See It First! Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs Launches New Project, Cross My Heart Hope to Die
Even before Cypress Hill went on hiatus in 2004, the group’s DJ and producer DJ Muggs was already stretching his artistic boundaries, recording tracks with artists as wide-ranging as Wyclef Jean, RZA, GZA, Mobb Deep, KRS-One, and Goodie Mob for his side project, Soul Assassins, whose self-titled release came out in 1997.
Once he had a taste of the supergroup bug, Muggs strove for further growth, releasing two more Soul Assassins record by 2009 and working with alternative and rock performers including Buckchery’s Josh Todd and Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli on his 2003 solo album Dust. In addition, Muggs has produced dozens of tracks by a diverse variety of acts including Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam, Beastie Boys, Tricky, Van Halen, Zack de la Rocha, Ill Bill, Ice Cube, and more.
So when he hooked up with dusky vocalist Brevi, ex-Strife guitarist Andrew Kline, and renegade hacker artist Sean Bonner for the experimental trip-hop group Cross My Heart Hope to Die, Muggs wanted to establish the group outside the traditional parameters of the music industry.
"I didn’t just want to put out a record," Muggs told Yahoo Music. "I've put out so many records; that’s just boring. I wanted to do something completely different that presented the music in a different way. We’re big art fans, which is why we reached out to Sean Bonner, who is a curator at Hackerspace in L.A., which was the first hack club. He's a guru on social media. So we thought, 'What if we put together a band with someone who isn’t really a musician, but is a master of technology and art?' We felt like that could add something really exciting to the process."
Cross My Heart Hope to Die have traveled a serpentine path to establish themselves, but while the process might have taken longer than it would have had they immediately signed with a label after forming, the discoveries along the way have been worth the wait.
"We wanted to bring back some of the feeling we used to get when we were kids and we were searching for new groups and finding new things to listen to," Muggs said. "That’s something that’s really been lost. A lot of songs are only popular for a week, then everyone’s like, ‘Okay, that’s old. What’s next?’ I used to play records for a year straight. So those memories and that vibe gave birth to the concept of Cross My Heart Hope to Die and since then it has taken on a life of its own."
Recently, the group took its first semi-conventional steps, recording Vita E Morte, a four-song EP of haunting, atmospheric music equally reminiscent of Portished and Angelo Badalamente, but with more modern-sounding production. On July 26, after the debut of their first full-fledged art installation at Subliminal Projects art installation at Shepard Fairey’s gallery in Los Angeles, Cross My Heart Hope to Die played their first live performance. To celebrate the release of Vita E Morte, the group are now premiering their video for “Tears of God” on Yahoo Music.
The clip was directed by Eric Thompson and Kline and features the band performing in front of a projector that saturates them with surreal imagery. The clip includes intentional glitches and corrupted digital code, all of which symbolize the way the band embraces that which is usually discarded or considered imperfect. The lyrics of “Tears of God” address the hypocrisy of those who pray out of desperation, not from a sense of faith.
“Brevi wrote the song from the perspective of God,” Muggs said. “All these people are telling her, ‘God, if you give me this I promise I’ll believe and be a good person.’ But every time the people seem to go back on their word and lie. So in the song, God is crying and saying, “I give you things and you give me nothing in return and this saddens me.”
The band’s art installation at Subliminal Projects will be on display until August 23, after which the group plans to bring it to other major cities around the world. The exhibit includes photographic images combined with computer programming that creates a cappella tones as the viewer walks past. The centerpiece is a music tree sculpture.
“As you by stand in one space near this giant tree you hear a bass line and if you take a step over you’re going to hear the drums,” Muggs says. “A step further and you get the vocals, and if you take another step you hear the keyboards. It takes four people standing there to hear the whole song.”
Such out-of-the-box thinking started three years ago when the members literally started placing mysterious boxes in over 100 cities across the world, including Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, and Vienna. Each box featured an input jack for headphones and contained an MP3 of one of Cross My Heart Hope to Die’s early songs. The boxes themselves were rectangular and included the band’s logo, an image of an inverted cross inside a heart, but no clear instructions.
“We wanted to build this thing from real obscurity. We wanted people to go, “What are these boxes and where is this coming from?’” Muggs said. “Whoever has those first boxes are probably going to realize they have something really special in a few years.”
Before Cross My Heart Hope to Die could start placing their boxes they had to figure out how to create an MP3 player that would hold a battery charge for weeks on end. “All the hackers and scientists that come in and out of the hackspace where Sean works can do anything,” Muggs said. “We wound up with this technology, which we patented. When you plug in headphones it turns on, but when you take the headphones out it automatically shuts the battery off. Once that problem was solved we took the boxes to cities across the world where they sat as audio street art until they stopped working or someone took them down and brought htem home.”
Critics have described Cross My Heart Hope To Die’s music as bleak and melancholy. Muggs said it reminds him of a dark night with heavy clouds rolling in — a momentary calm before an explosion of rain and thunder. If he was to describe it in simple terms he mentions the opening of the eponymous first album by Black Sabbath, of which he’s a huge fan.
“It’s this haunting sound coming from this darkness. You’re drawn it and you get sucked in by it. Some people find that darkness to be depressing. I see it more as beautiful and intriguing. There’s a mystery and suspense there that’s really exciting. I don’t see it as scary.”
Having completed an EP and an art installation, Cross My Heart Hope to Die plan to continue to present their music in unusual ways, but they’re also putting together their debut full-length album, which will be available on iTunes, eMusic and even brick and mortar outlets.
“I did a couple of the beats on the EP as many as 12 years ago,” Muggs said. “Our album will be all new stuff. We’ve always had an eye on the past, but this will be all about the future. The music is done, so we’re just writing lyrics and melodies now. What we have so far is way more electronic and futuristic sounding, but keeping the same energy and the same vibes.”
As excited as Muggs is about taking Cross My Hope Hope to Die in a more modern direction and presenting it to the band’s audience as a full contemporary album, he says he’s just as happy taking part in creative art projects and working on music that’s not meant to be absorbed as complete songs.
"It’s just great to be working with really talented people like Sean, Andrew, and Brevi. We all come in with different energies and then we combine them and mix them up like gumbo. That’s where the excitement lies for me. I mean, I know what I can do. But when you combine it with these other ideas you enter a territory of the unknown that’s a lot of fun. Plus, being with the other members of the group is so inspiring and their energy is really powerful to the point where I can look forward to the project just for the company.”
