[close] Brad Warner is an ordained Zen Master (though he hates that term) in the Soto lineage founded in Japan by Master Dogen Zenji in the 13th century. He's the bass player for the hardcore punk rock group 0DFx (aka Zero Defex) and the ex-vice president of the Los Angeles office of the company founded by the man who created Godzilla.

Brad was born in Hamilton, Ohio in 1964. In 1972, his family relocated to Nairobi, Kenya. When Brad returned to Wadsworth three years later, nothing about rural Ohio seemed quite the same anymore.

In 1982 Brad joined 0DFx. 0DFx caught the attention of a number of major bands on the hardcore punk scene. But they soon broke up leaving a single eighteen second burst of noise, titled Drop the A-Bomb On Me, as their only recorded legacy on a compilation album called P.E.A.C.E./War.

In 1993, Brad went to Japan to realize a childhood dream to actually work for the people who made low budget Japanese monster movies. To his own astonishment, he landed himself a job with one of Japan's leading producers of man-in-a-rubber-dinosaur-costume giant monster movies.

Back in the early 80s, while still playing hardcore punk, Brad became involved in Zen Buddhism. The realistic, no bullshit philosophy reminded him of the attitude the punks took towards music. Once he got to Japan, he began studying the philosophy with an iconoclastic rebel Zen Master named Gudo Nishijima. After a few years, Nishijima decided to make Brad his successor as a teacher of Zen.

In 2003 he published his first book, "Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality." In 2007 he followed that up with "Sit Down and Shut Up," a punk-informed look at 13th century Zen Master Dogen. His third book is "Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate." [close]