It's been nearly two decades since we first saw Everlast jump around with House Of Pain.
He's gone from an Irish-American quasi-hooligan to the guitar-strumming Whitey Ford, winning a Grammy with Carlos Santana and publicly feuding with Eminem. And while Everlast may have grown up a lot, he hasn't changed that much.
The proof is in his latest project, La Coka Nostra. A shits 'n' giggles project reuniting House Of Pain members with MC's Ill Bill and Slaine, LCN is a chance for Everlast to flex his lyrical muscle once again and return to his hard-hitting rap roots.
"This is fun for me," he says. "La Coka is 100 per cent fun.
"We were just releasing shit for free at first. We kept making jams and putting them online and the response was so good we put together an album. If it ever comes down to motherfuckers starting to bicker over crumbs, money or whatever it is, La Coka will just end. It will end nicely because I won't be a part of it."
La Coka leaked their first track, "Fuck Tony Montana," in 2006. As their fan base grew, so did the dedication to their project. Three years in the making, the crew dropped their debut album A Brand You Can Trust late last month.
"When we were first making songs, it was kind of all like 'Fuck Tony Montana' shit." he says with a laugh. "All the songs were like, 'I'm gonna kill you' and 'I'm a bad motherfucker.' Which is cool, it's fun shit to do.
"But we got to a certain point when we were releasing these tracks online where we realized if we were going to make an album, we've got to say some shit. It can't be just these 'murder your mama' anthems, as we call them. It's just all about being different."
The result is a politically-charged and sometimes controversial outlook on society in the form of one of the rawest hip-hop albums of the year. And although fan response has been rabid, the future for the group still remains uncertain.
"Right now I don't know what's in store for La Coka," he says. "We're just doing some shows and trying to push the record. I've got a kid on the way, so I'm getting ready for all that. I know Slaine just got a big part in a movie that I can't really talk about, but I know it's a big deal for him. Lethal's off doing some Limp Bizkit shit at the moment.
"We're just going to do whatever comes along. Whatever feels good and whatever's fun. I think we've made one of the better hip-hop records I've heard in a while. We were making the sound we wanted to hear. That's basically the whole reason this thing even happened."
Here are La Coka Nostra's upcoming tour dates:
Aug. 22 Tschechien, Czech Republic @ Festival Park – Airport Hradec Kralove
Aug. 26 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Rust
Aug. 27 Oslo, Norway @ Rockefeller Music Hall
Aug. 29 Paris, France @ Elysse Montmartre
Aug. 30 Helsinki, Finland @ Ravintola Virgin Oil Co.
