneers) crossover.

D.R.I.'s second full-length album, Dealing with It!, was released in March 1985 on Metal Blade Records.

The group toured extensively in support of the album.

During the recording of the album, Josh Pappe took a leave from the band.

Mikey Offender (Mikey Donaldson – bass player of The Offenders) was asked to play for the album, although Spike played bass on the songs that Donaldson did not have time to learn.

The songs on Dealing with It! leaned slightly towards a metal direction, but still kept the band's thrashcore sound.

As a result, D.R.I. toured relentlessly throughout 1985 and 1986 in support of Dealing with It!, and it was on this tour that the band gained a wide audience by performing with thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Overkill and Hirax, while continuing to perform with their hardcore punk peers, including Discharge, Corrosion of Conformity, Bad Brains, T.S.O.L., JFA, Descendents, Verbal Abuse, Gang Green and Cryptic Slaughter.

Also on this tour, they recorded their show at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles on April 26, 1986, and released it on video, which was entitled Live at the Olympic.

Their third album, Crossover, released in 1987, was aptly named, as the songs on this album had a strong metal sound to them.

Since the late 1990s, D.R.I. has been working on their eighth full-length studio album, which remains unreleased.

Despite this, the band has continued to tour almost every year, and gone on hiatus intermittently, notably between 2004 and 2009, when Cassidy was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Other than three new songs on the 2016 EP But Wait... There's More!, they have not released a full-length studio album since Full Speed Ahead in 1995.