Everlast

Man talk about letdowns. I wanted to talk with one of them freaky bitches.

Sure but I like all kinds of freaky bitches man. I don’t discriminate.

The title track is just a story about being alone on the road. It’s not really about me, but it’s a story I guess I can relate to. I just told it in another person’s context. I think I did it the way I did because I don’t think people would have much empathy for a rock star in the back of his bus. “Poor guy!” So I made it regular folk.

The biggest delay was that I left my record company, and I dealt with a bunch of legal issues, which took about a year and a half.

Because not everything revolves around money and fame. I got the same life everyone else leads. I tried to make something that everyone could relate to.

I try to, depending on how I feel.

Outside of the normal things like heartache, the President of the United States gives me the blues. I think I’m a glass is half empty kind of guy. I’m not negative, but I tend to look at things in a pessimistic way. I prefer to be surprised than disappointed. I don’t mind being wrong. I’d rather do that than think everything is happy and great.

Well there are some extremely personal tracks on the album. Songs like Broken and This Kind Of Lonely. God Wanna is a very serious questioning of myself and the two sides of me that battle, the spiritual and my physical. I do one of two things; I either tell a story or get real personal. There is not much else I do. I don’t do real political joints and stuff like that.

Mostly it was long distance and hard to maintain. I’m basically a bastard to deal with sometimes. I’ve been living a certain way for a certain amount of time and I’m an old dog, so new tricks are hard to come by.

Well Eat At Whitey's was an even more personal album but it wasn’t about heartache and loneliness. Eat At Whitey's was about death and dealing with the after thoughts of going through a crazy brush with death then wound up with having some of the most successful years of my life. Eat At Whitey's was kind of all about that.

I’m over it man. I have no fear of death. I died during the process of what they did to me. I don’t have any light at the end of the tunnel stories but I experienced a very painful and prolonged death. That’s what most people are afraid of. I do remember having a very comforted feeling and I feel I have no knowledge of the next life. The only thing I can say about death is that I hope my next one comes in my sleep. But however it comes, it comes. Have you ever seen the movie Ghost Dog?

I picked up that book they mention, Code of the Samurai, and read it. There is a big part of it that says you should reflect on your death everyday. They say it will make you see life in a different way, so that’s what I do. I try to always think that today could be it.

Well, Eat At Whitey's had barely any rap at all. I think in this record I did more to blend the two styles more than any of my other records. It seems like I used to sing on one track, then rap on another. I feel like I rapped a lot more on this one than I did on the last one.

I started writing the song and the first line was “Sittin' alone and I hear rain fallin' on my windowsill” and there was a real big storm that night so I decided I didn’t want to wait to go to the studio to get raindrop effects. I just did it.

We never made up, but we kind of put it aside. We said our pieces to each other. We have a lot of mutual people we know that helped put it to bed. I don’t think you will ever catch us at a dinner party together, but we’re not at each other’s throats. I admire his talent. My beef with him was never about talent or jealousy but it was a very personal thing because when I first met him, I felt slighted, so I did what rappers do and talked some shit about him.

That’s some highly doubtful shit. We’ll do it probably the day after you hit the Lotto.

[laughs] To me, man, that’s just going backwards. I’ve contemplated it, but what would it be? I’m not interested in doing some Bruce Springsteen Glory Days thing. I don’t want to relive something that’s a cool memory. If we got back in the studio together, what would we do, and nobody has that answer. I don’t think any of those dudes want to be in a room with me and make music, because I take over. Somebody has to be the boss when you’re working and every country has to have a president. Some people don’t like to work the way I work.

I’m sure there are Muslims in the world that don’t agree with a lot of what I do. I was raised Irish and Western, so I still have a drink when I feel like it. God will deal with that on his terms. If I go to hell for having a drink, I’ll be more than happy to. I know the rules. As far as tattoos are concerned, I find it hard to believe that in a world with so much bullshit in it, God is going to trip on my tattoos. I don’t really go with that, God is up your ass with a microscope vibe. I think most of your life is based on deeds and the intention behind those deeds. Because you can most definitely do the right thing for the wrong reason and you can definitely do the wrong thing for the totally right reason. I think people just get this clouded fucking vision that some asshole made some rules and you have to follow them, or you’re dead. I don’t believe in that god.

I am Muslim, but I’m sure there are some hard line Muslims that wouldn’t consider me Muslim at all. I believe that Mohammed was the last prophet and I plan to make my pilgrimage to Mecca. I wear my sins on my sleeve and Islam gives me armor and my armor is my honesty about who I am. I don’t need to defend myself or my religion to anyone. God doesn’t need me to defend it. I’m human and even the hard line Muslims are doing their dirt, but they are just doing it behind closed doors. That’s the difference with me. I put it out in the open.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck