Iron Cross

Genre:Street Punk,Oi!,Hardcore Punk

Iron Cross is a hardcore/Oi! band from Baltimore, Maryland and Washington D.C.They play a rough form of streetpunk, and is the first band in the United States to adopt the skinhead look and the Oi! musical style.Some early members were original to the DC Skinheads (the first Skinhead scene in North America) and 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 with most of its members being Skinheads — led to accusations of fascism, which Grey and others in the band and the original DC Skins have always denied. Grey stated in the 1st Iron Cross press kit in 1982, "...oh, and we're not Nazis!"

Iron Cross formed in Washington, DC when Dante Ferrando met Sab Grey. Ferrando was previously in the band Broken Cross with Mark Haggerty while in school. When Grey and Ferrando 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. This lineup lasted a very short time with Falls leaving after Iron Cross' early show at the American University. After Falls' departure the band went through two more bassists before settling on Wendell Blow, the former bassist for the DC hardcore punk band State of Alert, or as it is known SOA.The only non-skinhead in the band was Ferrando, who has usually maintained a spiky hairstyle.