Naturally when we got back from the tour, I never did hear from him. So I started calling him. It went from, “Parris, we need to talk” to “Motherfucker, you better get back to me!” Then, it progressed to, “You cocksucker, I’m going to fuck you up if you don’t give me access to our bank account!” Basically, as I got more and more pissed, the more I went off; he recorded the phone calls, went to the cops, and got an order of protection against me. The funny thing was after I got busted, the cops were all sitting there with smirks on their faces, and they started giggling. They were like, “By the way, we heard the tapes.” And one cop busted out laughing. He quoted me: “I’m going to grab you by your big-ass ears and skull-fuck your punk ass!” They couldn’t believe that a man would go and have another man arrested over some business that went bad, that they should have just ’fessed up and dealt with. But nonetheless, they were cops, and they had to arrest me.
It was funny—when I went to court, Mickey Fitz from the Business was with me, and I had a friend of mine from Renzo’s go with me who was a music lawyer. He wasn’t even a criminal lawyer, but I just wanted to show up with someone in a suit, so I didn’t look completely helpless. I got in there, and there’s this bitch-ass judge, and she basically said if I went near, was on the same block or street, if I called him, e-mailed, contacted him through any third party, blah blah blah, I could get up to seven years in jail. Mickey Fitz was in shock. First off, he couldn’t believe Parris did me like that. Secondly, he couldn’t believe a man could get up to seven years in jail for threatening to kick another man’s ass! He was like “That’s American justice for you!”
Around that time, Pantera called me and invited me down to one of their shows. And Parris left a message on my friend’s machine saying, “I’m going to be at the Pantera show, and if I see Harley there, I’m going to call the cops and they’re going to arrest him, like they did to John.” Parris had John arrested twice, maybe even three times, I’m not even sure anymore. I almost understand why he did what he did with John, because John was nearly stalking him, telling him he was gonna have him fucked up by other people. At one point, when Parris and I had started playing as the Cro-Mags again without John, John started threatening Parris on his phone a lot, and had other people threatening him.
John was playing some really fuckin’ stupid games, trying to pump some fear into Parris—just basically being the bully he always was. Parris had gotten stabbed, I think back in the early ’90s. It was in a bar-fight situation at the Spiral on Houston Street, and he got stabbed around the kidney area and it almost killed him. So John goes to Parris, “You think you got fucked up when you got stabbed? You’re going to get fucked up a thousand times worse! And tell Harley he’s not even going to know when it’s coming, ’cause it ain’t gonna be anyone he even knows.”
So Parris was like, “Fuck John!” At that point, Parris went to the cops and filed an order of protection against John. But John, who just can’t help himself, kept fucking with him. One day—this is almost funny, but it’s not just ’cause how it all turned out—John was jogging by him, Parris didn’t see him, John snuck up on him and went, “BOO!” and Parris jumped! That’s what led Parris to call the cops and say, “This guy that I have an order of protection against just threatened my life” or whatever the fuck it was he said.
John of course, who is always looking for an angle, took complete advantage of the whole situation and ran with it as far as he could. He threw himself a benefit, pretended he was in military prison and all kinds of bullshit. All in typical John form: blowing up bullshit into something it really wasn’t. He threw the benefit, got everyone to play at it, and meanwhile, he was in D.C., chillin’ at a friend of ours’ house. The motherfucker was at a Bad Brains show in D.C. two nights before his benefit, when he was supposed to be “locked up.” He knew it was all a bunch of bullshit, and at his benefit gig, his brother is up onstage reading a letter from John saying he’s in jail, he can’t believe his friends did this to him, blah blah blah. It was such a fucking hoax. All this fucking Cro-Mags drama, it just got so fuckin’ pitifully ridiculous and fucking pathetic. I sometimes wish the band never existed. I really do have many regrets over ever having that band. Everyone just turned into such a bunch of bitches.
Here I am, getting accused of some shit I didn’t even do, and here’s Parris being a cop-calling motherfucker on people he grew up with. John took big-time advantage of it, and was up on every soapbox he could jump up on, going on about “Harley and Parris had me arrested!” But it’s like, “No, Parris had you arrested, ’cause you kept fucking with him and he got sick of it.” It was all such stupid, childish, immature shit for a bunch of grown-ass fuckin’ men to even be involved in.
Meanwhile, I was dealing with a lot of family shit at the time. I didn’t have time for his bullshit or all the fuckin’ games. So I really wasn’t even reacting or giving a fuck. I had real-life shit going on, not Cro-Mags bullshit drama. I was just like, “Fuck this asshole.” I figured everybody back in the day knew John was full of shit. And most people who get to know him after a while figure that out. I mean, it’s not to say he’s not a likable guy when he wants to be. He’s just full of shit, that’s all. But to every new-jack motherfucker who don’t know shit except “This is John from the Cro-Mags… wow!” They believe all his horseshit, not realizing what a history he has of being a jive-ass motherfucker.
But the thing that really pissed me off was when some people I thought would know better started feeding into that shit. So I became like the bad guy of NYHC, along with Parris simply because he acted like a little bit of a coward, and in the end, John took total advantage of it. Parris reacted the way he reacted. He wasn’t a fighter; he never was. He was sick of being fucked with. He didn’t want to get bullied. He did what most normal people do when they are getting fucked with or threatened. I mean, John should’ve known better and acted his fuckin’ age, and Parris, the same thing.
My girlfriend was the first person to point out how underhanded Parris could be. Before I even realized things were going bad, he had me sign a partnership agreement with him, saying that he was now co-owner of the Cro-Mags even though, up until that point, I had been the owner of the name alone. He had me sign it without giving me a chance to go over it or have a lawyer look at it. He just handed it to me in front of the Music Building were we practiced one night when we were getting ready to go. We were standing in the rain and he said, “I need you to sign these papers” and he gave me some reason why he needed it done right then and there ’cause he needed to do something with registering some bullshit. So I did. Why wouldn’t I trust him? I thought we had gotten past the whole Alpha Omega fallout. We were “friends.” We were “partners.”
She was like, “You’re not gonna have a lawyer look at that?” He looked at her with this really pissed-off glare. I was like, “For what? He’s my partner.” Well, that was the start of a lot of bullshit. And of course from that day on, he had major beef with her—like she was getting in between him and me.
As always, I was too trusting, and at the end of it all, he wound up selling all our gear and emptying out our “joint business bank account”—and oh yeah, having me arrested.
He in turn started trying to undermine my relationship with her and break us up. He started talking all kinds of shit to her behind my back, telling her that I didn’t really care about her and that I was cheating on her. And as it turned out, she was right. He did wind up fucking me over pretty bad, and ironically, so did she.
So, the “Parris era” officially came to an end in 2000, which is the last time I spoke to him. I don’t even keep track of what he says about me—it’s all just fucked-up that cats who really were friends when they were kids turned out to be such bitter… I don’t wanna say “enemies,” ’cause I still don’t like to feel that he or any of the other guys are my enemies. But let’s just say it’s sad, and some of those things I can never forgive him for.
If I knew how, and if I could have
, or if I could go back and keep that The Age of Quarrel line-up going, and avoid all the beef that arose over the years, I would have. But it wasn’t up to me. Mack quit, John quit, and I just tried to keep going. And look at all the bullshit that followed. I guess everybody just got personally wrapped up in it: defensive, attached. When you get attached, pride and ego get involved. And when you don’t have a lot, that’s an easy trap to fall into. We all put a lot of time in, and we all got taken advantage of. I guess we lost the trust. Chris Williamson saw to that back in the old days. And it all just imploded from there.
Chapter Fifteen
WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG
PHOTO BY JJ GONSON
In 2001, me and John Bloodclot and started talking again. It happened ’cause Parris had me arrested. It was like we finally had something in common again, so we said, “Fuck it.” Just for fun, we decided to do a CBs show, which wound up turning into two back-to-back shows under the name Cro-Mags NYC. It was John, Doug, Rocky George, Garry, and me. It was great.
Then we got offered a few shows with the Bad Brains. We were like, “Are you kidding?” Go on tour with Bad Brains, them and us, after all these years? It didn’t take long to say yes. It was like, here’s finally a Cro-Mags reunion, or the closest thing to it. But Parris, you can’t be here ’cause you had us both arrested and have orders of protection against us. It was kind of funny. But I always had fun playing with John. It’s just all the other competitive drama and ego shit that I couldn’t stand.
But I wasn’t interested in doing the Cro-Mags full-time, and neither was Doug. Rocky and me were in the studio laying down tracks for my new project called Harley’s War. That was me, Rocky and a bunch of old friends like “Crazy Jay Skin” Vento from Warzone, Vinnie Stigma from Agnostic Front, and Mickey Fitz from the Business.
I was already working on it, and I wasn’t 100% confident that John and me would keep playing together. It had never been a reliable thing in the past. As far as I was concerned it would’ve been great if we did some shows once in a while, did our The Age of Quarrel set—no pressure, no expectations. The fans would’ve loved it. And then the rest of the year, we’d go out and tour with our own bands, and still keep playing as the Cro-Mags.
But the motherfucker went nuts; he went ahead and booked an entire statewide tour as the Cro-Mags with A.J. Novello on guitar, as if he was ever in the Cro-Mags. And he expected me to jump on. It’s like, yo, at first it was John, Doug, and Rocky and me. Those are four guys who had actually been on Cro-Mags records. But then Doug didn’t want to tour, and Rocky went back out to California. So then, it was me with John, Garry, and A.J. We did a few shows together as a four-piece.
We weren’t being billed as the Cro-Mags; we were billing it as “Street Justice.” We also billed it as “Cro-Mags NYC” at one or two shows. But it really wasn’t Cro-Mags—it was me and John and doing The Age of Quarrel songs.
My girlfriend was pregnant, and I just wasn’t ready to leave and go on tour. I just had all those riots in Cali when I was out there and she didn’t want me going back out. We were getting ready to have a kid, and the whole shit was too much. I was like, “Fuck this, I ain’t doing it.”
But John booked it anyway and went out and did the tour as the Cro-Mags, and let all the advertisements say “Featuring Harley and John,” using old photos of the band in the ads. People paid money to see what they hoped was going to be the Cro-Mags. And then when they showed up, John’s story was, “Harley couldn’t make it. His woman is having complications with her pregnancy,” which was total bullshit. What he was doing was touring as the band without me, and then lying about why I wasn’t there.
I remember around the time I did those last few shows with John, I was sitting in the back of the van with my girlfriend, and he was up in the front talking about all the people he’s friends with—literally, all of them, talking shit, laughing, making fun of them. And then he comes out of his face with, “Yeah, I think it’s about time for me to do another one of my benefits.” He and his friend Danny started laughing ’cause to them, it was a big joke. Every time John did a benefit, he kept all the money or at least most of it, and gave a little bit of chump change to whatever the cause was.
So I interjected real loud, “Yo motherfucker, if there’s any benefits being done, it’s for my unborn kid—not for some bullshit.” And he was like, “Yeah, yeah, no—you’re right. We should do a benefit and help you guys out a bit.” That was supposed to be “the baby shower party,” which John canceled. We wound up doing one anyway thanks to bands like Merauder, Candiria, Suicide Kings, All Boro Kings and others.
Then when John hit the road as the Cro-Mags and did interviews, he was like, “Man, they weren’t shit until I joined the band. I made that band happen!” It’s like, dude, we had already been gigging with Eric, performing almost the entire The Age of Quarrel album. All that was there before him.
It wasn’t until the late ’80s when a whole new generation of kids came on the scene that anyone even took John seriously. To them, whatever he said was gold. But to the people that knew him from the old days, it was like, “Oh, give me a fuckin’ break! You’re the same guy that claims to have been a Navy SEAL.” Todd Youth said, “Man, he used to tell me he was a Navy SEAL all the time. And I was just a little kid. What the fuck was he trying to impress me for? I was like 13 years old!” But that was John, bragging and lying.
CRO-MAGS AT THE RITZ, BY JJ GONSON
John didn’t get in many fights. That was never his thing. But he was kind of a jock and a bully. Like how he would try to intimidate Parris—he always called Parris “Casper” or “Dough Boy” or whatever—and made fun of his guitar playing, even though he’s the best fucking guitarist he’s ever played with. He always fucked with Doug and even Pete; he was just that way. He was always the guy who had to make fun of whoever was “the bottom man on the totem pole.” You know how there is always a kid in school who is a dick to everyone? But for some reason, he’s the cool kid, but also “the dick”? Well, that was John, 24/7.
The last time I played with John was 2002. But I bumped into him in 2003, at a Henry Rollins show at Irving Plaza. I was hanging out with Henry before the sound check, and then I went back for the gig. I was backstage, and I came walking out because I wanted to give Henry his space before they went out to play. I walked out, and John was standing there with some people around him. He smirked at me, and was like, “What’s up?”—all being a smartass.
But I wasn’t having it. I immediately got right up right in his face, and his eyes got all big. He was like, “Huh?” And everybody standing around him was like, “Oh shit!”—including Porcell from Shelter. Because there’s “Big Bad John,” who’d been talking all this shit about how he beat my ass. I stepped right to him and told him, “I’ll crush that fuckin’ pointy little bitch nose of yours like a fucking soda can.” He was like, “You better back up out of my face.” I stepped even further in his face, breathing in his fuckin’ face, to where our noses were literally touching. I was like, “You want to do something, motherfucker? What’s up?” He was trying to save face, like, “Let’s take this shit outside. Let’s take it down the block. Let’s go to the park.” Or like, let’s take it anywhere that people can’t see it. I was like, “Fuck you, do it right here. Who the fuck is holding you back, bitch?” And I body-checked him with both hands. He looked at me all crazy. And not like crazy hard, more like crazy shocked.
And that’s when I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s right. You only like hitting motherfuckers when they’re not looking. Let me turn around so you can do what you did last time, you punk-ass motherfucker. You want me to smoke a blunt or two first?” I turned around, stood there for a few seconds then turned back around. He couldn’t handle the abuse. I should have just punched him in his fuckin’ face, but I was ridiculing him so bad that I think it was worse. I was just trying to get him to make a move, Mr. Big-Bad-Ass.
Henry Rollins was playing, and I was singing every lyric, y
elling it in John’s face. Shit like, “Revenge, to watch you bleed, Revenge, that’s all I need!” It was so fucking funny. If this motherfucker had any nuts, he would have hit me, because I was humiliating him in front of all these motherfuckers who had just been jocking him.
At that point, I’d already made it clear that I would fight him in a fair one, not this sneak-up bullshit he pulled, or set up someone, or have someone jumped. Crap like he was claiming he was gonna do, saying I wasn’t even gonna know who it was coming from or some bullshit like that. I was done with all the he said/she said bullshit. It was either put up or you simply don’t mean shit to me anymore.
HARLEY’S WAR
Harley’s War began in 2001, right after Parris had me arrested and right before me and John and got together with Doug and Rocky.
A friend of mine at the Music Building was going to the Institute of Audio Research at the time. For one of his projects he needed to record live drums. He asked if I could lay down some drum tracks for him. I said, “Sure, can I record some songs while you track drums, so we can both get something done?” He agreed, and that was that. So I wrote most of the first Harley’s War EP that day in the studio on the spot, just so we could get some tracks done. I tracked drums and bass; it was Ryan Krieger and me. Then later I had Rocky and “Crazy Jay Skin” lay down guitar tracks at a different studio. That’s how it began. I got my friend Mickey Fitz from the Business to sing on a track, and I got Vinnie Stigma to play guitar on that track with him. The song is called “Spirit of ’77.” So that was it, Harley’s War: me, Ryan Krieger, Crazy Jay Skin, and Rocky George was the first line-up. But it wasn’t a band in the sense that it was gonna be a permanent line-up or anything.
I never expected those guys to be there full-time. It wasn’t about that; it was about getting together and trying to make some music that wasn’t Cro-Mags. I got the name Harley’s War from a band that the Cro-Mags played with in Germany on the Alpha Omega tour called Charlie’s War. I was like, “Fuck it—if Charlie can have a war, then I can, too.”
Hard-Core: Life of My Own Page 36