LINKS:
hazenst.com

CN: Yeah, I was there for a year and a half.

FC: You were there that long, huh?

CN: Yeah, I’m a mean girl.

FC: Wow. I was only there for a four-month skid. I was supposed to do six months. I did four.

CN: Juvenile house or adult house?

FC: Adult. I was in C-76. And then I got shipped over to OBCC.

CN: They’ve changed all the buildings since I was there, because I was there from ’85 to ’86.

FC: Oh yeah, you were there way back.

CN: I’m an antique.

FC: You’re an O.G.! So you knew what Hazen St. was about.

CN: Oh, yeah. As soon as I heard the name I started laughing.

FC: It’s cool, because like nobody really knows, but some people do. It doesn’t sound like the craziest thing, but there’s things behind it, you know?

CN: It sounds like Hazen Street would be next to Elm Street or Maple Street anywhere else. I was at 15-15 Hazen, which was the women’s house back then.

FC: I was at 16-16.

CN: People are like, what’s Hazen Street? It doesn’t sound like a hard name for a hardcore band. And I just laugh at them.

FC: Right. It fit, so we went with it.

CN: Well the reason why we were saying that we think [hardcore] is going to save [the music industry] is because hardcore has existed so long by itself, doing its own DIY thing, that they don’t really need the big record companies to validate it. They’re always going to have their core audience. If the majors want to help it get bigger, then so much the better, but it’s not like, without the majors is going to sink.

FC: Exactly. I totally agree. It has definitely survived a long time on its own without any big push, any big help and it’s still going. Especially in places like Europe, it’s off the hook.

CN: It’s so huge over there. I have so many kids that go on my site from Yugosalvia, Poland, and Germany.

FC: We would love to take Madball to another level in the States, which could always happen. But Europe is really our best market.

CN: I had originally wanted to interview Howard last year before I started my site. But none of the editors who I was writing for at the time thought that a whole series of interviews with producers would be interesting to the readers. I’m like, 'You people are so wrong! Don’t you realize that most people who read rock magazines are musicians, or wannabe musicians?' So I finally got to jump in with that.

FC: Oh, okay. Is that how that went down?

CN: Yeah. Obviously, you have an older brother who’s in the scene, and he took you to CBGB’s when you were young.

FC: Right.

CN: How did you get started? Was it a hobby at first, or did you always know that what you wanted to do was to be like your brother?

FC: It was probably more of a hobby. It was an escape. My brother started doing Agnostic Front in ’82 or whatever. I was obviously a little kid, but when they started touring my family was actually living in Florida at the time. They had relocated from Jersey to Florida. So I was in Florida for a good part of my childhood. When my brother started traveling around, he would snatch me up. When there were breaks in school, I would go with him on trips. Sometimes I would go hang out in New York, or in New Jersey with family. Sometimes he’d be touring and bring me along for a week or two. And it was cool, it was an escape from a lot of things – problems at home, whatever. It started just as a fun thing, a hobby. But he pushed me to start up. I was familiar with his music, of course, because he’s my older brother. So I got into the stuff he was doing. I memorized the words to their first album. And even their early stuff. He’d see me mouthing the words and he’s say, “Why don’t you sing? You know the words. Here.” That’s how it started. He put me on the spot.

CN: You know the words, but that’s real different than getting up in front of people. I’m mad shy; I go crazy when I get up in front of people.

FC: Oh, forget it. The first couple of times, I was like seven or eight years old and there wasn’t a lot of people there. There weren’t a lot of people in the scene at all. But it didn’t matter. It might as well have been 10,000 people. I was scared to death. After a while, it just started coming naturally. I’d sing a song with them on the road; sing a song here, sing a song there. That’s how I got my start doing music. And then eventually my brother pushed me to do a seven inch with me singing on it. And then, boom, it started from there.

CN: Yeah. Because with the younger crowd in the hardcore scene, you guys are to them what Agnostic Front was to our generation.

FC: I know. It’s crazy. It’s real weird. I’m only twenty-eight years old, and I’m considered really old-school I guess. I’ve been around those guys since the early 80’s.

CN: Yeah, because you and Harley [Flanagan] both started really young.

FC: Yep. Harley started really young. He was doing stuff in the seventies.

CN: Yeah, he was, like, ten when he started. So it’s a similar thing.

FC: Yeah, it’s kind of a similar thing.

CN: It’s very rare that you find someone that young that sticks with something they start at that age. A lot of times people will get to their twenties and go, ‘I’m bored with that.’

FC: This sounds corny, but I guess things happen for a reason. Some people had the opportunity and just didn’t stick with it. It just kept going for me. It started as a hobby; it was all just fun and games. I didn’t think that I would do exactly what my brother was doing – start my own band, tour, and whatever. I never thought like that. I just thought, ‘this is cool.’ And then things just kept coming along. Like, ‘Oh, by the way, people are really into Madball in Europe.’ What? Are you kidding me? They’re like, ‘No, they really love Madball. You should go out there.’ My brother said, ‘All right, we’re bringing Madball to Europe.’ That was ’92. At that point I was sixteen or seventeen years old. I was ready to go.

CN: Right.

FC: But it’s weird, you know? I never really set out for it to do what it’s doing now. It’s flowing. It’s been good. I can’t complain.

CN: It’s rather unique because a lot of the musicians I talk to are huge music fans, and they just have this great desire to be like their idols. Being as you had a brother in the scene, it’s totally different.

FC: Yeah. I mean, you always look up to your older brother. He’s my oldest brother. I have another brother and sister. They’re all older than me; Roger’s the oldest. When my family relocated to Florida he was always in New York. I was always wondering, ‘What’s my big brother doing?’ It was very exciting when I was up with him. He loved bringing me along, because we didn’t live together a lot for a bunch of years. It’s cool that it was in the family. And Vinnie Stigma, I’ve got to give him credit, too, because he was like a brother to me, ever since I was a kid.

CN: Vinnie’s great. I went to your brother’s show, the Disasters show, when they played with Discipline. And I didn’t have a babysitter so I took my son with me. He’s eleven. So I’m talking to Vinnie and he’s like, ‘Oh, you couldn’t get a sitter?’ I was like, ‘Nah.’ He goes, ‘You know? We got the whole basement in the tattoo shop. We should start the New York Hardcore Babysitting Service and have everyone in bands drop their kids off there. Twenty bucks a head. They’re all in the same place. And then go pick them up after the show.’ I’m like, it’s a great idea. I can just picture you and Gestapo babysitting!

FC: That’s kinda scary.

CN: I know, right? And he’s like, ‘Another million dollar idea out the window!’

FC: What happened to me was, Vinnie babysitted me.

CN: Is that why you’re like that?

FC: I’m al; right, though. Actually, it worked out for the best. Pretty crazy.

CN: I like people like that, though. People have to have passion in their lives.

FC: Yeah, you have to.

CN: Otherwise you’re just living somebody else’s dream.

FC: Exactly. That’s totally right. You guys had a much bigger scene in Florida than I did where I lived, trust me.

FC: It’s funny, because when I lived in Florida I wasn’t even involved in the hardcore scene there. I came to be involved in the Florida hardcore scene when I went back there to play with Madball. Madball had a really good following in Florida. We got a pretty good response. It’s kind of ironic because, as a kid, I lived there for a bunch of years. But the only hardcore scenes I knew about were in New York and Boston. Then, years later, I move to New York, and I do my thing. Then I end up coming back to Florida and there’s all these kids in this huge scene down there. That’s really funny that there’s actually a scene. It’s not surprising, though, because AF used to play down there when I was younger. So Florida’s always had a good scene. But I was never really a part of it.

CN: The closest thing we had back then was probably Corrosion of Conformity. And that whole North Carolina crew. That was about as close as we had. It’s amazing how all the scenes have really come together. It makes me very happy because I remember living down there and being the only kid into punk and hardcore and having rednecks hose me down with fire extinguishers because I had orange hair. Man, if that didn’t make you tough… New York was such a squeaky breeze when I got here after dealing with that shit. I was like, ‘Pfftt, fuck that. You think you’re tough? Try some bikers with a bunch of shotguns.’

FC: They must have been some real backward ass people, not understanding that you wanted to be yourself.

CN: So tell me about some of the music on Hazen Street, some of the songs. Do you write the lyrics yourself, since you’re the vocalist?

FC: We all participate in the writing process. I’ve been writing a lot of lyrics. It’s basically telling stories about my life, my experiences. That, to me, comes most comfortably; talking about reality. I can’ really get into writing some sci-fi stories or some crazy, dreamy things. I really tell stories from my experiences or from people close to me, things that they’ve gone through. Topics on Hazen Street talk about fighting temptation, going to jail for a little while and learning from that experience, this and that. I think we even got a love song on there. You know, we all have families and stuff like that. A lot of it is mostly about street stuff and life.

CN: What would you say is the most powerful composition on the Hazen Street record?

FC: I think we haven’t written that one yet.

CN: Ah, come on Freddy. You’re being so vague, man.

FC: I think the one that everybody keeps saying is the first single is a song called “Fool The World.” I don’t know, it’s hard to really judge on my own. I feel weird talking about our own stuff. But I guess the overall opinion from all the different people connected with the band is that the “Fool The World” song [embodies] the style that we’re trying to capture. It’s a little edgy, it’s a little poppy. The lyrics are about people who think they’re tough guys but they’re really not.

CN: Poseurs?

FC: Yeah, basically. It can be anyone. It can be guys on MTV, it can be someone in your neighborhood; where everybody thinks he’s the tough guy but they’re really not tough at all. The chorus is: ‘I see you walking around / bound by only fantasy / thinking you’re hard / you know that’s not reality.’ That basically says the whole song right there.

CN: Yeah. I think that there is a great similarity between some of the topics of NYHC in particular and hardcore rap like DMX does. I would love to see a hardcore band and DMX do something together.

FC: That could work.

CN: That would be fucking awesome.

FC: There’s a little hip-hop in it. People should definitely not sleep on it. Aside from growing up with Roger, Agnostic Front, and the whole hardcore thing, I also listened to hip-hop. I listened to pretty much everything. Hip-hop was a big one in my life too. I was actually going to do a hip-hop thing when Madball was broken up. I was actually going to venture into something like that and give it a shot. I mean, there’s some really whack people out there and I think can do better than some of the people out there. That didn’t work out when Hazen Street came about. So we incorporated a little bit of hip-hop flavor in Hazen Street. We don’t want to make it rap-rock too much, but we try to do it with good taste.

CN: Well, the similarities I find are in lyrical content and sometimes the vocal delivery with the rhyming of things. The aggression is very similar to someone like DMX. It’s just different beats. You can probably play that song by DMX, “Who We Be,” as a hardcore song. Because it’s all about being in prison.

FC: Yeah, we talk about that. You know how that is. With hip-hop and hardcore, there’s always been that street element in the music. Hip-hop is what it is, and hardcore comes from punk but it’s street. It’s all street music.

CN: Exactly. That’s why it wasn’t so out-of-context when Ice-T did Body Count. And he did it damn fucking good.

FC: He had some alright tracks. When he first came out, we were all just saying, ‘What, this dude’s trying to be hardcore now?’ I mean, I liked some of Ice T’s hip-hop stuff. But he had some raw stuff. I mean, with that “Cop Killer” song. You’ve got to give that guy credit for saying ‘I’m going to kill a cop.’

CN: At the time that came out I was working at Gibson Guitars doing endorsements so I did the endorsements for Moose Man that was in Body Count. The only bad thing about that band was that the guys he had playing couldn’t play that good.

FC: Yeah, I heard that. They weren’t really great musicians.

CN: No, but they had heart. That’s why I liked them.

FC: That’s what happens in hardcore a lot. A lot of people have a lot of heart but they’re not the best musicians. Though, some people are good musicians also.

CN: That’s how punk started. People with a lot of fucking heart and couldn’t play shit, but just wanted to.

FC: Yup. You eventually learn. You eventually pick it up and get a little better.

CN: What was your worst experience touring? Because I know Nick (Marden, from The Stimulators/Suicide King) tells me that sometimes when they go to Europe they’re sleeping on the floors in squats, all kinds of crazy shit.

FC: Our first couple of European tours were rough. But we got to a point where we can tour comfortably out there now, which is good. We definitely paid some dues. Agnostic Front brought Madball out there for the first time in’92. It was basically the guys from Agnostic Front playing the songs, and me singing. They would do a double set. They would do Madball songs with me; I would be the front man and it was all the guys from Agnostic Front. They would do a change-over. Then the same guys would come out and Roger, who was playing bass at the time, would grab the mic and sing for Agnostic Front. So that tour was kind of crazy. And we had this 60’s bus which would conk out, and we’d have to push it. Now, imagine all these people pushing a bus to get it kick started. We definitely paid some dues in Europe. I can probably think of a lot of situations where we roughed it. Sometimes I look at some people, and they get their first tour and they’re on a bus. I mean, good for them. But I think about, like…

CN: How much that shit costs.

FC: Yeah. It’s great, though. It’s comfortable. It’s cool when you’ve kind of earned it. When you’ve actually paid dues and had some rough times on the road, you can appreciate it more. That’s like everything in life, I guess. It’s cool if you can come off the first tour of your life, jumping off a bus. Hey, great for you. But I remember tours with Agnostic Front when I was a little boy and I would have to sleep in a van with my brother. The rest of the band would be asleep in whoever’s house, but my brother wouldn’t want to so he’d take me to the van. I’d be laying in the back of the van with sheets and blankets. It was fun because I was a kid and it was like a camping trip for me. I didn’t know better. But that’s rough shit, you know?

CN: Oh yeah. Van tours are hard.

FC: You know, I still do van tours with Madball in the States. In Europe, it’s gotten to the point where we can use a bus. We don’t have a super-fancy bus, we have a modest bus. The food is rough on the road sometimes, especially over there. We’ve had rough experiences on the road, but fortunately nothing life-threatening. That all happened back home in New York. On the road we’ve never had any accidents (knock on wood), no crazy things like that. But we’ve had other crazy things: fights, people getting arrested. Difficult road stuff that happens sometimes.

CN: Yeah. So, why I write about this music is because it helped me through a lot of stuff when I was young. I think hardcore, punk, metal, and industrial are all great emotional releases for people who have no other way to let out that bottled emotion.

FC: Definitely. I think being in a band probably saved me from a lot of things. Even though I still managed to get in trouble a couple of times here and there, I probably would have been in more trouble, and in worse situations, had I not had this release. I’m grateful for it.

CN: Even if you’re not playing it, just a kid buying the CD and playing it in his car. It’s kind of similar to that Eminem song where he’s doing donuts in the parking lot. You know which video I’m talking about?

FC: Yeah, I know exactly which one you’re talking about.

CN: I’ve done that. But blasting rock music instead of rap. I think it’s a great release. A lot of people would probably be insane if they didn’t have the mental stimulation of that emotional release.

FC: You need it. You need it. Music in general. Everybody has their preference. But there’s a certain energy about our style of music that you don’t really have in other styles.

CN: I remember one time my father was like, ‘Why do you have to do this music writing? You could write about anything.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, but you have to understand. When you get off work and you get in your Mercedes and you turn on that radio, you want to hear music coming out, right?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah.’ So I said, ‘Well, without people like me to help the people that make music, it probably wouldn’t be on your radio! No one would know about it. I kind of provide a service.’ So when I put it to him like that, he shut up. He left me alone. He’s a businessman, so you’ve got to put it to him in business terms. You’ve got to speak his language. And I think the hardcore speaks the language for a lot of people.

FC: Oh yeah, without a doubt.

CN: Especially that song Hatebreed did on their last album, “Perseverance.” Great, great song to help motivate you.

FC: Definitely. That’s definitely a good motivator.

CN: And to teach him how to spell the word ‘perseverance.’

FC: A little spelling bee lesson right there.

CN: What else do you want to tell me about Hazen Street or Madball? Something that you’ve always wanted your fans to know that no interviewer has ever asked you about.

FC: Whoa. That’s a pretty crazy question. What’s something that I’ve always wanted people to know? I think people that are really into Madball have a pretty good idea about what kind of people we are and what we’re about. I just make it a point that Madball is always going to always be there and serve a purpose. Hazen Street also. I never wanted Madball to be anything else but hardcore. And if we can go to another level with that, that’s beautiful. And if we stay where we’re at right now, I still don’t care. Madball is like our baby. We’re not ever going to turn Madball into a metal band. Nothing against metal or anything like that, because I’m into everything. But we’re never going to turn Madball into something else. We’ll always be a NYHC band. And we want to make that clear to everybody. And with Hazen Street, people are going to be very surprised at what we do. People have to understand that I would be letting myself down if I didn’t try other things musically.

CN: You’ve got to have an outlet for it.

FC: Right. Madball is my hardcore outfit. That will always be a part of me. I’m not going to do another hardcore band, because I’ve got Madball. There’d be no point. But at the same time, I have a lot of other things that I’m into and a lot of other stuff that I want to do. That’s what Hazen Street is for. I hope that people that are into Madball and Hazen Street, I hope they can respect that. I hope they don’t hear Hazen Street and think, “Oh, these guys sold out.” Honestly, I don’t care if you think I sold out. I know what kind of dues I’ve paid and I know what I’ve been through. Just because I’m trying other things musically doesn’t take anything away from Madball.

CN: Yeah, well you’re always going to have your purists in any scene.

FC: People got to open their minds up a little bit.

CN: Those same purists would probably not have considered the Clash punk when they first cam e out because they incorporated so many different styles. It wasn’t like Ramones-punk. It wasn’t like Sex Pistols-punk.

FC: It’s too much at times. I love hardcore, I love the hardcore scene. Obviously, it’s what got me where I am. But at the same time, some of those hardcore kids can be some of the most closed-minded kids out there. Some of them are very open-minded, obviously. But some are very closed-minded.

CN: A lot of the older punks in the city, punks and hardcore people are getting into that garage punk / psychobilly thing now. And I went to a big show at Union Pool at the battle of the bands thing. That was a lot of fun. A lot of people that were into punk, hardcore, and metal have now changed into totally different scenes. I remember seeing one band where it had Randy Rollner from Chem Lab on bass and Ray West from Spread Eagle on vocals. Back in the day, those two genres were so far apart – the industrial and the hair metal. And here were in the same band.

FC: There’s nothing wrong with that.

CN: Some people are so staunch in their views, but then they finally grow or they finally open up.

FC: You got to grow up a bit. I’d be selling myself short if I didn’t try to do other stuff. I love hip-hop, I love this, I love that. I love hardcore, that’s how I got my start musically. But that’s not all I have in me. I have to try other stuff. I’d be selling myself short. I’d be shutting myself out if I didn’t try other things. And if it blows up, God bless. I’m gonna bring Madball with me.

CN: You can’t go through life wearing only gray and eating only peanut butter. So why would you listen to only one kind of music, or play only one kind of music?

FC: Exactly. People have to grow up. I don’t want people to start making hardcore sound like something it’s not. Everybody has to respect the different genres. There’s nothing wrong with being open-minded or being into all the different genres.

CN: I think music itself would just die and stagnate if people weren’t.

FC: Yeah, nobody wants to hear the same thing.

CN: Well, you know, hardcore came out of a whole different scene. To me, hardcore is a sub-genre of punk and Oi! anyway.

FC: Right. And then look at what it is. Look at what it was in the early eighties, and look at what it is now.

CN: Back in the eighties, the hardcore and the metal scene was like a war zone if you remember.

FC: Yeah, I used to roll up to shows and have my own style. To this day, I still love the fact that we stand out. People look at us like we’re a bunch of hip-hop dudes but we’re as hardcore as anybody else.

CN: Well, when I first started in the punk scene, the whole concept was different. You had to look cooler than the person next to you. It made you use your imagination and creativity with whatever you could find in a thrift store. The original punk girls were all emulating 40’s and 50’s pin-up chicks anyway. Which goes full circle to a lot of hardcore people getting into the rockabilly and psychobilly scenes. It’s going back to what we started with as kids, I guess.

FC: The greaser stuff, all of that.

CN: Oh, I love all of that! And when Social Distortion started doing the Johnny Cash shit and people flipped out, I was like, ‘No, that’s cool.’ Rockabilly came out of the South. It was a bastardized version of country with R&B and Gospel thrown in. It’s nothing new. We’re all just re-inventing the fucking wheel at this point.

FC: Yeah, nobody’s re-inventing the wheel but you got to throw your own flavor into it.