Cro-Mags Harley Flanagan interview

“Metallica, Slayer and all these other bands wouldn’t sound the way they sound if it wasn’t for hardcore.”

Interview with Harley Flanagan

by Roman Jones

Cro-Mags is arguably the backbone of hardcore. Established in the early 1980’s, it released a series of records including landmark album “Age of Quarrel” in 1986 that served as blueprints for bands that followed such as Green Day.

Cro-Mags did not invent hardcore but it comes closest to idealizing what hardcore should feel like.At the center of the band is lead singer and bassist Harley Flanagan, who divides his time as an iconic frontman and a Professor of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at the renowned Gracie Academy in Manhattan. As burdensome as both roles may sound, they pale in comparison to his personal battles as revealed in his autobiography “Hard-Core: Life of My Own.”

Cro-Mags will release a new full-length album (“In the Beginning”) on June 19, 2020 worldwide available on LP, CD and all digital platforms. It’s the bands first full-length album in 20 years.Your correspondent reached out to Harley Flanagan at his home in New York City on a Friday afternoon. Flanagan was generous with his time as he spoke in a matter of fact way about a variety of topics. An edited transcript of that conversation follows.

WG: How have you been during this pandemic?

Harley Flanagan: It’s obviously been crazy. I’m holding up all right, my wife and me are good but it’s been pretty nuts. In my building alone, my neighbors on both sides have been sick with Corona and my neighbor above me, so I’m surrounded. I actually saw one of my neighbors get carried out on a stretcher and he was dead three days later. I’ve had family members who have been sick and fortunately they’ve gotten better. When it gets to a point when you’re seeing your neighbors dying and have family members that are getting sick, it’s very real. It’s a little bit frustrating when I hear people who are trying to turn it into some sort of political issue: government control and this and that. When you actually see how it’s affecting people it becomes a little bit more real, you don’t feel so much like it’s a government plot. I do think that we have a lot to learn from this whole situation and obviously in New York City, everybody’s stacked on top of each other so it’s a different situation here than in some places where people are more spread out. It’s a frustrating time for everybody.  Some people really want to get back to work and I understand that, I haven’t worked in two months. Things are getting tight financially but people forget that sometimes you have to rough it for the good of everybody and for the good of yourself.

I saw one of your videos on YouTube called “Never Give Up.” It’s a very inspirational message. It’s like a piece of fatherly advice.

Well, I’m a father so that’s appropriate.

Looking back at your childhood, what was it like being a 12 year-old kid playing the drums in New York City clubs?

It was weird. You don’t notice how weird it is when you’re there. When you’re a kid and you’re in the middle of it, it’s like, “okay, this is life. This is my life.” In hindsight especially when after I wrote my book it was like, “what the fuck was I doing there.” That was not really an appropriate childhood. At the same time because of it, I got to witness a lot of history and see a lot of cool stuff but there was a lot of downsides to that as well.

Being so young now and to have seen those decades of history, it’s got to be a blessing, right?

Yeah, but like I say there’s also a downside to it. A 12 year-old is supposed to be in school, not hanging out with groupies and drug addicts.  I wouldn’t want my kids to have the childhood that I had, I can put it like that.

Who were some of the bands you looked up to back in the day?

There were a lot of bands that I really liked and that I was inspired by. Obviously, I grew up with the Bad Brains and they were a huge influence on me musically. They really were like family. I mean they spent Christmas at my grandparent’s house so we were very close with them. Some of the bands that had a big impact on me personally as far as meeting them and the interaction, obviously Motörhead and Lemmy were a huge influence. And The Clash also was a huge influence on me personally just like the way they treated me and how they acted as people really left an impact on me. Other people that I knew growing up that were quote unquote iconic legendary people like Allen Ginsberg, I didn’t know them as famous people, I just knew them as people. Allen was real cool. He was a family friend; he was really my mom’s friend. Even when you look at the Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder Revue movie, my aunt’s in that. She’s all over that movie so I met Bob Dylan and a lot of those people because of that.

Who was your aunt? I know someone who was in the entourage of the Rolling Thunder Revue.

Denise Mercedes. If you watch the movie she is the kid with the black hair who is playing guitar with Allen Ginsberg a bunch of times in the apartments and the parties. I actually just saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it was kind of cool because like, footage of Allen’s old apartment. I sat and ate breakfast in that kitchen so many times it was kind of, weird to see everybody hanging out in there.

Did you ever get to see the Plasmatics perform?

Oh yeah, of course. Wendy was really sweet. Besides, the madness of her stage performance she was a real sweetheart. I knew them since I was a little kid. I wasn’t a big fan back in the old days but as I got to know Wendy by the time I had the Cro-Mags, she was nice. She was really cool. Richie Stotts was a really nice guy too. Cool dude. They were ahead of their time. They were one of the first Punk-ish bands to infuse Metal into what they were doing. They don’t get the credit they deserve for that.

Do you feel a little ripped off that hardcore didn’t take off to greater heights compared to other genres like rap or metal?

 I think it just took longer. Dude, I just went on tour with The Misfits. Who would have thought that The Misfits, Cro-Mags, and The Damned would be playing in front of 30,000 people. That’s tremendous. I’ve known The Misfits since I was a kid and I remember seeing them in front of 100 people or less. And here I was onstage with them in front of 30,000 people and they are getting paid like a million bucks to do the show. Yeah, it took 30 years but I don’t think it’s necessarily gone unnoticed. Hardcore has made its impact even though maybe the money hasn’t been as big a payoff as other genres. It has made a huge impact on other styles of music. Ice-T is playing Hardcore now. Metallica, Slayer and all these other bands wouldn’t sound the way they sound if it wasn’t for Hardcore. It has influenced and affected music culture worldwide. That in itself, is something to be somewhat proud of.

Can you talk about the new Cro-Mags album (“In the Beginning”)?

It will be out in just a few weeks  It’s not out yet. We have put out a few singles from it in anticipation of its release. The last single has Phil Campbell of Motörhead on it and that was obviously a huge honor for me to have him on a record.

How would you describe your songwriting process?

I write all day. I’m sitting at my dinner table right now and I’m looking at an acoustic guitar sitting on one chair, two basses sitting at the other end of the room and a piano across from me. I’m always surrounded by instruments and I pick something up at some point during the day several times and just play. Since this quarantine, I’ve written close to 60 pieces of music. It’s just what I do, that’s how I pass the time, how I clear my head. I guess how I meditate. This album I went into the studio with a certain number of songs that were completely written from beginning to end and then I had about 15 or 16 ideas that were not complete because I like to freestyle in the studio. I like to come up with ideas when I’m in there because I find a lot of times the moment of creativity is really the most inspired.

Sometimes the first time you play something is when it’s really hot. By the time you’ve done it 20 or 30 times or practiced it a bunch or played it live sometimes it loses the fire. Sometimes the first hit is the one and maybe I got that from jazz but a lot of times that first take is the take. That first moment when you’re feeling it, you really can’t replicate it again. You can imitate it again but it’s never going to feel the same way after that first moment. I like to create a lot of the songs in the studio.

You’ve been a musician for a long time. What was the first piece of music that moved you?

I honestly couldn’t tell you. I’ve been moved by music my whole life. My mother as a Hippie was bringing me to shows when I was a baby. I was like running around in front of Jefferson Airplane, a little naked baby in front of the stage. I’ve always been at shows and I’ve always been around music. I started playing when I was 7 or 8. I made my first money playing on the street with kids from my school.  And pretty much that’s been it. Everything else has been more transient; music has always been there. I’ve been doing jiu-jitsu for more than 20 years but I remember a time before jiu-jitsu and I’ve been playing Hardcore since Hardcore began but I remember a time before Hardcore but I don’t remember a time before music.

Where is the most interesting place a Cro-Mags song has been played?

The first thing I thought when you said that was I sang on a song that got played at a Super Bowl and got played at a bunch of sporting events and that was kind of cool. The second thought that immediately followed is that I know a lot of my songs have been played in tanks in combat. I think that’s pretty heavy.

You and Al Jourgensen, Al said that a lot of his music has been played on front line encounters.

Yeah, I mean Jocko Willink (American retired officer of the United States Navy, who served in the Navy SEAL teams) told me that my music got him through some of the hardest parts of his life.

I want to ask about your career in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  You got into it right around the time of Royce Gracie and the initial UFC’s and then Renzo Gracie opened his academy in New York City. What was the hardest thing about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for you?

It was just so alien to me. I never wrestled in high school but I did fight a lot growing up. I grew up in a bad neighborhood so I’ve been fighting my whole life. Certain things about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu made sense. I remember the first time I saw Royce submitting someone and I was watching the early UFC’s and I was like “how the hell did he do that? What was that thing he just did?” I was fascinated as someone who has fought a lot, I have punched people, kicked them, elbowed, head butted, kneed, whatever but I have never seen anything like an arm bar or a triangle choke. I made up my mind that if I ever had the opportunity to learn from these guys, I would take advantage of it. Fortunately, Renzo (Gracie) moved to New York and opened up his academy in 1996 and that’s when I started training with him. I teach at his academy, I’ve been teaching for 11 years now.

Happy to hear that you found that thing to put your energy towards it

It’s a beautiful thing.  Like I was just saying, I found it because of the combative aspects but now it’s such a part of my life that I don’t really think of it in terms of fighting anymore. Yeah, that’s an obvious aspect of it but it’s the lifestyle, the culture of it and the friends I’ve made through the art, the teaching and the interacting with other people that make it a great experience. It’s a great environment and it also really teaches you a lot about yourself. If you have the willingness to keep going back and getting your ass kicked over and over and over again until you learn how to not. If you can take that and it take out into the world with you, you’re practically unstoppable.