House of Pain Reunion Considered
Dec. 4 -- Four years after he dropped the breakup bomb on his House of Pain comrades, Everlast is talking about putting the crew back together.
“At this point we talk about making a record for fun if we get the time to sit down together,” he says. The only thing holding them back, according to the rapper, is time. “Lethal is with Limp Bizkit and they’re fucking blowing the roof off the nation right now. I’m trying to work this record Eat at Whitey’s, released Oct. 17]. I’m not quite in the same category as them, so I got to work my record a little bit harder. It can happen, but it’s not been set in stone when we’re going to do it.”
Part of his working the new record has included high-profile sparring with chart-topping rapper Eminem. Both artists recently attacked each other in songs distributed over the Internet, with Everlast recording “Whitey’s Revenge,” and Eminem responding with “Quitter.” At a recent show in New York, Everlast dedicated a House of Pain song to Eminem, claiming his band “probably” inspired the young Marshall Mathers to become a rapper.
Still FriendsHouse of Pain rode its smash-hit party anthem “Jump Around” to the top back in 1992. On the eve of its third release, Truth Crushed to Earth Shall Rise Again, Everlast pulled DJ Lethal and co-lyricist Danny Boy O’Connor aside and told them he was opting out. Looking back, Everlast explains that he didn’t leave the band for any reason other than it felt like work. “We weren’t broke when I quit, we weren’t failures,” he says emphatically. “But, it became a job. It became like getting up for school on Monday morning. It’s just like, ’I’m sick, man, I don’t want to go.’ That’s when I realized I wasn’t as happy as I should be and as scary as it was I said I had to go.”
Unlike other, more cantankerous band breakups, the House of Pain lads are still on good terms. Everlast spent time with Danny Boy during a Los Angeles tour stop last month, and he and DJ Lethal hook up whenever they cross paths. “We talk on the phone and hang out at each other’s house,” Everlast says. “It’s all good. We all started together, so there’s no real hatred or anything. We didn’t break up behind girls or money or anything like that. I just found myself in a place where I couldn’t deal anymore, and I had to just move on, and I think with hindsight the guys understood it, and I think they might even respect me for it.”
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