The Real-Life Diet of John Joseph, the 56-Year-Old Punk Icon Who Hates Meat
Before I even get a question out, John Joseph tells me he’s having surgery in less than 24 hours. “Nothing major, just a hernia,” he says. “I raced my last two Ironmans with it actually—you can see a picture of me at an Ironman in Thailand, and I’m running and holding the fucking hernia.”
Joseph, the longtime singer for the legendary hardcore band the Cro-Mags, is a tough dude. He’s still touring and performing, and he’s raced in ten Ironmans. His secret for staying so tough? A plant-based diet. The 56-year-old will eat a little bit of anything, and cook a little bit of anything on his YouTube channel, as long as there are no animal products involved. He was even given the honor of naming a meal at the vegan Organic Grill in New York City—he anointed the pulled jackfruit sandwich the “Triple J.”
Joseph spoke to GQ about the benefits of eating veggies, his fond memories of cooking big family dinners with the members of Motörhead and Bad Brains, and his favorite vegan restaurants from around the world.
GQ: You maintain a plant-based diet, right?
John Joseph: Absolutely, 100 percent organic and locally sourced as much as possible. I’ll tell you what, man, I had a really tough upbringing. I was raised in the foster system, got out in ‘77, hit the streets, and started getting into trouble for a few years. After that, I joined the Navy and met some Rastas in Jamaica in 1980. They ended up schooling me on “Ital,” which is a pure vegan diet. It didn’t really resonate with me for a bit, but the seed was planted.
Right, so when did you go all the way with it?
A few months later, I met the Bad Brains at a gig in Norfolk, Virginia. H.R. [the lead singer] took me aside and schooled me on keeping a positive mental attitude and eating a plant-based diet. After my tour in the Navy was over, I came back to New York, and who do I see standing on the corner of Avenue A? H.R.—he’s there with the Beastie Boys.
I started hanging with them, and they got me a job in a health-food store. While I was working there, I started doing research and came to the conclusion that cutting out all the meat, dairy, and processed foods was the right thing to do. It helped me out so much.
How so?
Back then, I walked around with a lot of anger. When I started to eat like this, that anger began subsiding. With all I was reading those days—different books about spirituality and such—I realized that we were ingesting the suffering of these animals by consuming their flesh. After that I was like, “I ain't ever going back,” and I never have.
It was really a decision that was firstly for the animals. “Rastafari” means “prince of peace,” and it was broken down to me by H.R. that we want peace on this planet, but we’re creating a hell and torturing animals by unnecessarily thinking that they’re our food.
I got deeper into it, started studying with the nutritionist Viktoras Kulvinskas about the raw-food diet and how it can fight and prevent disease. In the United States and most of the world, medicine is all about treating disease after it comes, but I started trying to prevent it in my body.
It sounds like that was a pretty radical shift in your life.
From where I was, yeah. People can’t even believe the shit that I went through as a kid on the streets—I got shot at, I sold drugs, I watched someone almost get killed in front of me. Just insane stuff that no 14-year-old kid should have to go through, especially in this system with my brothers in basically an insane asylum of a foster home. You know, people may look at who I am in 2019, but they don’t understand the 40 years of work to get to this point. And I’m still a work in progress.
I feel like there’s a perception that a plant-based or vegan diet is a rigorous and difficult thing to maintain. Is that your experience?
Not at all, dude. It’s second nature at this point. You know, we look at everything that we put into our cars, we’re obsessed with the fine details of all those sorts of things. But when it comes to what we put in our bodies, man, if you read the label and you can’t pronounce this shit, you shouldn’t be eating it. Our body is our only vehicle to get through life.
When I started doing this diet and I went on tour with the Bad Brains, we had to bring all this rice and beans and tahini on the road with us. Now, I’m 57 years old this year, and we’ve got Happy Cow, health-food stores, Whole Foods, healthy restaurants everywhere. It’s easier than before, but it requires a little work on your part, time-wise. But you know what? Where else are you gonna spend the time? Because if you don’t spend it taking care of yourself and eating properly, your quality of life is gonna go to hell.
I'm vegetarian, and I noticed that once I stopped eating meat and changed my diet, I started to shop differently, cook more, and experiment with a lot more food. Do you think that’s happened for you, too?
Oh, absolutely. You have this learning curve. But back in 1981, when I was like, “Wow, I wanna eat this food all the time,” there weren't any places that cooked this stuff. That encouraged me to go on a search—we didn’t even have the Internet back then, if you can imagine that.
But that’s how I learned to cook. There were a few big life experiences: I lived as a monk for two years in a Hare Krishna temple and learned a bunch there. When I went on tour, we were making family dinners, and I learned from people like the Bad Brains. We would get together and have these family dinners. It was something I never had in the foster system. Sometimes we literally had to eat dog food. So it was an amazing feeling when it got to the point where it was like, “Hey, man, I can cook this food and have these beautiful dinners with my friends.” I would get high as a fucking kite, but off my food and the positive energy we had at these dinners. Nowadays, you got all these amazing vegan chefs who have books out, and it’s never been easier to get the products and recipes they use.
There’s something so nice about that family dinner and the community aspect behind it.
Exactly, man. Back in the day, we went on tour with Motörhead. We were basically not even getting paid. Our manager was ripping us off, so we would take our per diem and pool it all together, and I would go to the supermarket and cook for all of us. One day, one of the roadies from Motörhead comes in and he’s like [in an English accent], “Hey, man, what are you cooking in here, mate? That smells pretty fucking good!” I ended up cooking for all of us all together. Lemmy [the bassist from Motörhead] came up to me and was like, “That’s pretty fucking cool.” There’s so much camaraderie around food.
That rules. I also wanted to ask you about your Ironman training, which seems like a pretty grueling thing to get into. Do you think your diet helps you at all with that?
Absolutely—a high-alkaline diet reverses inflammation and helps you to recover quicker. The superfoods, the chia seeds, the greens, all of that helps get you going the next day. That’s why so many athletes are going plant-based now. I’m banging out hundred-mile rides, get off my bike, and then run 15 miles right after. How the fuck are you going to come back from that the next day when you’re eating a bunch of meat that’s sitting in your gut? It’s not even just the meat either, it’s the processed foods, too. That's the key: a whole-food, plant-based diet.
Do you have any good vegan or vegetarian spots that you love going to?
I just came back from Miami, and the most amazing restaurant down there is Love Life Cafe. In New York City, you’ve got to check out Candle 79, Organic Grill, and Modern Love. In Los Angeles, you’ve got Crossroads. Berlin, this place called Yellow Sunshine, which has, like, organic fast food.
Lastly, as a veteran of the hardcore/punk/metal scene, what’s one thing that you see going on today that you think is really cool?
Fitness, fitness, fitness. What the fuck is so punk rock about being sick in your 40s? I want to be out there kicking ass like I was in my 20s, and I still am. The real thing is to take care of yourself and be healthy. The drummer from Terror ran the Boston Marathon and then played a show later that day. If you watch him play drums, he friggin’ beats the crap out of those drums. One of the things I was always taught was “Example is always better than precept.” Basically, it doesn’t mean a hill of fucking beans unless you’re showing others the example. You’ve got to share the knowledge with everybody else, and this is the best way to do it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Originally Appeared on GQ
