DJ Muggs – the HIPHOPGODS interview

HHG: How quickly did the debut Cypress record come together?

Muggs: Man, that first Cypress album was three years of work, it was our demo.  That was our whole lives, up to that point, just wrapped into one.  I’d say it was about three years of demos, all coming down to this album, by the time we got signed and everything.  I was in 7A3 touring and stuff and I was doing Cypress on the side.

HHG: What was the reaction like from the label when you guys submitted the album?

Muggs: Oh, they freaked out.  I brought the record in and the label freaked out.  We ended up signing with a smaller deal, like Dave Funkenklein who used to be at Def Jam, went out and started Hollywood Records in L.A. and he offered us a 250 thousand dollar deal and Ruffhouse offered us a single deal.  We was like, nah, nah, nah.  So then Ruffhouse came back and gave us an album deal for 75 thousand dollars and we ended up taking that deal.  We knew Joe “The Butcher”, we worked with him on 7A3 and he was a friend of mine.  So we ended up going to Ruffhouse and thank God we did cause Hollywood didn’t know what the hell they was doing.  We had Columbia behind us and, at that time, Columbia had Def Jam and they had PE, they had EPMD and they had some bigger groups in the game, so it was good for us.  So I turned the record in and I went to mix the record with Joe and I ended up recording Latin Lingo in Philly, and then the album was done…and then, we was like, let’s go do two more songs.  So we ended up doing Hole In The Head and Stoned Is The Way Of The Walk.  After the album was mixed and pretty much done, we ended up adding two more songs.

HHG: Ended up adding two more classics.  Those are big songs…

Muggs: Yeah, Joe told me, I wish I could keep you guys in the studio right now for a year.  I was like, why??  He was like, cause you’re in a zone and you’ll never be in this place again the rest of your life.  You don’t understand, then we went out on tour for two years straight, like, I don’t think we were even home for two years.  Then the label wanted the second album.  We did the second album in six weeks.  From three years to six weeks.  You know, throw a bunch of kids some money, take it on the road and, you know, it was just a whirlwind.

HHG: Do you have any favorite memories of putting together a certain track in the studio as a group?

Muggs: Well, everything we did at that time was recorded on a 4-track, just recording on a 4-track or recording directly…I mean, Real Estate was recorded directly into the boombox and the microphone was plugged directly into the boombox…it was one take, recorded onto cassette.  That’s how we were doing our demos at that time.  Real Estate was probably the first song that Cypress did that sounded like a record.  It didn’t just sound like a demo, you know what I mean?  It sounded like a song you could hear on the radio.

HHG: With the amount of samples used on the debut, this kind of record might be a little difficult to create due to sample clearances in 2011.

Muggs: Even at that time, when I turned the samples in, the label didn’t wanna clear the samples.  They go, if we try and clear these samples, this record ain’t comin’ out, we’ll just deal with it later.  Samples weren’t so bad at that time, they really got a little more strict after the Biz Markie situation, you know?  Look, I got 800 dollars a  track to do that album.  That’s what I got to make that album, and you look at what people are making now.  I always say, man, if you’re a rookie coming out of college, sign that contract now.  Get in the game, perform and you’ll get to renegotiate that contract.  You don’t get all the money up front.  I just needed to get in the game and prove myself man.

HHG: And then it was non-stop.  Everyone was coming to you for production…

Muggs: Oh yeah, then it was just non-stop.  It was non-stop for the next 20 years!

HHG: Crazy how life works.  People coming to you for remixes and everything.

Muggs: Yeah, especially with that sound.  Cause our sound, we weren’t about sound – we was about FEEL.  People want your shit to sound like this right now.  I always wanted my records to FEEL like this.  I was never concerned with the quality of the sound, you know?  I just came from a place where I was super influenced by Ultramagnetic MC’s and EPMD and Public Enemy and, you know, I just wanted a dirty, gritty sound.  I was going for energy and feel.  I wanted to harness that rock n roll energy and bring it forward.

HHG: How much input did you have on your early videos?  I always found it interesting the group would be hidden in the shadows, to the point of silhouettes, especially on The Phuncky Feel One and Real Estate.

Muggs: I had this thing man, where I always wanted to not even be seen…ever.  I was influenced by Black Sabbath, I was influenced by Led Zeppelin album covers, Cream…even with Zeppelin covers, you don’t see Led Zeppelin on the cover.  You would always hear these folklores like the four cymbals met this, the wizard met this…I was like, leave it up to your imagination where there’s no ending to it.  But once you seen the picture of somebody and you read enough interviews, you knew everything about them – you were on to the next group.  I was like, if they never know about us, we leave it up to their imagination.  It’s like reading a book and seeing the movie.  You read the book, it’s your imagination, it’s incredible.  You go see the movie, you’re like, wow, that sucked, the book was way better.  So I never wanted to show us, I never wanted to tell the story really.  But, it got to the point, I think the first time they showed our faces was on the Hand On The Pump 12 inch.  The label was like, we gotta show your faces, we gotta make this connection.  And that’s the fuckin’ label, you know what I mean?  I didn’t ever want to show our faces if it was up to me.

HHG: Wow man, that’s incredible…

Muggs: I didn’t care man, I didn’t care about fame.  I didn’t get into this for fame.  I cared about making music man.  I thought we’d sell 100 thousand records and I would have been happy as hell, cause that’s what BDP was doing.  I would have been happy with that.  It went a little bigger than that so I’m happy with that too.

HHG: Looking back on the record, as a producer, do you hear things in the mix you wish you could alter slightly, or does it remain perfect to you as is?

Muggs: Nah, it would have to stay as is.  I mean, you could go back and say, the sound cause everyone wants the sound these days.  Everyone tries to mimic the sound Dr. Dre brought forward.  He’s known for his sound, you know?  I had time, like I said, I had three years so…I worked on some of those songs for three years.  That’s why there’s multi-layers.  I wouldn’t mess with it for six months and I’d come back – oh, I had a new idea, lemme do a little break here…three months later, oh, lemme add this.  There was a lot of that…and the record came out exactly how it was supposed to come out.

HHG: Thanks for taking the time Muggs, a pleasure to speak with you again.

Muggs: No problem, thank you brother.

- Flatline for HIPHOPGODS.com

(DJ Muggs is currently working on Bass For Your Face, a groundbreaking new album that will fuse together hip hop and dubstep into something entirely original.  The album will released via Ultra Records, one of the biggest electronic labels in the industry.)