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Freddy Cricien & Madball: 20 Years of Making the Crowd "Set it Off"

The NYHC frontman on 20+ years of 'Set it Off', the reality of violence, not being a tough guy band

WIth more than a quarter century of releases, shows, and stage-dives left in their wake, it's downright odd that Madball hasn't taken the time to stop and smell the roses. Instead, the long-running New York hardcore staple has been fixated on new material, pushing forward, touring, and improving and learning everyday. Which made their recent announcement of a 20th anniversary performance of their landmark Set it Off at This is Hardcore so odd: Why look back now? We sat down with Madball frontman Freddie Cricien to discuss the out-of-character move and their upcoming appearance at the festival.

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Reminder, This is Hardcore goes down this weekend in Philadelphia. Tickets are still available, and Noisey is proud sponsor of not only the fest as a whole, but an after-party as well.

NOISEY: Madball has announced it will do Set It Off in full as part of a 20th anniversary celebration for This Is Hardcore. I was wondering how significant of a record is that to you?
Freddy Cricien: To be honest, we’re not one of those bands that celebrates milestones a lot really. So called “important dates” have gone by and people have been like ‘hey, why didn’t you celebrate this or why didn’t you celebrate that.’ We are just not that sort of band. We still feel like a brand new band sometimes, like we’re trying to reach certain people, we’re still on that grind and in the struggle. We don’t rest on our laurels, and hope that we can continue to build on what we’ve been building. I guess it’s kind of a shame sometimes, because those milestones are important, it’s a celebration of things that you’ve accomplished. Maybe we should do it more often.

Set it Off definitely cements a style and a period in New York hardcore. I feel like it’s a milestone of the era, you can’t talk about nineties and not mention the record as far as I’m concerned.
Thank you, I appreciate that. That’s the thing, we never think in that way really. We just kind of keep moving forward and doing what we do. But the more we talk to people, the more input we get from different generations saying how influential that record was or our band was or is. We don’t think of ourselves in that way, but it sort of by default has become that and it just so happens that that record was the one that put us on the map with a lot of people, not just hardcore kids but metal kids and all different kinds. That was the full length with Roadrunner, and it’s an important record to some, and we’re happy to be celebrating it.

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if we can take a few minutes to talk about the merits of This Is Hardcore specifically, and why you would choose to play Set it Off there as opposed to your own festival, Black & Blue Bowl. What’s the reasoning behind that? Can you walk me through why This Is Hardcore means something to you?
Well I think that’s just how it fell into place. We weren’t going to play Black and Blue because we had played it the year before and to give some credit to (TIHC founder) Joe Hardcore, he kind of brought it to life. We were discussing Madball playing This Is Hardcore and Joe was kind of the one that said, ‘Hey, aren’t you guys celebrating 20 years of Set It Off?’ and I was like ‘I wasn’t even thinking of that, oh wow, yeah, it’s been 20 years.’ He kind of brought it to our attention, so it was only right that we would do it with him. The idea of it is a bit touchy with us, I’m not really into going out and doing retro sets personally. I think it’s cool, I’ve seen other bands do it and it’s worked really well, but we’ve never done it before personally. I was a little skeptical about it because it’s almost like, I don’t want us to become a novelty act where we do those kind of things all the time.

Madball - Set it Off

I gave it some thought and I was like well, we’ve never done it and the more I think about it the more I realize that it is an important record. It was our first LP and we reinterpreted hardcore in our own way, something different at the time. It was frowned upon in some circles when that record was happening. Even though we had some older-style songs in the mix, some of the purists were like ‘whoa, what are you guys doing, what are you doing to New York hardcore? It’s too groovy, it’s too metal-ish.’ Now, that’s looked upon as an old school record but it was a new approach then, at least for us.

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I’d venture to say in the US there are two major hardcore festivals, both around three to four months away from each other: This is Hardcore and your festival, Black & Blue Bowl. As far as being a part of B&B but still doing things under the umbrella of TIHC, do you feel a friendly competition? Clearly you guys are friends, are there ever moments where you mutter under your breath ‘oh man, fuck you Joe Hardcore, I wish I could have done that,’ in a joking manner of course. I would venture to say that there’s probably been that on both sides at some point. Our festival usually comes first in the year, and my partner and I try really hard to be creative with the lineups. I’m sure we’ve had lineups where Joe was like ‘damn, I wish I would have jumped the gun on that or snagged those bands’ and I could say the same vice versa. By the time his festival comes around I’ll see some bands and be like ‘damn, why didn’t we think of that?’ There’s always going to be that friendly competition, it’s a similar type of fest. In the end, we support each other because we aren’t stepping on each other’s toes, there’s a lot of respect. There are friendships there and a history. If anything we’re trying to help each other, promote each other. I mean look, anything that pushes the culture of our genre and that uplifts it in any way, I think it’s a good thing. I think we need more of those done right, because I think there are a lot of those that aren’t. I think This Is Hardcore, Black and Blue, even Tsunami, the ones that are done in the right way, in a tasteful way, I think we need those, I think those are important. Europe has a strong and healthy scene, I think because of festivals like that.

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MADBALL

Let’s talk about Hardcore Lives and you guys basically deciding to go on your own domestically and releasing via Black & Blue. Is there a reason why you decided to go that route domestically and with Nuclear Blast in the EU?

Going on our own in general has been a longtime dream. Slowly but surely over the years I’ve wanted to gain more control of our own situation and this is one of the many moves that’s going to solidify that. The reality is contractually we did have one more option with Nuclear Blast and I was really weighing out both options. I’m not quite as dialed in on the distribution side in Europe as much as I am in the States and even though I want to have control, I’m not going to compromise my potential reach. Just kind of a baby steps idea.
Exactly, we’re not fly-by-night-ers over here, we’re heavily invested in this genre and this culture. We’re in this for the long haul. I think we benefited by staying on Nuclear Blast for at least this record, because especially now seeing how much they backed and loved Hardcore Lives. I’m happy with that decision. I’m happy that I let them run with that in.

I think a lot of what you guys talk about comes from ideas formulated in the early days of New York hardcore, the ideas of PMA etc, but also with a “real world” story-telling element. I think that as hardcore grows and changes there are people that are stepping away from PMA and are more interested in the violent side of the culture. What do you think of bands that push this idea?
Lyrically speaking, we’re realists. We’ve always just talked about our experiences. Sure there are songs talking about empowerment for the culture and the movement but essentially, especially from Set It Off on, these were stories that were happening in our lives. When we talked about our friends who spent 20+ years in prison, there were definitely always positive messages in there, or at least I tried to reach a positive point. At the end of the day though, our music is always based in reality. Whether personal experience or someone close to us, emotions, personal demons that we’re battling… I think if you listen to each record there’s been an evolution and it’s because we’re growing with the records. To touch on what you’re saying with violence, it’s weird. I never glamorized violence, I just talked about it in a matter of fact way, from real experience and a genuine and sincere place. My only thing is that if you’re going to talk about something, I hope that you’re at least living it. Who am I to judge what you talk about, that’s your platform. But if it’s not sincere I can’t back it. It’s kind of corny, I never liked the term “tough guy,” I never thought of us as a tough guy band, I just always thought of us as a New York hardcore band. I think the fact that we were speaking real stuff about our lives, people were filed us as one sort of band, but we’re not making stuff up. We live what we’re talking about, we always did and we still to this day.

Freddy Cricien of Madball

To clarify a point, there is definitely a division between a band who talks about the streets and uses it as a lesson versus glorification. It seems like there are a lot of bands nowadays who don’t really get that idea, aren’t making that connection.
It’s true, you hit it on the head. We were always from the lesson aspect, even when we were talking about something that may not be so popular, there was always something that was like ‘hey, what I’m saying is this doesn’t end well.’ I think sometimes certain bands do it for attention, just how some metal bands talk about fantasy or satanism. It’s fiction, it’s theatre. Many bands haven’t gone through what we have. I’m not going to point fingers or name names.

In this day and age, you’re glamorizing whatever kind of violence at a show, it comes across corny to me if you haven’t lived it or experienced it. That’s my take on anything like that.

Hardcore in particular has been very welcoming of reunion sets, I’m as big a fan as any, Judge meant a bunch for me, same as Youth of Today, the Breakdown 87 demo lineup has been pretty killer. Is there a band that you’d like to see that hasn’t really come around for a second round? Maybe not even from that era, just a band that you’d like to see again that’s currently not active.
I’d like to see Rest in Pieces come back. I’ve been trying to get Armand to do it for years, there’s definitely an interest with the fans. Clearly it’s tough with how active Sick Of It All is, but there’s a lot of history and a lot of mutual respect and it’s cool. We cross paths all the time so I’m always busting chops about it, but that’s kind of a similar thing like the Breakdown 87 reunion. The Rest in Pieces stuff was cool, some good New York stuff. Don’t worry, I’ve been working on it.