Issue 035

March 2008

When I’m not a Legendary Hardcore Musician, I do MMA

Throughout the 1980s, he was on stage, playing bass guitar and belting out lyrics as his band – the legendary hardcore group the Cro-Mags – whipped the audience into a frenzy. But on one Sunday evening in December of 2007.

Harley Flanagan was in a different kind of frenzy; the heavily-tattooed Renzo Gracie-trained purple belt stepped into the ring at New York City’s Underground Combat League and had his first MMA bout. And though the 41-year-old father of two came up short (losing via armbar in the second round), there’s no question he went out swinging. We caught up with Flanagan afterwards to get the ‘Cro-Mag’s’ perspective. 

You’ve been attending these UCL events for a while. What made you get in the ring and how did you prepare for it?

I really didn’t train too much specifically for this. Mostly I grapple and do a lot of kettlebell workouts. I do strength training, some cardio – but I relied mostly on my street background for striking. I didn’t really prepare for it like I should have. I did it more for fun to be honest with you. It was just something I wanted to do, and there are not too many places in life where you can hit somebody as hard as you want and not get arrested for it… I really just did it for fun. It was kind of the ‘Tank Abbott approach’ in that I was like, ‘yeah, I’m down. Shit, why not?’

You put up one heck of a battle in there. What are your thoughts on your fight?

I wasn’t really ready for it. I’d do it again, but it’s not something I’d pursue as a career at this point in my life. I’m 41 years old – my fighting days were on the streets when I was young.

You fought a lot when you were young?

Growing up where I did [on the Lower East Side of Manhattan], it was just the type of thing you were into. Some people were into playing ball, we were into fighting.  

That sounds rough.

In the ‘80s in New York City, if you grew up in a bad neighborhood – if you didn’t fight, you got victimized pretty regularly on your block and in school and everywhere else… I grew up on the Lower East Side. But you’ve got to realize that what you see now ain’t what it was in the ‘80s. When I grew up down there, I was maybe one of four or five white kids in the entire area… it was a rough scene. A lot of gangs, a lot of drugs, a lot of crime. You pretty much grew up having to be ready to go toe-to-toe and knuckle-up, or you were a punk.  

Did you train back then?

When I was kid I used fight a lot and my friends were into the martial arts, and growing up around fighters – black belts, boxers and just a lot of street fighters – in that environment you grow up just messing around and picking up a lot of stuff. By the time I was in my early teens, the guys I used to ‘train’ with… the guys learned from – the black belts, boxers, street fighters, etc. – a lot of them were hooligan-street fighter-skinhead-thug types. And also, the old Cro-Mags roadies – really, those were my brothers-in-arms who were for the most part black belts in Korean styles of karate and very skilled street fighters in general. These guys were crazy. They were the kind of guys who could turn just about any object into a weapon. Me and them guys had many a street fight – side-by-side, back-to-back – and these guys were tough as hell. Some went on to go to jail, some the military, some died and some are now cops! [Laughs] Kind of ‘Clockwork Orange’-ish, huh?  

You seem like a really nice guy, but you paint a picture full of street fighting mayhem.

I grew up around a lot of thugs. And in the hardcore scene, there was a lot of fighting in that scene, too. Back in the day there weren’t a lot of venues for our band to play. Most of the concerts were in ghettos, and most of the kids lived in squats that were in bad neighborhoods – where we were definitely the minority. So you would get in a lot of fights with local gangs. Back then there wasn’t a police presence. It was more like the Wild West.  

Sounds an awful lot like that movie “The Warriors”.

Yeah. Plus, back then you grew up with a lot of Bruce Lee, so every Puerto Rican in my neighborhood thought he was a Puerto Rican Bruce Lee. It was hysterical. Everybody thought they knew some kind of ghetto martial art.  

And now you’re all about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

Yeah. Meeting Renzo was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me besides my kids and music. I wish I could’ve had this outlet back then. It’s a great sport. It’s a great outlet for people who have that type of drive – that warrior spirit.

Three decades later, Flanagan is still on stage – this time with his new band, “Harley’s War”. Usually touring throughout Europe, he was most recently in Japan, where he plans on mixing hardcore music with mixed martial arts. For more info, check out his website at “Hardcore-MMA.com”