Iron Cross (band)
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Iron Cross is a hardcore/Oi! band from Baltimore, Maryland and Washington D.C..
They play a rough form of streetpunk, and are one of the first bands in the United States to adopt the skinhead look and the Oi! musical style. The band had close ties to the Washington, DC hardcore punk subculture, due to its relationship with other hardcore bands, with Ian Mackaye, and with Dischord Records. Singer Sab Grey was one of the many roommates in the Dischord House in Arlington, VA. The band's name — and the skinhead image of most of its members — led to accusations of fascism, which Grey has always denied.
[edit] Career
Iron Cross formed when Dante Ferrando met Sab Grey. Ferrando was previously in a band called Broken Cross with Mark Haggerty. When Grey and Ferrrando decided to start a new band, Grey suggested the name Iron Cross. The first lineup consisted of Grey on lead vocals, Haggerty on guitar, Ferrando on drums and John Falls on bass guitar. The band went through two more bassists before settling on Wendell Blow. The only non-skinhead in the band was Ferrando, who has usually maintained a spikey hairstyle.
The band's original lineup lasted four years and released only a handful of releases, including the Skinhead Glory EP, the Hated and Proud EP, and three songs on the Dischord compilation Flex Your Head. The Skinhead Glory EP is considered valuable, mostly because it is the first appearance of the song "Crucified," which was later popularized by Agnostic Front.
Iron Cross broke up in 1983. Ferrando went on to form the band Gray Matter, Haggerty went on to play with Embrace, and Grey went to England. Since then, Iron Cross has re-released their EPs in the form of the full-length album Live For Now. Grey has moved back to Baltimore, is still a skinhead, plays in The Royal Americans (a rockabilly style band), performs solo acoustic shows, and occasionally performs with a new version of Iron Cross.
[edit] "Crucified"
In the mid 1980s, New York hardcore band Agnostic Front began covering "Crucified", a song from one of Iron Cross' demo recordings. Agnostic Front included studio versions of the song on their Liberty And Justice For... and Something's Gotta Give albums. The song has become a staple cover song for many hardcore and Oi! bands. The lyrics discuss getting ridiculed for being different, being blamed for society's ills, and being accused of violence and intolerance because of the actions of others. The metaphor of being crucified resonated with anti-racist and apolitical skinheads who were sick of labelled as neo-Nazis because of an extremist sub-group of the skinhead culture. Live audiences have taken to adding a chant of "Skinhead Army!" to the chorus, a line not included in the original recording by Iron Cross.
