“When you have a band like us that experiment with their sound and bring in live components – like guitars and even doing heavy metal songs – people appreciate these things,” rapper Sen Dog (Senen Reyes) says of the band appearing on the Soundwave lineup. “The fact that we’ve never been afraid to try different things has really worked out for us and we’ve been able to tour with some of the greatest bands in the world and of our generation.”
Cypress Hill have always pushed the envelope of their genre tackling funk, metal, rock and more, and Reyes’ lifelong friendship with Dave Lombardo of Slayer has ever so slightly contributed to his own diverse tastes (in the late ‘90s Reyes took leave from Cypress Hill to pursue his rock/rap band SX-10). Collaborations with Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth punctuated their work in the early ‘90s and this sort of musical experimentation has continued throughout their career. In 2012, they even teamed up with dubstep artist Rusko for the EP Cypress X Rusko. Cynics out there may argue that Cypress Hill have been jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon, cashing in on fads, but that has never been their motivation. “Everything that we do musically is for ourselves and to fulfil our own dreams or fantasies; it all has to come from the heart,” he says. “We’re not trying to fit in where you get in type of thing. We grew up listening to a bunch of different genres of music and subliminally somehow, it transfers into our music. We also don’t wanna be the same thing album after album. You’ve gotta show some sort of growth with each album and if you’ve stayed doing the same thing you were doing in high school, and you’re 35 now doing the same style, you haven’t grown.”
In an era that has seen ‘90s nostalgia reach insane proportions, Cypress Hill are once again standing out from the crowd by continuing to move forward. Their set while in Australia is not going to be a carbon copy of their gigs from two decades ago. “We’re very proud of our past and what we’ve accomplished as far as selling records and touring numbers but that’s in the past,” he explains. “We were athletes before we were musicians and we’re driven by that competitive attitude. We still have it today and still want to take Cypress Hill to bigger places today and to do that we can’t just depend on Insane In The Brain or Rock Superstar to wow kids 20-something years later.”
Things have changed a lot in the hearts and minds of the Cypress Hill lads. From standing on the Bloods side of the Blood v. Crips street wars in L.A. in the late ‘80s to B-Real being shot in the lung in 1988 to saturating themselves in the rock star lifestyle, Cypress Hill have come out the other side of it all as better people that are still making kick-arse music.
“I find myself being a far more caring person now than when I started,” Reyes admits. “I’m a lot more relaxed now, not so mad at the world like a young fucker, you know? I actually care more about what’s happening in the world now and back then, I didn’t give a shit. It was all about, ‘Let’s go get fucked up, let’s tour, let’s make this money and come back and do the rock star thing’. That was fine at the time but somewhere along the way, things change, and they made me look at life way more seriously. Some events really shook me up and made me very pensive,” he says pausing for a moment. “Well, one was the death of Kurt Cobain and the other was the death of Tupac Shakur. Down the line, years from when it happened, you realise what a psychological effect it had on you. It turned me into an adult.”
It seems that Cypress Hill’s drive and genuine love for each other and for their musical family, has kept them going and kept them alive. Reyes seems just as enamoured by his band as he’s ever been. “For me man, there’s only one Cypress Hill in the entire world and I happen to be in it – that’s the coolest thing,” he says. “When we were kids, dreaming, we would talk about having a band that lasted forever like Kiss or The Rolling Stones. We’re living out our dreams so it’s pretty easy to stay motivated. Before a show, I have the best feeling because I know how it’s gonna go and I know I’m gonna see a whole heap of faces being thoroughly entertained. I’ll never, ever be able to get that out of my system.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
