In Conversation: Vinnie Stigma of Agnostic Front
A new memoir dubs him "the most interesting man in the world," but the reality of being Vinnie Stigma is a lot more down-to-earth: He has only ever wanted to honor the people and places that made him.
There’s a very particular claim that Agnostic Front singer Roger Miret has made, repeatedly and in different ways, over the years: “There’s no ill will in Vinnie Stigma, there’s nothing mean,” he says of his lifelong friend and bandmate in the foreword to Stigma’s recent memoir. “He wants everybody to be happy, he wants everybody to get along… I’ve never met anybody who lives like Vinnie; never a worry or concern, it’s amazing.” It stands out because, in 2024, there are very few people who can claim to live worry-free. And much like the name of Stigma’s memoir, The Most Interesting Man in the World, I always assumed this claim—as persistent as it is—was still just a little bit of friendly hyperbole.
This is, after all, Vinnie Stigma that we’re talking about here. He was there at the dawn of punk and he was there at the birth of hardcore. He founded Agnostic Front in 1980, when he was 25 years old, and he somehow continues to play with the band today—less than one month shy of his 69th birthday. His tattooed body and trademark scowl have signified hardcore angst for the better part of the last 45 years. And yet as I came to discover in this conversation, Stigma himself is not angsty. If anything, it’s just the opposite: He loves people, he loves community, he loves culture, he really does love being alive. And much like Roger attests, Stigma very much arranges his life in a way that nurtures only these things.
Vinnie Stigma is a steward of sorts. For hardcore, yes, of course. But also for an old world way of being that is deeply rooted in New York, in the midcentury Italian diaspora, in family, and even in the Lower East Side building where he has lived his entire life. He has a dogged resistance to change—and he will be the first to tell you that—but Stigma is still remarkably willing to adapt. I also believe from speaking with him that his aspirations are, in fact, devoid of ill will. “You got your act and you leave it on stage,” he tells me. “But you come off stage and you be a regular person, you be a good person. And believe me: I’m not going to fuck up.”
In the introduction to your book, [co-author] Howie Abrams tells the story of the first time he went to CBGB in 1984. He writes that you blindly went up to him and kind of personally welcomed him into the scene—and then he surmises that many people also share some version of that story. But my first literal brush-in with you wasn’t actually in the eighties. It was in 1992, when I was on tour with Ressurection and Lifetime. We were driving through Pennsylvania when we saw another van pull up beside us on the highway. It was obvious that everyone in both vans were trying to eye each other up, that we knew we were both touring bands. Whoever was riding shotgun in the other van finally gave us the sign to roll our window down, and when we did, out of nowhere, you stuck your head outside of that window and screamed, “We’re AF! Pull over!” [laughs]. We spent the next ten minutes just hanging out with you guys at the gas station, shooting the shit. Is that something you normally do?
VINNIE: To tell you the truth, yeah! [laughs] If I’m on the subway and I see another punk rocker or a hardcore person or a tattooed person, I don’t know, I’ll just strike up a conversation. I mean, I was just at DiPalo’s buying food—you know, like my gorgonzola cheese and my burrata della and all these high-end cheeses—and I just started talking to everyone. I saw a guy with an Austin City Limits shirt, so I said, “Are you from Texas?” He said yeah, and I told him, “I just played the Moody Center with the Misfits. I just played the House of Blues with Sepultura just a couple of weeks ago!” I’d rather start up a conversation. It’s better than just standing there.
There was a moment where we thought, “Agnostic Front is pulling us over. Do they want to fight?” [laughs]
VINNIE: We actually used to pull the van over to watch Roger [Miret] and Craig [Setari] fight all the time. The guys in the band would fight and I would cheer against Roger because he was always the one instigating it. Craig is strong, though! So we’d let them go. You think Roger would have learned his lesson by today? I don’t think so!
The other story I wanted to bring up comes from one of my best friends, [Cause For Alarm singer and one-time Agnostic Front singer] Keith Burkhardt.
VINNIE: OK, Keith!
I was texting with him this morning and I told him I was speaking with you. Keith wrote back, “Tell him I said hello! When I moved into what became known as Apartment X, the first time my father came to visit you can imagine he was a bit nervous about the whole situation. Living in a cellar with no windows. I was seventeen. But he happened to meet Vinnie out front and Vinnie made him feel good about everything. So my father went home feeling a lot better about his delinquent son. He really enjoyed talking to Vinnie and he referenced him many times over the years.”
VINNIE: I met with Mr. Burkhardt a couple of times through the years before he passed. He was kind of like me in a way, you know? He was a street Italian guy, a knock-around guy. Keith is not that way; he was more of a square egg [laughs]. But yeah, his father was a real sweetheart of a guy. I also remember one time when we were playing, Keith’s daughter showed up at a show. She said, “I’m Keith Burkhardt’s daughter”—and that was all she had to say. I was like, “Come here! Everybody, backstage!” And then, “Go stand over here where it’s safe.” We’ve always been very family-oriented.
The family part of your story is fascinating, especially because I now have this almost mythical idea of 285 Mott Street. I just love that there’s this physical space that you’re almost anchored to in a way, which is something that most of us don’t have. You’ve literally been there your whole life, and at one point, that building almost served as a communal space for your entire family.
VINNIE: Well, it’s kind of rough because, you know, I’m [still] here. It’s where I’m talking to you right now. And all around me there was an orbit of family and people that I grew up with. Now I look at their doors and… Apartment B18, my grandmother lived there. I look at it like a tombstone now. As a matter of fact, I just noticed that my aunt’s mop that was hanging out the window isn’t there anymore. She’s been dead 25 years, and her mop was still hanging out there, but it’s not there! I just noticed it now! But all around me, all these doors are shut down. I just have the spirit here with me, and it lives with me when I walk through my building.
Like, now there’s nobody allowed on the roof. They got an alarm up there. But my mother and father got married on that roof. I had a pigeon coop on the roof when I was a kid. I used to go up there and get my sun—“tar beach,” you know? [laughs] It was cool. Get a little fresh air and play that song: [He sings] “When this old world starts getting me down / I go up on the roof.” Like the Drifters. It’s slowly taken away, but I gotta move. I gotta move forward with it, but I carry it with me wherever I go.
The other connection is that I lived so close to CBs that we would hang out here and write out the set lists… This [apartment] was like the backstage! You know, I was just in Canada a week ago and I met this guy in a band called Vomit and the Zits. We used to have this connection in 1985—the Montreal-New York connection ‘85—and all four bands would stay in this apartment: Countdown Zero, Vomit and the Zits, Gassenhauer, and Blood Sausage. Basically, they’d park all their vans out there and everyone would stay here. And my grandma and all my aunts would always bring in bowls of pasta on the Capodimonte dish—the money dish. I was not allowed to wash that dish because they were afraid I might chip it [laughs].
How big is that apartment?
VINNIE: It’s not that big!
Between the book and the movie, I feel like I’ve been able to crib together a couple of vague ideas about your parents. At least in my perception, it seems to me like your father was a little mysterious…
VINNIE: Yeah, a little bit. He was a good guy. He wasn’t a bad guy. But he was one of the “goodfellas” [laughs]—you had to, you know? It was a thing.
…and it seems like your mother was more of the hammer.
VINNIE: Yes, that’s true. The wooden spoon. I was so fucking afraid of that fucking spoon. I don’t know what happened to it. I think it was made of balsa wood. She would just come at me with it and I’d be so afraid.
How would you describe your personal relationships with each of them? I don’t really feel like you get into that in the book.
VINNIE: I mean, good. I was with my mom until the day she died. And then my father, he wound up getting married to some other girl and he smoked his life away. That was about it, you know? I got the [love for cooking] food from my mom and I got the streetwise from my father. But I didn’t come from a broken home. My father was good to me; he never hit me or nothing like that. It was only my mother with the wooden spoon.
I’m always curious when I hear about punks with good family lives because I didn’t have that, so hardcore was a relief from that for me in a lot of ways.
VINNIE: I understand that.
Which is why I’m trying to figure out what you think you didn’t get at home that led you to become a disaffected street punk?
VINNIE: To be honest with you, I always did it more because I loved it and I had fun with it. I had no problems at home, you know what I mean? I never ran away from home or none of that kind of stuff. I just enjoyed playing punk music because I was always somewhat a musician—somewhat a musician!—even when it was hard rock and I was in a band in 1973. I still had the band. When hard rock turned into punk rock, I made that jump. And then when punk rock turned into hardcore, I made that jump. I just loved music and I loved having a good time with my friends. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so that’s why I had a lot of friends. My mother always told me, “You got a lot of friends” [laughs]. But she loved them all. All good people.
You know what it was, though? I could walk to the clubs. It was the neighborhood. I could walk to Max’s Kansas City. Even back in the day, TR3 or the Mudd Club. These are all just outside my neighborhood, and I rolled to all those clubs. The thing is with punk rock—what the Sex Pistols and Johnny Rotten did—is that they made it seem like you could do it, too. And I feel like I had that attitude. I looked at bands and I looked at whatever it was they were doing, and I said, “Yeah. I could do that.” That gives hope to a kid out there that’s in a club for the first time, looking around with a lot of other punk rockers. It feels like he might not fit it, but you could bridge that gap.
And you did your part in the neighborhood. You basically provided all the gear that bands would play at A7 and CBs for a long time.
VINNIE: Right. I’ve had studios all my life. I always practiced where my grandfather made his wine in the basement, right here in this building. And I used to love gear. I loved big amps. Them days are over [laughs]. But I had a lot of equipment. So I would supply all the equipment for the bands: I had a Sunn 105 cabinet with a head. I had an Ampeg V4 cabinet with the head. I had a set of drums, except for some cymbals. And I would just dole it out to the bands. Whoever wanted to play it.
There’s a clip in The Godfathers of Hardcore where an interviewer asks everyone in the band, “Who started Agnostic Front?” and you just sit there silently for 30 seconds. You really, really didn’t want to take the credit. I feel like that kind of modesty is a theme with you.
VINNIE: I don’t want to be responsible for anything [laughs]. But I don’t know… It’s no big deal. I’m very proud of Agnostic Front and what we did because I’ve always believed in myself. Don’t ever believe in a band that doesn’t believe in themselves. I see it. I can almost sense it sometimes, when bands are doing it for the wrong reasons. If you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, don’t do it. Save yourself the pain and don’t do it.
You originally wrote “Power” when you played with The Eliminators. I’ve never heard that band, but how different was that from the version that AF plays?
VINNIE: It’s the same. I’ve been playing that song for almost 50 years—since 1978.
I mean, if you played that song for me tomorrow and I’d never heard it, I would say, “That’s hardcore.” Did you know back then that you wanted to do something harder-edged than punk?
VINNIE: I was in the moment. I was younger. You know, you get older and you gotta cook, you gotta shop, you gotta eat, you got kids, you got a job. Life gets more difficult and there’s not enough time in the day. But then, strictly from the minute I woke up, I was punk rock. I am today, but I just live it. But them days I would get up and I was always going to wear my “costume.” I call it “the costume.” I still got the leather jacket and the bondage pants. I went to Paul [Bakija] from Reagan Youth’s memorial at Niagara yesterday and I wanted to dress up in my old clothes. I still fit into them, too.
There’s a point that you make in the book that really resonates with me because I don’t hear a lot of hardcore people say this. You write: “To be clear, I think of myself as an entertainer first and foremost, and I have great respect for those who make a living entertaining others, whether they’re musicians, actors, or anything else. It takes talent and balls.”
VINNIE: It does.
100 percent. I remember in 1993, when I was in Shelter, watching some videos of myself and thinking, “Man, people are paying money to see you play and it looks like you’re not even feeling it.” It really changed the way I approached playing live. At some point, I had to just accept that part of what I was doing was, in fact, entertaining an audience. Is that how you think about it?
VINNIE: Yes! Even until today. Like, whenever I wind up at a festival in Germany somewhere, I will go out early in the morning and I’ll go out into the field and I will look at the stage and say to myself, “Where’s the best spot so everybody could see me?” [laughs] When you’re out there, you gotta just give it. You gotta leave it all on stage. Tomorrow’s another day, and then you leave it on stage again. Don’t be afraid. Just go for it.
A lot of hardcore kids have this virtue that “realness” is going on stage in whatever clothes you were wearing that day and just doing whatever the fuck you do. They’d see that as “authentic” and so-called performance as “inauthentic.” I’m curious how you see the difference.
VINNIE: A lot of it is entertainment. There’s choreography. There’s gotta be a good soundman. Even the lighting guy, you know? It’s part of the show. And I want to put on a good show because it’s not about me. It’s about them. My band Stigma, my solo band, people always come up to me and say, “Vinnie, I had so much fun just watching you guys.” Because we come out like the Rat Pack. One time we came out with a rolling bar. Sometimes I do this thing where I act like the ending [to a song] don’t end right and I yell at the band—it’s all part of the act. I talk to the audience like, “Look at these fuckin’ guys over here!” And I get them in on the joke. I’m not afraid to be payaso. Because you’ve gotta recognize the audience. I wave to people, I tell everybody thank you, I show respect to military people or specially challenged children. I always make sure they’re on stage and I make a big deal, you know what I mean? Because we’ve all gotta thank God that we’re able to do this.
There’s a part in Roger’s foreword to your book where he writes, “I’ve never met anybody who lives like Vinnie: never a worry or concern, it’s amazing.” Do you really think that’s true?
VINNIE: It’s true. You know why it’s true? I went to the doctor one day for a checkup and I had perfect blood pressure. The lady said, “I have never seen anybody with such perfect blood pressure.” And I was like, “Yeah. It’s because I don’t give a fuck” [laughs]. I don’t know.
But the book does reveal a few concerns. For one thing, you seem to repeatedly express frustration over change. Especially with New York City.
VINNIE: I don’t like change. I don’t. Like, I remember when they zinced the quarters. Because when I was a kid, [quarters were made from] silver and you could even hear it. We used to toss a coin, heads or tails, and when they zinced the coin I was like, “Something’s not right here!” [laughs]. At an early age I remember that. But I miss things like Dave’s Corner. Ratner’s. You know, the old New York places. The Chelsea Hotel. There’s a Jewish bakery that closed a couple of years ago. All these old school places. I miss that. But it’s kind of a ghost. I feel a little déjà vu in my own head. It’s about the memory and the people who have been here before. It’s like, they deserve more. These are the people that built New York; they made New York.
It also feels like you hate being misunderstood—and this comes up most specifically when you talk about the early skinhead era of Agnostic Front. I’m curious about this because I had my own skinhead era, but aside from the look, what did being a skinhead actually mean to you at the time? Did you actually have some sort of coherent philosophy about it?
VINNIE: We were just New York skins. We were out there having a good time. We shaved our heads. We got tattoos. There wasn’t a political agenda or a social agenda.
But early in AF’s career you definitely talked about being a band that wanted to comment on social issues.
VINNIE: We still do. Even my last album, Get Loud, you had “Conquer and Divide”… a lot of great songs on there. But yeah, for me, it was really more about being a hardcore skinhead ex-punk rocker. I never, never wore a Fred Perry. Maybe once to a funeral or something. A lot of people would give them to me, and I’m like, “Thanks, I don’t wear this shit” [laughs]. I’m not that kind of skinhead. I used to wear zipper boots. I didn’t shine them. I was never that guy.
One part of your life that I would imagine would have given you some kind of strife would have been that period where Roger went to prison and Agnostic Front basically broke up. Take me back to that place. What were you thinking at the time?
VINNIE: It’s a lot of years ago. But basically, I knew I had to put Agnostic Front on hold and wait for Roger, which is what we did. I wouldn’t do it without Roger—and he was supposed to be in jail longer. I was really scared. He got four-to-life. I still worry for him; I worry for his health, I worry for a lot of reasons. But back then I was concerned [that the band was over]. I mean, four-to-life. I was more worried about Roger getting life, you know? He’d still be in prison today. What a crazy sentence! I can see when they say 25-to-life, but four? It’s like, wait a minute, what did you do? How many people did you kill? [laughs] But thankfully, he came out in two years.
At one point in the book, you say there’s “almost no difference between Vinnie Capuccio and Vinnie Stigma”—the key word, to me, being “almost.” In what important ways do you think the “Vinnie Stigma” character differs from the person off stage?
VINNIE: Well first of all, I leave that guy on stage. You got your act and you leave it on stage. But you come off stage and you be a regular person, you be a good person. And believe me: I’m not going to fuck up. I’ve got too much of a good reputation. I’ve always made friends. Always. I could care less who you are or what you are. I don’t care. Nothing matters to me because all my life I’ve lived among the people and I enjoy all the cultures. When I’m on tour and everybody’s sitting backstage or whatever, I say, “Fuck you guys. I’m going to go out and meet the real people.” And I’ll just walk up to somebody, anybody, and say, “Thanks for coming to the show”—and I’ll start drinking with them, making friends.
I’m looking at [turning] 70 years old, you know what I mean? I don’t know how many 70-year-old guys are still going to go on a major tour and not complain—physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. I’m happy with myself and my music and my life and my worries. You know, I’m retired now. My rent don’t go up. My gas and electric last month was thirty dollars. Nothing matters to me no more.
Have you ever been anywhere where you just felt like, “I don’t belong here”?
VINNIE: Yeah, a few places. Even recently, I was in Montauk and I went to a yacht club because my girlfriend has a little yacht in Snug Harbor. I went to this place and I felt a little uncomfortable. But then I said to myself, “Fuck you. I’m comfortable. I’m here. I’m not going to feel uncomfortable.”
More than anyone else I’ve ever talked to, it really feels like your entire objective is to just be exactly who you are all the time and to be happy.
VINNIE: Yeah. You got it. Sometimes I’m so happy I say to myself, “Am I crazy?” [laughs]
So when was the last time you cried?
VINNIE: Pretty recently, at a Q&A for the book. There’s a story in the book about a guy I [was coaxed into crank-calling]. I was like [in a deeply affected New York Italian accent], “Hey, come down to the show and I’ll break your fuckin’ legs! You better show up!”—you know, the whole thing. Anyway, on the next tour we come around and I’m at an aftershow party and Mike [Gallo] says, “Hey Vinnie, there’s a guy downstairs. He wants to talk to you.” So I go downstairs and I see this fucking giant of a guy. I walk up to him and he says, “You’re Stigma?” And I go, “Yeah.” He says, “You crank called me?” I said, “I did.” And he says, “You don’t know how much that meant to me. We were [on active duty] in Iraq when you called. You made us laugh. It took us to a better place.” So, you know, telling that story the other day, I cried.
I even tear up when I tell the story about the guy right next door in [Apartment] B16. Jean Salisi lived in B16 and her husband was a World War II vet. He lost part of his face, he had a fake eye, and he worked for Fanny Farmer when I was a little kid—like five, eight years old. I’d be playing in the hallway with my cousin and I’d hear Jean Salisi yell, “Vincent! Come up! Jimmy’s got something for you!” And I fucking knew just what he got. He’d come out with his hand behind his back and then he’d give me a box of Fanny Farmer [candy], because I would help carry his wife’s groceries up. Respect. So he’d give me a box of Fanny Farmer and me and my cousin would knock that off in five minutes—right outside my door, right here where I’m sitting now. The whole box. God.
There was another lady, Lily Caggiano, she lived underneath me. I seen her when I was forty-something years old and I was like, “Hey Lily, how are you?” And she said, “Hey Vinnie, how are you? You’re such a good boy.” Because I used to see her coming up the block and I’d run up to her and grab her groceries. She lived on the fifth floor. I’d go up there and leave them by her door. She said, “You’re still with the band?” They always ask if I’m still with the band. They know me as the punk rocker from the neighborhood. I told her yeah and she says, “I’m going to church right now. I’m going to light a candle for you.” I’m not even fucking dead! I’m not dead and they’re lighting candles for me because I show respect. And this is the way I get it back. I live my life like that.
Even in the book, whenever you talk about people in our scene who have passed, like Raybeez or Todd Youth or Steve Poss, it feels like there’s almost this stubborn determination to keep the people around you present through stories.
VINNIE: I’m alive. But I live with the dead. I’m always with the dead.
What do you think about when you think about the end of Agnostic Front?
VINNIE: The same thing I think about when I think about the end of my life. I think about how, first of all, I’d like to leave a good memory—a good catalog, a good reputation, all that. Because you know, the curtain will fall on all of us one day. Whether you’re in a band or you’re a truck driver, that curtain’s gonna fall. And I know that, so I appreciate it now more than ever. I always have. I’ve been saying that for the last 50 years because I’ve always appreciated that I am physically and mentally able to do this.
The same thing in life, though. I wonder, who’s going to live in this apartment? There’s a French guy living in my grandmother’s apartment. There’s a supermodel living in my mother’s apartment. These are transplants from somewhere else. I’ll have to have my friends put out a plaque [laughs]. But the curtain will fall one day. I don’t fear death. As long as you leave a good footprint, it’ll all be OK.
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Man, that's exactly the interview and vibe I needed for today.
What. A. True. Legend.
Though my face time with him has always been short—“Thanx for playing tonight Vinnie”, “Killer set Vinnie”, “Thank you for years of enthusiastic delivery and honesty Vinnie”—I do have a fun and favorite story:
I was one of a few guys and gals working the stage at Seattle’s now famous RKCNDY club. When during one of the shows that Agnostic Front was to start their set, he kindly asked if I might check on his guitar rig, as he was unable to generate sound out of it. The band all stared at me. The crowd seemed to stare at me (at least I felt so).
The house sound had been turned off and everyone was waiting to witness these icons.
With a rediculous amount of stress and spotlight now on me, I did my best to check all cables, fuses and power. I was able to get things rolling and he thanked me with a hug… like, a real and true hug.
And then, he thanked me by name a few times while pointing at me at different times in their set. Each time, he rolled his guitar volume off, and with hands free to point and clap, he did so.
There was no reason for that. But he did it. We weren’t friends or family. But, you better believe that he made me feel like it.
Legend.