Bad Brains’ Lost 1979 Studio Recordings Are Finally Coming Out—With a Rare ‘Pay to Cum’ Track

Bad Brains are opening their archives with a release that reaches back to the earliest days of their influential punk sound. The band’s six-song session recorded at Inner Ear Studios in March 1979 will be released on November 6 as Are You Ready: The First Studio Recordings.

The recordings were made in just one hour, three months before the session that later became the basis of the group’s Black Dots album. The new release also includes a previously unreleased recording of “Pay to Cum,” one of the band’s best-known songs.

The session has been remixed by Ian MacKaye, the Minor Threat and Fugazi co-founder and longtime friend of the band. The release will be available on vinyl, cassette and digital formats.

A Rare Look at Bad Brains Before Their Breakthrough

Bad Brains emerged from Washington, D.C., as a distinctive force in punk, combining fast, aggressive hardcore with reggae influences. The group also stood out in a scene that was overwhelmingly white: its four members were Black musicians whose sound and performances helped shape the developing hardcore movement.

The band’s early albums and intense live shows became central to its reputation. Their influence extended well beyond punk, with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl saying he learned to play drums by hitting pillows along with Bad Brains records.

The newly announced session offers a glimpse into the group’s formative period, before its best-known recordings and releases.

The Six-Song Session Was Recorded in March 1979

Titled Are You Ready: The First Studio Recordings, the collection documents a session recorded at Inner Ear Studios in March 1979. The six songs were captured in approximately an hour.

Although Black Dots was released in 1996 and drew on early recordings, this session predates that material by three months, according to Variety.

The new release adds another chapter to the band’s recorded history, bringing a previously little-known studio session into wider circulation.

‘Pay to Cum’ Gets a Rare Recording and Video

One of the key attractions is a previously unreleased studio recording of “Pay to Cum.” The song is being released ahead of the collection, accompanied by video footage filmed at CBGB in New York on October 24, 1979.

Bad Brains bassist Darryl Jenifer described the song’s origins as a mix of punk influences and other musical ideas.

“The riff for ‘Pay to Cum’ started as a stream of punk rock vibes fueled by the Ramones, the Damned, and Return to Forever,” Jenifer said.

He described the song as a springboard into the band’s sound, built around “sheer, straight-ahead three-chord mayhem” with breaks and a stop. Jenifer added that the title was simply a playful phrase and “actually meant nothing to us.”

The band’s official discography lists “Pay to Cum” as its debut single, released in June 1980. The newly unveiled session recording, however, comes from the earlier 1979 studio period.

Ian MacKaye Remixed the Recordings

MacKaye’s involvement links the release to another important part of Washington, D.C.’s punk history. As a co-founder of Minor Threat and Fugazi, he has longstanding ties to the scene and to Inner Ear Studios.

He remixed the six-song session for release. Variety also noted that MacKaye has recently been involved in archival work, including efforts with Henry Rollins to restore recordings by the Cramps.

The project forms part of a wider effort to bring older recordings back into circulation. Bad Brains’ catalogue had been unavailable in some formats for years before receiving reissues and returning to streaming services.

A November Release and Archival Exhibition

The collection is scheduled to arrive on November 6, 2026, in vinyl, cassette and digital formats.

A day earlier, on November 5, Jenifer and MacKaye are due to appear together at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library for a conversation about the session and the band’s early years.

An exhibition of archival Bad Brains material is also scheduled to run from November 6 through November 22. It will feature contributions from the archives of Darryl Jenifer, Alison Braun, BJ Papas, Lucien Perkins, Alec MacKaye, Roger Gastman and others.

For listeners familiar with the band’s classic releases, Are You Ready: The First Studio Recordings brings a previously little-known moment from 1979 into focus. Its rare “Pay to Cum” recording and MacKaye’s remix make the collection a notable addition to the band’s archive.