I did a telephone interview recently with Cypress Hill's Sen Dog. It was before the rappers canceled their May 21 show in Tucson to protest the state's new immigration law, so we didn't talk about that.
We did talk about their new album, "Rise Up," and contributions from the likes of Rage Against the Machine guitar wizard Tom Morello and Marc Anthony (yes, that Marc Anthony).
A shorter version of the interview will run in the May 18 paper as my column, which doesn't give me the kind of space to go into the kind of detail that I and readers like me love to soak up. Fortunately, this blog does!
So here's a deluxe edition version of the column.
The group plays at 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 19 at Club 101. Hyro da Hero, Thugizzle and EP's own Enemy 1 open the show.
Tickets are $26, on sale at the club, All That Music & Video and ticketbully.com.
EL PASO — Cypress Hill’s Sen Dog laughs at the prospect of working for Snoop Dogg.
“Who could say Snoop’s my boss,” he asked. “We’ll get to smoke blow with the boss atop the Capitol Records building!”
He may not be joking. Cypress Hill long has been known for its pro-marijuana stance. Their new boss, a contemporary who recently took over the revived Priority Records, isn’t exactly an opponent himself.
But the buzz around these West Coast rap-rock icons these days is that they have a new, star-studded album, “Rise Up.” It’s their first new studio album in six years and first for Priority, home of N.W.A. and Eazy-E, where Snoop is now top dog. He signed Cypress Hill on Jan. 15.
“He really wanted us there,” said Sen Dog (real name Senes Reyes), who’ll lead fellow rapper B-Real (Louis Freese), percussionist Eric Bobo and touring DJ Julio G into Club 101 for an 8 p.m. Wednesday show.
“He was excited to have a band like Cypress Hill to be a part of the lead-off project there,” Sen Dog said by phone from his garage in Downey, Calif., where he was pumping iron. “It couldn’t get no better (for us) again. The gods shined upon us, let the sun hit us and gave us another big thing. The gods have given their blessings and we’ll keep rolling with them, I mean all the way to the bank, know what I mean?”
They certainly were bankable in the 1990s. Cypress Hill was the first Latin rap group to have million-selling albums. They did it routinely, and songs like “Insane in the Brain,” with B-Real’s infectious “insane in the membrane” chorus, were all over MTV and radio.
Cypress Hill was no one-hitter wonder, but lost momentum once its members, including DJ Muggs, ventured away for solo projects. The group, which played two Lollapalooza tours and the 1994 Woodstock festival, only released three albums this decade before “Rise Up.” Only one of them, 2000’s “Skull & Bones,” went platinum.
But “Rise Up,” which debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard albums chart, could turn the tables. It’s a return to the rap-rock fusion for which they’re known, but also ventures into some unchartered territory.
“We just wanted to go in and make songs, jam out (stuff) that felt good and felt fun,” Sen Dog said, “not just there in the studio environment, but stuff that would be fun to do onstage.”
“Rise Up” features 10 producers and contributions from Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, System of a Down’s Daran Malakian and Everlast. No surprise there.
The presence of pop singer Marc Anthony and Miami rapper Pitbull on the Latino-flavored “Armada Latina” is. “He took the album over the top and gave it that freakish nature ... and made it a more well-rounded album,” Sen Dog said, crediting producer Jim Jonsin, who’s working on J. Lo’s new album, for getting him in the studio with them.
“We thought, ‘He’s not going to come down here and sing for us potheads, you know,” the rapper laughed.
But he did. Sen Dog was amazed.
"His wife was at the George Lopez show, so he was in town. I had to go down to make sure the real s--- would be there and not do no vocals from the hotel suite," he said. "The dude shows up. He's funny as hell to hang around with. I'm glad we invited him. He sings on the record and I'm thinking we've got a good, strong song. When I first heard him sing, I was like, 'Uh, oh, we got some fire. It's going to flip people out."
“Rise Up” covers mostly familiar ground for the group, which canceled its May 21 show in Tucson to protest Arizona’s new immigration law. Its mix of hardcore rap and hard rock was unique when the band first came on the scene in the early '90s. Sen Dog said he grew up loving rock as a kid. He even played air guitar in the mirror to Kiss songs.
"It's always been a big part of our lives," he said. "Not just as fans, but musicians as well. As far as our band, now it's something we're known for. Once we did that and people accepted us for it, it was like, 'Oh, man, Cypress can rock out. I think it boosted us to a whole other level of the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy and that kind of Run-DMC thing, that f------ stratosphere."
Speaking of boosts, the album got several from the likes of Morello, who co-wrote and co-produced two songs, including the title track.
"Tom Morello asked me to tour with him in 2008 in The Nightwatchman thing. We were in a van going to a gig and I remember it very clearly. He asked me a question. It was in front of Slash and Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) and he said, 'Hey, what's Cypress Hill up to?' I told him we were making an album. He said, 'I think I've got something for you if you're interested.' I was like, yeah, cool."
That something was "Rise Up," which he passed along in demo form. "By the time we heard it in Amsterdam we were bombed out of our f------ minds. The instrumental was incredible. The next morning I had to go back. I got to hear it sober. It was better sober than when we were all loaded."
Slash also recorded with the group, but the intricacies of the money and other considerations got in the way and his contributions didn't make the final cut.
"I was on a f------ mission to get that song done with him. I'm pissed it didn't work out," Sen Dog said, noting that it could see the light of day eventually. "We'll figure out something for it, if not now, we'll release it later."
Morello also co-wrote and co-produced "Shut 'Em Down," an update of the Public Enemy classic. PE's one of Sen and B-Real's all-time favorite groups, but he admitted they had concerns about doing their take on the song.
"We actually were thinking people would think we're ripping off Public Enemy or something like that, but listen to our 'Shut 'Em Down' and theirs and they're two completely different songs," he said. "It's not like we covered one of their songs, but we felt empowered to do something along those terms where it's like a tribute. Here's our version, but ours is different, kinda sorta."
Sen Dog thinks that "wide-open" approach paid off. He said "Rise Up" captures the sound of a veteran group that’s having fun.
“We knew that working with different cats and producers was a good look because we’d never done it before,” he said. “Here we are 20 years later and I think we put out an album that shows that we’re still a vital part of today’s music.”
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