CYPRESS HILL & JULIO G  (September 2010) | Interview By: Nima Etminan & Lil Jay

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Interview was conducted in July 2010 

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Cypress Hill // Video Interview // Dubcnn

Press Play to stream the interview (Fast Connections Recommended)



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Dubcnn: First of all, introduce yourself!

Julio G: Check it out man, Julio G, Westside Radio, Cypress Hill, "Rise Up" tour. Out in Europe doing it big! Wassup Dubcnn?

Eric Bobo: Eric Bobo, Cypress Hill, Audio Hustlaz, in effect right here in Switzerland. Dubcnn!

B-Real: Wassup, B-Real, Cypress Hill, Soul Assassins, Audio Hustlaz. We're representing worldwide, you see it. We're just rising up.


Dubcnn: OK, we're here at the Touch The Lake Festival in Switzerland right now. And one thing that Cypress Hill is known for is the live shows, y'all been on the road for like 20 years now, and -- Oh Shit, who we got right there? Who is you?

Sen Dog: What y'all niggas doing? Y'all got any weed? What you smoking on?

Everybody: *laughing*


Dubcnn: Well shit, that threw me off!

Julio G: That's part of the live show. To be honest with you, we're having so much fun off the show, just from the airport to when we get back to the airport and leave. The whole time is just cracking jokes. Even when shit's fucked up we make a joke out of it, and I think that just goes with the whole thing. We just have a lot of fun with what we're doing. We always talk about this, ever since we were kids, we always been very competitive, we wanna be the best at what we do and battle people. We didn't even know what we were trying to do at that time. But it's fun to be here 20 years later. For me to be able to play with Cypress Hill and do it like we used to do it in somebodys backyard, it's amazing. We do that real Hip-Hop. We're old school if you wanna say that, but we believe in real Hip-Hop.


Dubcnn: So what would you say separates a Cypress Hill show from a regular Hip-Hop show that you see.

B-Real: I mean you know, we come from the time where people had deep live shows. Muggs and myself used to go watch Leaders Of The New School and Public Enemy, people that had really hyper, crazy ass live shows. Then we used to go watch Digital Underground. And right then and there we knew that we had to have a live stage show. And the best ones were always the ones where motherfuckers would go a 100%. No matter how tired they were after, they all went in a 100%. Like the Beastie Boys, they were a big influence cause they used to go fucking crazy on their live shit. That's pretty much where we got it from. And plus, as kids we were always focused to put on a show and entertain motherfuckers, like Julio said. So I think that's what you gotta do with a live show.

If you got a great album and a shitty live show, people ain't gonna come see you. They just put on the album and pass on the shows, cause they don't sound like that on the record. It takes a minute to get all that shit, we did all that early on. And now it just carries over to every show we do. A lot of new cats they don't have that mentality, because they don't come from that school and they didn't go through that grind. It's been a lot easier to just get a deal and do shows, but they can't really hold the crowd. There is some that can, but not all of them. And that's why you see a lot of older groups coming back. They don't even put out albums, they're just coming back because they know their show is so dope that people will come see them with or without a record. Shit, we've been out the game for 6 years before this album, and on the low we've been doing massive shows and packing them, without a new album. And this is just the beginning of the new album, but it's cause it's based off what people know about the live show. That's a testiment to the work we've put in. We always try to keep people coming back. If you're boring, they ain't coming back. If you fucking kick them in the ass and then turn them around and kick them in the balls, they gonna come back everytime cause they like it!


Dubcnn: Bobo is there any competition between drummers at shows when you watch Questlove and Travis Barker or somebody like that?

Bobo: Well, I'm a fan of both of those guys and being able to be on stage and see them rock is great, but it kinda inspires me too. I wouldn't call it competition, but if you gonna say that then friendly competition. Because I like to see them rock and that inspires me to do my thing and add my flavor to everything. Just being able to share the stage with some of these guys and watch them do their thing is very inspiring. When it comes to that, I do what I do. And how I think it should be looked at. But other than that, I admire what they do. So we're all in the same boat.


Dubcnn: Do you have any personal memories when you think of live shows?

B-Real: There's a couple for me. There is the Woodstock show that we did in 94. That was crazy, it was close to half a million people. We've never seen a crowd that big before. You can check it out on Youtube, it's all over that motherfucker. I had the long hair and I just shaved my head and I dove in the crowd, it was crazy.

The other one we where in Australia on tour with Ice Cube and on one of the last shows we decided that we were gonna trash our set. We been trashing our set in America after every tour, but this night we were gonna trash our set and light it on fire. And the news cameras happened to be there to catch it, and it was the greatest thing ever *laughs*. Nobody seen some shit like that before. Let me rephrase, nobody had ever seen anybody in Hip-Hop do some shit like that. You would only see groups like The Who and Jimi Hendrix back in those days do that shit. We brought that element to Hip-Hop, and that's why it sticks out to me because it freaked people out. That's the best shit about it, at least to me.


Dubcnn: How was it to replace DJ Muggs with Julio G for the live shows?

B-Real: Well you know, there's been times, even before this one, when Muggs couldn't come on the road. He was pretty much producing a bunch of stuff, and we had to call DJs like Tony Touch, Fredwreck and Julio G. Actually, Julio G was the first guy that ever stepped in for Muggs when he couldn't go on a tour. So, when Julio went back to radio we had to go with Fredwreck, and then we went with Tony Touch a couple of times. But when we got Julio G back, it was like "Okay, this is what we gotta have", cause he knows the history of Cypress Hill. He introduced us to Muggs, he's pretty much the reason Cypress Hill exists. He comes from our same neighborhood and we grew up together, so it only made perfect sense to have him back. And not only that, he's one of the best fuckin DJs on the turntables period. So if you can't have DJ Muggs there with you, who is a bad motherfucker on the turntables – I mean if you've never seen his show with Mixmaster Mike, you gotta see that shit. Or you check him out on breal.tv every Thursday night 10pm, shameless plug! You can see my man killing the turntables, in case you don't know. So if you can't have DJ Muggs there with you, you gotta have Julio G! This is one of the godfathers of West Coast DJing right there.


Dubcnn: How does that make you feel? I mean, that's B-Real saying that...

Julio G: I tell you this, for me it's a honor to be able to do it. But honestly, it's Muggs' group. For him to be able to be cool with me doing it, is because we have history since the beginning. I met Muggs when he was in a parking lot and he wanted to learn how to DJ. He picked me up at my house and I'd go to his house to show some moves to get better. That's kinda how it went down. Then I started bringing him to Cypress and introduced him to them. We go way way back, a lot of people don't know the story about us. Me and him met first. So he's cool with me doing it and he trusts me that I'm gonna do what needs to be done to represent Cypress Hill. Because Cypress Hill is always gonna be B-Real, Sen Dog, Bobo, and Muggs. I just get to fill in when Muggs is doing his own thing. But Muggs could come back tomorrow and we would kill it too. Cause we all come from that school, it's a family thing and we all have respect for each other.

I play with B-Real every night and there's nights where I catch myself thinking "Damn, I'm actually rocking with fuckin Cypress Hill and the shit is rocking! These motherfuckers do this shit!" That's why I love doing it, a lot of people ask me to tour, but there's nothing like Cypress Hill. The way they do it, it's a whole new level, it's that Hip-Hop that I love. I'm 41 years old, going on 42, and I been doing this since I was 16. So it still keeps me inspired, and that's why I always try to represent it and keep it alive. Cause that's what people love, that energy.


Dubcnn: I think that's a perfect way to end the interview. Is there anything that you want to let people know?

Julio G: Let me tell you like this: breal.tv! You can check me out, Julio G on Westside Radio Wednesday nights, 10pm to about 4am. Log on, it's the craziest fuckin shit, raw West Coast, no commercials, no program directors, no bullshit like that. Raw, real uncut. That's how it goes down. Thursday nights Soul Assassins, DJ Muggs and Mr. Choc. And of course B-Real will tell you the rest!

B-Real: Yeah man, he said it, breal.tv. We're on tour so they gonna be handling it while we're on tour. But we might check in from time to time. Thanks for all the love, for whoever loves us. Whoever don't, you can eat a dick!

Bobo: Shouts out to Dubcnn for coming out here and supporting Cypress Hill, Julio G, B-Real, Sen Dog, and myself. We gonna keep on doing this, Cypress Hill for life!