Freddy Cricien

Freddy Cricien
Freddy Cricien during Madball concert in Berlin, December 17, 2004.
Background information
Born	November 4, 1975
Origin	Florida
Genres	Hardcore punk, punk rock, crossover thrash, heavy metal, hip-hop
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1989–present
Associated acts	Madball, Agnostic Front, Hazen Street

Freddy Cricien, also known as Freddy Madball, (born November 4, 1975) is the vocalist of the New York hardcore band Madball^[1] as well as one of the vocalists of Hazen Street.^[2]

He is the younger half-brother of Roger Miret of Agnostic Front. The two have the same mother, who is of Cuban descent, and different fathers, hence the different last names. Freddy's father is from Colombia.^[3]

Freddy originally lived in Florida when his older half-brother Roger was living in New York City and performing with Agnostic Front. Roger would write to Freddy telling him of touring and being in a band, and when Freddy was about 7 years old he began to ride along with AF on tour and ended up living in New York permanently. Roger and AF guitarist Vinnie Stigma took him under their wings and even let Freddy sing along with their cover of The Animals' "It's My Life". Around 1989, the idea came up to form a band with Freddy on vocals. Madball was originally formed with Freddy singing and the rest of Agnostic Front backing him up. Madball's first album, Ball Of Destruction, was a mishmash of older and unused AF songs as well as other covers. Soon after came such albums as Droppin' Many Suckers, Set It Off and Demonstrating My Style, of which two are playing off the name of the DMS ("Doc Marten Skins") Crew, which Madball was a major part of. In July 2007, another album, Infiltrate The System, was released.

According to Freddy, he also works construction jobs, and has taken jobs at places like UPS. He is still seen as almost on par with his older brother as an icon and cornerstone of the New York hardcore scene.

Freddy occasionally does guest appearances on other bands' albums, for example Fear Factory (vocals on the bonus track Agnostic Front song Your Mistake), Deviate (vocals on Last Judgement), Sick Of It All (vocals on Forked Tongue on the Death to Tyrants album), H2O (guest vocals on the song 'Guilty By Association' on the F.T.T.W. album), 25 ta Life (guest vocals on 'Loyal To Da Grave' on the Strength Through Unity album), Shutdown (guest vocals on 'Few and Far Between' on the album of the same name), Skarhead (guest vocals on 'I Won't Change' on the album Kings at Crime, also on the song 'Skarhead' from an early compilation.^[4]

Freddy also moonlights as an MC with DJ Stress as the hip hop duo Freddy Madball & DJ Stress. His debut solo album as a hip hop artist, "Catholic Guilt", came out in November 2009.^[5]

Notes

1. Prato, Greg. "Biography: Madball". AMG. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
2. Loftus, Johnny. "Biography: Hazen Street". AMG. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
3. Freddy Madball interview for Stefan Topuzov's Music Vault
4. Freddy Cricien Discography at Discogs
5. Freddy Madball / DJ Stress Occicial MySpace page