by JOHNSON CUMMINS

The Cro-Mags were monumental in the early '80s New York punk scene, meshing Hare Krishna beliefs with metal-tinged hardcore. Their early-'80s debut The Age of Quarrel is a hardcore classic, right up there with Black Flag's Damaged or Suicidal Tendencies' self-titled debut. More recently, the band has returned to the age of quarrelling, but this time among themselves. Singer John Joseph has re-emerged using the moniker Cro-Mags NYC, as founding members guitarist Parris Mayhew and bassist Harley Flanagan refuse to grant him the rights to the Cro-Mags name. Sound like the Beach Boys? The Mirror talked with Joseph over the phone from his NYC apartment, asking if the real Cro-Mags would please stand up.

Mirror: Harley and Parris have been posting a lot on Cro-Mags Web sites, warning fans not to go see Cro-Mags NYC as it is not the real band.

John Joseph: Well, I don't think I will be touring under the name Cro-Mags name after this anyway. We do play Cro-Mags songs but it is a different entity.

M: What happened between you guys?

JJ: The history is that Harley and Parris turned me into the cops for being AWOL from the Navy and tried to get me locked up for 10 years. Harley and Parris wanted to start the Cro-Mags without me and figured that the only way to stop my version of the Cro-Mags was to get me locked up and so they turned me in and I did about four months. After that, Harley wanted me in the band so I forgave him but he just didn't grow up. It didn't work out because he was still mad because, once I got out of the brig, I finally caught up to him a couple of years later and knocked him out and he never got over that. Parris has orders of protection against me now but down the road he's got a beating coming to him.

M: You're working on a book about your life right now?

JJ: I'm working on two books right now. The first book is called Under the Radar and it's about me growing up in orphanages, being on the streets from fall of '76 to the end of '78 and then getting sent upstate to jail. The characters in this book are just insane and they're all real. One of the guys had this chemical engineering degree from MIT and invented black angel dust and I worked for him. We used to mix up the chemicals on Houdini's gravestone because he blew up his house. I got shot in the leg working for him. Crazy stuff, and it ends when I get sent to jail. The second book starts when I got out of jail and joined the Navy. I was shipped out to Virginia and that's when I met the Bad Brains - and the rest is history.

M: You have been an outspoken Krishna devotee. How did you go from this rough life to being a Krishna?

JJ: I was just searching for the truth. Being into punk rock, I had that revolutionary spirit. When I met the devotees I went to live in a temple in Hawaii and then a temple in New York. Life gave me a deck of cards and that was abusive foster homes and orphanages and being beaten and starved and it got to the point that I needed to apply the philosophy of living to my life. There are only two types of people, those who are looking for the truth and those who don't know they are looking for the truth.

With Anthrax and A Perfect Murder at le Spectrum on Friday, Oct. 10, 7pm, $21.50, all ages

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