Vegan Ironman and Punk Icon
Few people started out in an environment as unforgiving as hardcore punk legend John Joseph. He came up HARD‚ learned the lessons of the streets‚ and survived extreme violence. Yet he clawed his way out, inch-by-inch, to find his salvation in punk. John went on to form The Cro-Mags, the now-legendary hardcore band who would gift to the world a groundbreaking fusion of thrash metal and punk.
His is NOT a story for the faint-hearted. Beaten, starved and molested in foster homes, John Joseph was a drugs mule for heroin dealers on New York’s meanest streets at the age of 14. He was shot, stabbed, survived gangland hits and saw people murdered before his eyes.
The PMA Effect
In our conversation John Joseph gives a no-holds-barred account of New York’s punk underground during the genre’s golden age of hard drugs, non-stop violence and incredible music.
John pulls no punches in this moving, frank and, at times, deeply funny interview.
In this episode John Joseph and I talk about:
- His years as an ass-kicking Hare Krishna warrior monk
- Surviving betrayal by those closest to you
- The importance of a positive mental attitude (PMA)
- The evolution of the vegan scene from a pioneering lifestyle choice to a community dominated by “douchebags”
- Honouring your chosen craft with old school discipline
- How Donald Trump put the rage back in punk
- How SEAL coaching got him across the finishing line of an Ironman race on zero sleep
- How meditation and martial arts saved him from self-destruction
