You’ve been with Cypress Hill for a long time now and also been doing independent work…
I started Cypress Hill. I build that ship from scratch.
How do you feel you express yourself the best, with the group or doing solo work?
All of it. like I said I build that ship and now it’s sailing. I do a lot of shit, I’m multidimensional. I’m an artist, dude. I can’t paint the same fucking picture every day, I go fucking nuts, you know? I need new challenges, new experiences. I did a record with GZA 2 years ago. I just did a whole album with Jack from Psycho Realm. It came out 9/11 on Universal. I’m doing album Planet Asia. I’m DJing every day. I dig out a mash up radio show on Shade 45, every Monday, 10-12 Eastern time. It’s my boy DJ Solo from LA. Doing it real big baby. It’s coming up. That’s the next generation of soul assassins right there.
Do you enjoy doing production work also?
I love it all. I do production and then I need to get on the road and get away. Then I need to get back to the studio. I need it all. It all feeds each other. Too much of one thing gets stale. It gets redundant, it gets boring.
Cypress always advocated marijuana legalization. You don’t seem to act like a pot smoker, you’re very intense. Is that your artistic drive?
It’s the flame burning inside of me that keeps me going. Some people got a light flame. I got a motherfucking fire going. It ain’t no joke. You think it’s a motherfucking joke? Nobody fucking laughing around this motherfucker.
So where do you get your inspiration?
I get it all day, every day. I get it from my friends, from TV, I get it from my family. You know what I mean? I get it from music, I get it from art. Inspiration I draw from everything and anything. I see a fucking bird and wanna make a shirt with a bird on it, you know what I mean? My inspiration just flows from energy. I get it from everything. And titys too! I love titys! (laughs)
Do you feel the need to make more commercial music nowadays?
I don’t make commercial music. I never have. I don’t feel I have to either. I’m making more money right now than I ever have and you don’t see me on MTV, right? You don’t hear me on the radio, right? And I’m making more money than I did when I was on the radio. I never had to make commercial music. I never did a fucking song for the radio. Radio played my shit but I never made a song for the radio.
What’s your secret?
My secret is to make what I wanna make how I wanna make it. Underground fucking music the way I feel like making it. I come from the fame of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and fucking Black Sabbath. I don’t give a fuck about the radio. I’m punk rock baby. I’ll fuck you right on the video. Radio and video tells me what kind of music to make and what kind of art to make and what I need to do. I built such a foundation of so many funk kids, you know what I mean? I come from the punk rock mentality. I don’t ever bend or nothing. That’s why Cypress came out punk rock. The record I did with GZA was punk rock. We do what we wanna do, we don’t bend over for nobody. No one will ever tell us how we wanna do it.
So now you are doing with Cypress Hill. Is that a part of you right now?
When I’m in the studio that day, yes. When I leave the studio that day I’m back onto my other shit.
It sounds like you are more influenced by rock music?..
I always have. I’ve always been influenced by the esthetic of rock, you know? It’s music. Man. I don’t even separate it. I love Sade. I love Barry White. I love Bob Marley. It’s just music. I don’t put boundaries and labels on it. that’s what you all do. You all label shit. You don’t know where to put canbals in fucking Rice O Roni. You need a label to put it on the fucking shelf. I just make music.
What kind of fans do you mostly have, Cypress Hill fans or DJ Muggs fans?
Usually? You see titys and fat asses, brunettes, blondes… all the girls love me. Cypress Hill are the pot-smoking hippies. All the bitches love me.
Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans?
I love all my bitches. All my girls. I invite all the girls to my shows. Every night I got a show at my house, they come over. This is a concert. That’s what it is.
Where are you nowadays?
LA, NY, Spain…