Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
On making the cannabis factoid pamphlet included in the album…
“Well that was an idea we all started thinking about it. We got it from High Times Magazine. There were two magazines that we bought religiously whenever it came out and that was The Source Magazine and the High Times Magazine. We were always reading one or the other from front to back. We were learning all this culture. In the High Times there was always lists of the best strains, sometimes it was the history and positive attributes. That’s where we learned farmers were made to raise hemp, along with tobacco and everything else. We learned all that from High Times. So we thought it would be a cool feature to have inside the sleeve of Black Sunday, 19 facts or however many about – not our opinion, this is actual facts – on cannabis, hemp and the whole marijuana culture. And it blew people’s minds when they got that record and opened it up [laughs]. I know a lot of kids couldn’t take that record home.”
On how many songs recorded actually made it…
“I think there were about 14 that made it on the album and we probably recorded about 25 songs. Some of the stuff did surface later on John Madden Football games and stuff like that. Some of the stuff has never seen the light of day. I know there’s a vault somewhere where Muggs has at least a couple hundred Cypress Hill songs that never came out.”
Some magic moments you may not know about…
“I just remember the last day when the record was done and all that, we decided we were gonna fry on mushrooms that day real heavy and then we just listened to the album. We hadn’t listened to the record as a whole yet, we just listened to it in songs. And the first couple times we played it, I dunno if it was because I was on mushrooms or whatever, but there was just this special feeling like ‘Oh my God, this record is incredible’. The next day we flew home and I had a cassette tape of the album and I put it in my car and it didn’t have that same feeling. I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t stoned anymore or not. But then the record came out and I think people got that initial feeling that we got that day when we first heard the record together. That feeling was on that record, it wasn’t just because we were stoned out of our minds. That record was just it’s own thing, it did its own thing.”
On the critical response Black Sunday received…
“You know we broke some records with Black Sunday – we made some noise and we charted and we were number one in the world. Just saying that now, it still feels special to me. I feel like I’ve been to the top of the mountain so to speak. I was numb, it was an overwhelming feeling like ‘is this really happening?’ It was a great feeling and I’m glad we were able to accomplish that at one point in our careers.”
You can keep up with Sen Dog and Cypress Hill on Instagram and Twitter @sendog and @cypresshill. Follow the latest Cypress Hill news on their website. And for the visuals on that timeless track, check out the video below.