TCOB

Jere: Talking with Danny Diablo, AKA Lord Ezec. When did you first start hanging out with DMS?
Ezec: They say ’87.
Jere: And had you heard of them before you started hanging out with them, or you just bumped into them?
Ezec: Actually, I was in the neighborhood. I had a bombing partner, writing graffiti, and his name was JM. We lived on the other side of Jackson Heights, by Burger King—69th street, by Boston Pines over there. And we were bombing, killing that area, and we always saw Jere and Mod tags in the neighborhood. So, basically, we came down to the schoolyard or wherever, and we bumped into everyone, and we said “What’s up?” and that’s it. We became friends. I actually bumped into MQ, like a week earlier than that, on the 7 line with one of my boys, my boy KMA. I was taking pictures of shit I did on 69th street and 5th—my first fill-ins and stuff. Then I went down to 46th street and took some pictures of some stupid tags I did. And I was on the tracks, and MQ was across the street with a big DA and a Polo shirt. Shorts and like, white sneakers. He said, “What you write?” and I was like, “What you write, nigga?” And we started arguing across the platform. I was sitting—I was on the train tracks across the platform, yelling at him. I said “Ezec-1.” He’s like, “MQ.” Then the next week, we saw each other and we became boys. At the schoolyard, at 145.

Jere: So, you’re primary involvement with DMS was writing graffiti at first?
Ezec: Yes.

Jere: So, you weren’t involved with the band stuff that was going on around that time?
Ezec: Well, the only band stuff at the time was Occupied Territory and Dmize. Oh yeah, I had a band. I played bass for this band called Disciplined, with Gus Straight Edge and Mike Hooney. Mike Hooney from Jackson Heights and Harry. And Sacha Jenkins also played guitar in a band, in high school. The band was called Sluggo. So, yeah, I was in bands. You know, I played bass. It was cool. But I just wanted to be a part of something, so I started playing bass or whatever, because it’s the easiest instrument you can play. But later on, I was like “Fuck that.” The singer’s the one that’s gettin’ all the ass. The singer gets everything. No one looks at the bass player, the drummer, the guitar player—who cares about them?

Jere: Were you a singer?
Ezec: Yes, I was. It was funny, because the neighborhood store was called Numbers and Records on Avenue, and that’s where we got all our shit. It was metal heads, skinheads, hip hop, everything…reggae, everything was at that place. Not that many people listen to the same music, like hardcore, but they had a hardcore section, so we didn’t have to go to the city to Bleecker Bob’s and get hardcore. We had it right there, in Jackson Heights, called Numbers and Records on Avenue. And that’s where I bumped into Hoya the first time, and almost beat his ass. (laughter)

Jere: Were you writing a lot of graffiti at the time?
Ezec: Yeah. It’s funny. JM was killing all the vans in the neighborhood. I would catch a nice tag here and there, but most of it was just for vandalism. MQ would kill stuff, and he would do like 45 throw-ups, and I would do like 3. But I’d roll with the biggest. You know, I’d go with him. And plus I was always the guy on the scene. MQ and JM never really hung out that much, so I would fight everyone over their beef. That’s why I got my reputation for fighting, because I had to fight, because I was the only one there, in a club, and they’d be like, “Yo, you DMS?” And I’d be like, “Yeah.” And that’s how it went down. But back in the day, the neighborhoods were way different. Everyone knew each other, because everyone went to the same schools. Everyone grew up with each other. But there’d be beef with someone else in the group, so you had to fight a fair one. There’d be no jumping. We were fighting fair ones. That’s how it went down. Everyone knew each other in the neighborhood back then. It was a kind of respect.

Jere: Before you were writing graffiti, were you a brawler?
Ezec: Yeah. Kind of. In Jackson Heights. I grew up right by McClancy High School. We would have beef with other neighborhoods, too. We would have beef with Gardens, Woodside Projects, stuff like that. But the older guys of my neighborhood were the Zugu kids. They ran the neighborhood, it doesn’t matter what you were. They were mostly—my neighborhood was mostly Spanish and white, so it would be like, Irish, German, Cuban and Columbian and Puerto Rican. So, if you weren’t from the neighborhood, you couldn’t get there. There was mad beefs. Then it’d be McClancy beefs. Then it’d be, like, the Brothers, the O’Briens. It was just crazy. No one could go in the neighborhood.

Everybody knows DMS had wars with all these crews from the city because we would come out there and all of us were running the city. Heads from Brooklyn, Queens, everywhere. I remember Chino BYI and all those kids—Ghost and them. I give mad respect to Chino. Always did. I fought Ghost for like 23 minutes. And everyone knows I busted his ass. And when he sees me, he shakes my hand, and I shake his hand, like, in respect. Because he’s an older dude, and when we were young, we were always scared—like, “Ghost! Oh my god! He’s crazy! He’s a ninja!” So when I fought this crazy fuckin’ white trash guy, I was like, “Oh shit. I gotta fight this nigga?” And I fought him, and I busted his shit. When I caught Ket out there, he did the same thing, and I said “Yo, champ. Hey, how you doing?” Like it’s over. But then he’s like, “I have beef with your boy MQ. Your boy MQ—we have beef.” And that’s when I beat his ass. Most of these guys, they wanna talk—they do big talking. But they don’t think they’re gonna get caught out there. My thing is, I never sleep, ever. I go anywhere, I always know what’s going on and I don’t get too fucked up around people. I always have some of my crew members with me. Because a long time ago, I used to be crazy, and that’s how I caught people out there. Everyone gets their ass kicked, you know what I mean? I haven’t got my ass kicked since I got beat up by Steven King in 6th grade… but still, I caught a beating and I didn’t never wanna have to go through anything like that again.

Jere: The guy who writes the horror novels?
Ezec: No, some kid from Jackson Heights. I’ll bust his shit now if I see him. (laughter) But, the thing is, back then it was so much easier. We used to beat people up and that’s it. You might get a broken collarbone, broken toe or whatever, but nowadays people shoot, it’s whack. We’re from old school neighborhoods. Now there’s kids… lot of kids forget about what can happen to ‘em, because I know kids from the neighborhoods… I don’t wanna get into that.

Jere: What was your first serious band, not a side project.
Ezec: Crown of Thornz was the first band that I started. I started the band after I got out of the hospital. I got stabbed. Stabbed up with a screwdriver while I was in the city, I was hanging out with MQ and 2 Hips. We were working together in Sally Graham’s apartment. It was Sequoia and all these people. I went downstairs, some guy was breaking into my car. I punched the guy in the face. The guy stabbed me with a screwdriver, 8-inch flathead. Then, I pulled it out—right across the street from Bruno’s, right by Bruno’s bakery. And I pulled the screwdriver out, went across the street, beat the shit out of the guy—me and MQ. We beat the shit out of the dude. People thought we were just beating up a bum for no reason. I had been stabbed. So people were trying come up to us, I was punching people in the face, get them to mind their business. So, I came out of the hospital. I was in the hospital about a month and a half. And I started a band called Crown of Thornz, with Frank from Jackson Heights, Frank, Dimi from Astoria and Mike from Astoria. And, basically, that was the beginning of the fucking end. My life, you know. I started doing music full time from there.
Jere: How long did that last?
Ezec: Crown of Thornz was around ’93 to ’97.
Jere: And what followed that?
Ezec: Skarhead. We put that out in ’95. But Skarhead was a serious band, from ’98 to 2002. And then I stopped doing that; I started doing a solo thing in 2003, Danny Diablo. I got signed to UW Records, working with Don Imez—who is another part of DMS, Donny. And he signed me as a solo artist, so 2003 did that. Then I got signed by Travis Barker, from Blink-182. And now I’m signed to Suburban Noize. Just put out a record called Thugcore 4 Life, but my real record’s coming out on Epitaph/Hellcat. It’s called International Hardcore Superstar, and it’s produced by Tim Armstrong from Rancid.
Jere: These are all hardcore bands?
Ezec: No. Danny Diablo is a mixture between hardcore, metal, blues, funk and hip hop.
Jere: So, it would be the only band in the DMS crew that’s doing hip hop, kind of.
Ezec: No. Freddy and
Madball does some hip hop stuff, and the Shotblockers is a lot of members of DMS. The Shotblockers got…Hoya’s in the Shotblockers, KO is in the Shotblockers, Slaine, and Big Left from La Coka Nostra is in the Shotblockers. CK, who’s DMS-LA, he’s in the Shotblockers...also, my hype man on Danny Diablo—he travels with me. Who else? A whole bunch of people. But Shotblockers is like the
Wu-Tang thing. It’s like, Shotblockers was before La Coka Nostra, and La Coka went their way and Shotblockers went the other way, but we’re all one family.
Jere: And what’s the other band?
Ezec: Icepick. And that’s for the retarded, heavy metal, Hatebreed fans. The hardcore fans. You know, like, “Hey! Hatebreed! Slayer!” That’s for those retards. It’s me and Jamey Jasta singing. It’s pretty hard. (laughter)