MADBALL: Empire
The legendary New York Hardcore band Madball has been around since 1988. The band was started by Freddy Cricien (A.K.A. Freddy Madball), Roger Miret and Vinny Stigma from Agnostic Front, and Will Shepler. Freddy is Roger's little brother, at a young age Freddy would go on tour with Hardcore titans Agnostic Front and would often get on stage and sing with the band. Roger and Vinny saw potential in Freddy's stage performance and decided to start Madball.
Fast forward to 2010 and Madball is one of the hardest working bands in the music industry. Even when they are not on tour all over the world, the Madball crew is working on pushing the Hardcore scene to new levels. Freddy is one of the main guys behind Black N Blue Productions (the Hardcore production company). Recently, they hosted the Black N Blue Bowl (formerly the Superbowl of Hardcore) to a sold out audience at Webster Hall in New York City. Madball performed that night and they took over the stage full of fire and conviction! 
At that time we spoke with both Freddy and Madball about the future of the band, and both of them mentioned how excited they were of the songs they were writing for the new record. They recently completed the tracking process at Mana Recording studio in St. Petersburg Florida studio with Producer Erik Rutan (Cannibal Corpse, Misery Index and Goatwhore) and are very happy with the results. 
The band who also features Mitts on guitar, has added prodigy drummer Jay Weinberg, who is the son of Max Weinberg from the E Street Band and the Conan O'Brien show. Jay is only 19 but is definitely one of the best drummers in Rock music today. Seeing him play live up close on stage was mind blowing, and he made Madball an even tighter gripped band.
The new record is titled Empire and it will be out this October on Good Fight Records here in the USA and on Nuclear Blast Records in Europe. Make sure you pick it up!
Here is what Freddy and Hoya had to say about it:
“Erik has been great to work with,” states Cricien. “He’s definitely a perfectionist, which I have no problem with. It’s going to benefit us in the end! He’s got his own techniques like everyone does, so he’s going to bring a different dynamic into the sound/mix. I’m excited for people to hear the finish product. I predict it will be very HARD!” - Freddy Cricien
"The new record is groovy and hard, full of good Madball songs about life! It reminds me of Demonstrating My Style and Hold It Down, but the songs are definitely up to date.
We can't wait for people to hear it." - Hoya Roc
We want to thank Hoya for the pictures! \m/
Related links:
Madball on My Space
Madball on Good Fight Records
