MADBALL
Pitting your heroes against the test that really matters
He’s survived stabbings and swigged piss. Freddy Cricien takes the only test that matters.
WHAT’S THE MOST ILLEGAL THING YOU’VE EVER DONE?
“There’s a number of things, but I don’t want to incriminate myself! In my youth in New York, we weren’t looking for trouble but it’d find us a lot. We’d have a brawl in the middle of Avenue A and you wouldn’t see the cops for five minutes. Five minutes on the streets is a long time
– a lot can happen.”
WHAT’S THE MOST METAL ALBUM YOU OWN?
“Obituary’s Cause Of Death or The End Complete. I’m not a death metal guy but I went on tour with those guys with Agnostic Front in the early 1990s and it was a pretty historic tour, so I came to like Obituary. They had a lot of groove that really spoke to me.”
WHAT’S THE WORST INJURY YOU’VE EVER HAD?
“The second time I got stabbed, the doctors said it came millimetres away from severing my carotid artery and I would’ve bled out in seconds. I had another stabbing incident a decade before that and it came close to puncturing a vital organ. Maybe I should try not getting stabbed…”
WHAT’S THE MOST YOU’VE EVER BEEN SICK?
“One night I drank too many vodka Red Bulls, which is something I never do because it’s a disgusting drink. Also, I got a stomach virus once in Canada so I played a show, went back to the hotel and threw up to the point I was so depleted I couldn’t move.”
WHAT’S THE GROSSEST THING YOU’VE EVER HAD IN YOUR MOUTH?
“I accidentally drank my son’s pee. We were on the highway on a road trip and he needed to pee urgently so he went in a water bottle, which ended up next to me and I took a swig of it. It’s disgusting but it’s not the worst because it was my son after all.”
WHAT’S THE WORST FIGHT YOU’VE EVER BEEN IN?
“The first time I got stabbed, because we were outnumbered by a bigger group and I got blindsided. Guys started pulling out knives everywhere and it became a real crazy scene. My friend MQ got his lung punctured. We definitely lost the fight but we won in the sense that we lived.”
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU BLED?
“I pulled a hangnail out of my toe and bled all over the place.”
WHAT’S THE RAREST PIECE OF MERCHANDISE
YOU OWN?
“I used to have a rare version of Agnostic Front’s Victim In Pain which belonged collectively to our family but our older brother Roger [Miret, AF frontman] stole it back and gave it to his daughter.”
WHAT’S YOUR MOST PAINFUL TATTOO/PIERCING?
“I wanted my son’s name as big as I could, so I got it on my ribcage and then played a show immediately after.”
WHAT’S THE MOST METAL PICTURE ON YOUR PHONE?
“Is it wrong to say my most metal pic is me, Mike [Justian, drums] and Jorge [Guerra, bass] throwing up the hang loose sign?”
FINAL SCORE 8/10 AN EXCELLENT SCORE FROM FREDDY – HARDLY SURPRISING FOR A GUY WHO LAUGHS OFF two STABBINGS. GULP.
NEW MADBALL ALBUM FOR THE CAUSE IS OUT NOW ON NUCLEAR BLAST