Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal

by Jon Wiederhorn

  6

  THE AGE OF QUARREL: CROSSOVER/HARDCORE, 1977–1992

  In the mid-eighties, thrash metal and hardcore fans who had once been bitter rivals realized they had a lot in common. Once the barriers between the two subcultures had broken down, the foundation for crossover was established, and bands from across the country began constructing their own blends of metallic hardcore.

  ROGER MIRET (Agnostic Front): Back then, there wasn’t much difference between metal and hardcore scenes. Everyone dressed in black, everyone was walking out of step with society, because whether you were a punk rocker, a skinhead, a hardcore kid, or a metal dude, you didn’t fit in. You were a weirdo, and nobody’s mother wanted their kids hanging out with you.

  BILLY GRAZIADEI (Biohazard, Suicide City): We formed our own culture because we weren’t accepted by society. It wasn’t like now, where everyone’s listening to Green Day and you can buy the latest punk fashions in Hot Topic.

  DAVE GROHL: Bands like Cro-Mags, C.O.C. [Corrosion of Conformity], and D.R.I. [Dirty Rotten Imbeciles] went from being strictly hardcore to adding more metal riffs and getting even heavier. That crossover period of music really allowed both hardcore and underground metal to grow because everyone was feeding off each other’s ideas and sharing each other’s audience.

  HARLEY FLANAGAN (Harley’s War, ex–Cro-Mags, ex-Stimulators): If it were not for Venom and Motörhead, the Cro-Mags would not have sounded the way we did. That, along with the Bad Brains and Discharge, were our main influences. I wanted something to set us apart from the other hardcore bands, period. I was hanging out with violent skinheads with crazy pentagrams and swastikas tattooed all over them, listening to Venom and Discharge, huffing glue, trying to invoke demons. Our idea of fun was, “Hey, let’s go out and stomp people,” not, “Let’s go out and have a few drinks.”

  While bands like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and Void laid the groundwork for the new subgenre, the Misfits were the first to draw both a hardcore and metal following.

  GLENN DANZIG: We were the first hardcore band to experiment with speed metal, and we got a lot of flak for that. I never saw why the two weren’t connected. They were both about power, rebellion, violence.

  EERIE VON (ex-Danzig, Samhain): The Misfits were playing super-fast. They had this occult image. Those were metal signposts. You could see these metal kids showing up with long hair. Later on, we’d see all these bands and we’d say, “This is just like hardcore, but with long hair and guitar leads.”

  JONATHAN ANASTAS (DYS): The Misfits were the first ones to lean in a rock star direction. Even when they weren’t playing a show, [guitarist] Doyle [Wolfgang von Frankenstein] and [bassist] Jerry [Only] would show up in full regalia, six-foot-eight in those heels, in the lobby of a Minor Threat show, and they’d be mobbed.

  GLENN DANZIG: The funny thing is that the Misfits weren’t really popular when they were around. Also, they weren’t very good live. I was as good as you can be at eighty-million miles an hour. I don’t think a lot of people got what I was doing. The guys in the band didn’t even get it.

  EERIE VON: Some people thought it was a joke, but Glenn took the occult stuff pretty seriously. The Misfits once got arrested for going into a graveyard in New Orleans with two hundred people following them, thinking they could just reach in and grab skulls and take ’em home.

  GLENN DANZIG: People like to use the word occult like it’s going out of style. It can cover parapsychology, witchcraft, Satanism, black magic—everything. It’s an unfair word. You don’t have a cover-all word for Catholicism. My words and music are made to fit a certain mood, and my lyrics accompany that.

  EERIE VON: Glenn wanted the band to be his life. And the other guys—their dad worked in a machine shop. One day he said to them, “Well you have to run the family business. I’m retiring.” So they couldn’t go on tour very often. They could do a show but they’d have to fly there and then fly back to be at work, and at that point they might as well have just played for free.

  GLENN DANZIG: The Misfits didn’t break up on good terms. I cut myself loose because it was a dead end. They were holding me back.

  EERIE VON: Glenn eventually said, “We have one more Misfits show in Detroit and then I’m telling the guys I’m quitting, and when I get back I want to start this band with you.” He wanted the timing of the rhythms for Samhain to be different and didn’t want to play fast. And he wanted it to be weirder. We did two or three rehearsals, but I couldn’t play the drums for that stuff. It was beyond me at the time. So he said, “Why don’t we get Steve [Zing] from Mourning Noise to play drums, and you play bass? Anybody can play bass. Besides, you’re a ham, you should be out in front.” We played a little too slow for some people. They’d be like, “Play a fast song!” and Glenn would say, “You wanna hear a fast one? Okay, here’s another slow one.” But we had fun. We did the first show that probably anybody’s ever done all covered in blood. People would show up and give us deer heads and tombstones. But what do you expect from a band covered in blood?

  The progenitors of crossover formed during the conservative Reagan administration. Most were white and working-class, and saw little hope for a better future. Some were political, though not always well informed. Few had backgrounds in music, and some were street brawlers and troublemakers with criminal records. Ironically, the band most commonly cited as the era’s greatest influence is Bad Brains, composed of four talented black musicians from the ghettos of Washington, DC. Bad Brains was raised on funk and R&B, and even when they cranked their amps, ramped up the tempo, and integrated fleet-fingered metal runs, their songs were fueled by messages of peace and love.

  IAN MACKAYE (Fugazi, Minor Threat): From the start, the Bad Brains were really constructive. They were encouraging, they were inspirational, and their music was undeniable. They made you want to do something. And [their singer] H.R. was a visionary who made things happen. Plus, the way they played was so incredible that if you were on the same bill and didn’t at least try to put on a show, you had no business having a guitar in your hand.

  HENRY ROLLINS (Rollins Band, Black Flag): H.R., to me, is still the ultimate front man and a huge influence. At one point, I was at a Bad Brains show, and he went, “You are gonna be a singer,” and I went, “Oh, c’mon, H.R.” He went, “Nope, you’re gonna be a singer and tonight you’re gonna sing in the Bad Brains.” He had me come up and sing along and that planted the seed in my mind that, “Okay, maybe I’ll do this.”

  JOHN JOSEPH (Cro-Mags): If you want to know the baddest front man who ever stepped onstage, I’ll say, hands down, it’s H.R. He’s athletic, and he can sing his ass off. I’ve seen him smoke an ounce of ganja and go onstage and put out more energy than anybody, hit every note perfectly and do a backflip and land precisely on the last note of “At the Movies.”

  SHAVO ODADJIAN (System of a Down): There probably wouldn’t be a System of a Down if it wasn’t for the Bad Brains. They were so influential, and not just musically. They paved the way for artists to not give a fuck and do what they want to do.

  EARL HUDSON (Bad Brains): We were ahead of our time, at least beat-wise. I can say from the jump that people were really into the speed thing. It was different, and it was hitting them hard.

  H.R. (Bad Brains): From the start, my spiritual advisors gave me good advice and expressed how much they wanted to see, breathe, and hear. What we wanted to do was an amplification of the inner thoughts of people’s hearts and their minds so they could work on their motor skills and find themselves a little creative immortality and focus on the supernaturalistic gifts that God has offered them in the fine arts impulses.

  On the East Coast, the toughest of the new breed were New Yorkers Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags, bands whose lifestyles contrasted starkly with those of their straight-edge hardcore influences, including Washington, DC’s Minor Threat and Government Issue, who didn’t drink, take drugs, or have sex. Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front had no such ethical concerns. They didn’t just take drugs, the
y sold them, and never backed away from a fight.

  JOHN JOSEPH: The first time I met [ex-Cro-Mags bassist] Harley [Flanagan] was in Washington, DC, when [the band Harley played drums for], the Stimulators, played with the Bad Brains at the 9:30 Club. After that Stimulators show, we hung out all night and I told Harley, “I’m originally from New York,” and he said, “If you ever come back up, let’s hang out, I’m on the Lower East Side.”

  HARLEY FLANAGAN: Our original singer, Eric Casanova, was fifteen and a real B-Boy skinhead. The dude would breakdance, do a floor spin, and then kick into some crazy hardcore shit and do a stage dive. But he had a kid at fifteen, and he tried to do the right thing, which meant leaving the band. We auditioned Roger from Agnostic Front and John Joseph [“Bloodclot” McGowan], and really, John was just a better salesman. One of the first times I hung out with John he was wearing a T-shirt that said in magic marker, “Fuck you Bitch, I’m Celibate.” And he had T-Boots with bandanas around his ankles and spurs, and a chain around his waist and his head shaved, trying to look all tough. John and I were good friends. The thing is, I’m five years younger and that’s quite a difference when you’re fifteen. So I was probably a little bit gullible even though I did grow up on the streets and had a pretty rough life. John really taught me how to be a hustler. He had already been in prison and I can honestly say he led me more astray than most people did. We used to lay down in the snow with fake guns, then we’d jump up and rob weed dealers. He was already in his twenties. I’m not saying I’m any less at fault, but he took advantage of my youth.

  ROGER MIRET: [Vocalist] Vinnie [Stigma] and I have been together longer than most people in marriages—thirty years, at least. We’ve always got along, but he’s a different creature than I am; Vinnie’s very laid back and just goes with the flow, and I’ve always been more outgoing. They started with another singer, [John Watson] for a few months, but once I got in there, Agnostic Front became more established. I started doing all the records, put the band on the road. I’m just more motivated than he is. And he’s very grateful for me being who I am because I gave him his career. And at the same time, I am very grateful that he is who he is. He’s like my Eddie—like [the zombie mascot] in Iron Maiden. People love him.

  HARLEY FLANAGAN: We were street punks, selling weed on the Lower East Side. When we weren’t working on the band, we’d shoplift our food. Sometimes friends who worked at restaurants would feed us out the back door. Otherwise, we wouldn’t eat. So there was a certain realness to our music that didn’t come from practicing in your parents’ garage. We lived in squats with no electricity and we toured with a pocket full of quarters and a map to get from city to city.

  ROGER MIRET: Back in the days when we did the United Blood EP [in 1983], everyone was doing acid and angel dust. But we didn’t have any money, so we used to rob drug dealers. Me and [drummer Raymond] Raybeez [Barbieri] had big meat hooks and one of us had a gun. We’d sneak up and rob these machine gun toting dealers because those guys had the best angel dust. When you put a meat hook to somebody’s throat, they forget they’re holding a machine gun. We’d play shows and these same drug dealers would be dancing to the band after we robbed them because they liked the music and they didn’t know it was us.

  JOHN JOSEPH: The vibe in Tompkins Square park, [where we hung out, was one of] drugs and guns. It became a daily occurrence to find people either overdosed or murdered, but everyone took it in stride—just life in the city, y’know? I mean, I was raised on the streets when it was really fucking dangerous. The band was an outlet to express what I was feeling from being on the streets, and it was cool because we had this spiritual message about looking for meaning in life. But we were unlike bands who delivered their message with a flower. Cro-Mags delivered it with a baseball bat.

  HARLEY FLANAGAN: We used to surf on the hoods of cars, tripping our faces off. We used to get in fights all the time. But honestly, John was just a little bit less fucked up than everybody else. John just didn’t get in fights. He’s good at putting on a big show. Like, “What? Yo! I’ll fuck you up.” He does that ghetto-ass bullshit—talks a lot of shit and everyone panics and nobody wants to be the one to step up. But I don’t remember him being in more than a couple fights in the thirty years I’ve known him. I remember my high score though. I put nineteen motherfuckers in the ICU in one night. I was a fuckin’ hooligan. But that all started because I was a target in my neighborhood. Once I started fighting back I got respect.

  JOHN JOSEPH: One time me and Harley went to see the Bad Brains at L’Amour and all these metal dudes were there, and one of them punched Harley. Me and Harley fucking fought eight of these dudes and fucked them up. See, the metal dudes didn’t know how to get down in the pit. They didn’t understand moshing was like an art form. You had people creepy-crawling, coming within six inches of each other but never smashing into each other. The metal motherfuckers didn’t understand that, and they’d just be like, “Oh shit, he bumped into me, let me run up and punch him in the back of the head,” and next thing you know they’d get the shit beat out of them. Then the next week they’d show up with a fucking shaved head.

  HARLEY FLANAGAN: On Avenue A [in New York City], there was a private club called A7, where we all hung out and played. Imagine a small room full of insane people who have angel dust, bags of glue, and 40-ounce bottles of alcohol and you’ll see a little bit of what it was like. I was always drinkin’ there because having a 40-ounce bottle in your hand meant that not only did you have a buzz on, but you were armed. If anybody fucking said shit, you could smack them in the head with the bottle.

  ROGER MIRET: One day, Raybeez was tripping on angel dust and he tried to commit suicide by the East River. He had a gun and he pulled it out and started yelling that he was gonna kill himself. All of us being on angel dust didn’t help diffuse the situation, but I managed to get the gun away from him. We had to kick him out of the band after that because he was too unstable. But fuck, man. We used to get so high on angel dust and sometimes we’d get in our old bass player, Rob Kabula’s, car and see how many red lights we could get through before we hit another car. Then, after the accident, we’d take off. The Lower East Side was our city, our town. Whatever we did went.

  MIKE DEAN (Corrosion of Conformity): Agnostic Front were very good and very tight, but there was always an aura of violence. It gets good marks on the authenticity level. They’re not pretending to be anything they weren’t. But if I’m thinking, “Do I want my sixteen-year-old going out and running with these dudes, basically marauding and getting into fights and fucking people up?” Hell no, I wouldn’t. That’s some real street shit and not something I want to be involved in.

  ROGER MIRET: We didn’t wise up for a long time. Our music was political, but we were doing acid the whole first tour and then we’d go into a military recruiting center and try to join: Army, Navy, whatever. We never got called on it. I think the recruiting people thought it was entertaining. When we were on the road, we’d just pull over randomly and shoot guns at the farm animals on the highways or shoot at a train as it went by. One time going into New Jersey I had a bunch of ammunition in my bag, and cops pulled us over and decided to search the whole band and fortunately, they searched through every bag but mine.

  One of the biggest internal schisms within the crossover scene took place between Cro-Mags bassist and founder Harley Flanagan and vocalist John Joseph. Both insist they started as friends. But a gulf erupted when Joseph left the band after they were signed and recorded 1986’s legendary The Age of Quarrel, an album that brimmed with the speed of Motörhead and the attitude of the Sex Pistols. Unable to coexist, Joseph and Flanagan bounced in and out between lengthy hiatuses. Then, in 2003, Joseph re-formed the group without Flanagan, who was furious at Joseph both for using the name Cro-Mags and for making disparaging comments about him in his 2007 book, The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon. Ironically, Joseph and Flanagan once both adopted the ideals in the Bhagavad Gita in a quest for inner peace, and the Cro-Mags
are widely regarded as the first major Krishna-core band. The Krishna tag made for a great marketing hook, but it wasn’t one the Cro-Mags fully embraced. Even as they preached enlightenment, they smoked bales of weed and continued to bust heads.

  JOHN JOSEPH: I once got beat up by six guys. I had beaten up one of them, and then they came back in Cadillacs with baseball bats and took me out. To be honest, I got my ass kicked lots. I called a gigantic black guy the N-word one time and he beat me so bad I had a black eye for two weeks. But eventually, I matured and grew spiritually because I wanted to be a better person.

  HARLEY FLANAGAN: John came on all spiritual, but there were times when I’d be fucking up people, and he’d be going through their pockets saying, “Give up your shit or my man’s gonna fuck you up.” When John first got into the Krishna consciousness, people on the scene totally made fun of him. One time at one of our illegal basement crash pads, Apt. X on Norfolk Street, everybody was high on angel dust and they burned all his books and pamphlets and he threw a fit and threatened to kick everyone’s ass. And everyone’s giggling. But me and some of our roadies wound up kicking the piss out of a few people and putting them really close to death.

  JOHN JOSEPH: Shit got out of hand when Harley got into this whole skinhead gay-bashing thing because some gay dudes took out a contract to get him fucked up. I got in a fight with those guys, but then we became friends, so I was able to squash that whole thing. Then I was like, “Yo, Harley, concentrate on the music, that’s what your thing in life is. It’s not about running around like an idiot all the time and kicking people’s asses.”

  HARLEY FLANAGAN: Man, John tries to demonize me by blowing up some ill, dumb shit, when the fact is Allen Ginsberg was one of my mom’s best friends and I grew up around Allen. I knew plenty of homos growing up. I didn’t beat them up. I got in way more fights with the local Puerto Ricans, drunk yuppies, and bridge-and-tunnel motherfuckers. I’m not homophobic, and I could fuckin’ play you tapes of the Cro-Mags playing at CBGB where John was on a complete anti-homo rant between every song. I’ve had singers and managers who were gay, and I’ve had friends that were gay. It’s not something I’m really concerned about. The thing is, when I was a kid on the streets a lot of the people that were out at that hour were freaks and pervs. You’re fifteen and you got motherfuckers trying to take advantage of you sexually. They’d offer you drugs, get you to their house, feed you, hook you up. So what are you going to do? You’re gonna rob the motherfucker. Okay, that ain’t right or politically correct, but is that less correct than some pedophile trying to pick up some homeless kid who ain’t got nowhere else to be?