These days Celtic hip-hop trio House Of Pain are more or less viewed as a one-hit wonder for their platinum-certified 1992 single “Jump Around“. However, the Irish-espousing outfit actually also had an early hand in helping shine the spotlight on various rap metal-oriented acts amid their brief career.
While the majority of the House Of Pain catalog remains rooted in the hip-hop realm, House Of Pain themselves experimented with crossing over a few times, most notably pairing with NYC alt-metal outfit Helmet for “Just Another Victim” — the opening barrage from the landmark 1993 soundtrack for the film ‘Judgment Night‘. At the time, that ambitious album was one of the first full-fledged ventures in pairing established rap artists with musicians hailing from the metal and rock worlds.
While House Of Pain rapper Everlast even had a part in the admittedly forgettable thriller film that spawned that soundtrack, it’s the music from it that has lived on, getting several new vinyl pressings over the decades since its release. Credit where it’s due, the concept of uniting artists from the then disparate worlds of metal and rap was pioneered early on by Run-DMC pairing with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way“, and Anthrax and Public Enemy uniting on “Bring The Noise“. One would be remiss to not also cite early forays by Beastie Boys and more.
By the time ‘Judgment Night‘ came out, House Of Pain had themselves had even dipped their toes into the rock world as well with Butch Vig‘s 1992 remix of House Of Pain track “Shamrocks And Shenanigans“.
As for the ‘Judgment Night‘ soundtrack, while it was Immortal Records founder Happy Walters that wound up calling the shots, Everlast feels he was initially brought in to have a far more direct role in personally overseeing that soundtrack, as he stated in a newly-released interview with Rock & Roll High School With Pete Ganbarg: [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“If I were to get into detail about it, that’s one of those classic like, ahh, I f*cked up kind of bad by not doing that sh*t right and just trusting certain people to do it. I was basically given the whole soundtrack to do by the director. I feel like it was partially the reason I was brought on. Like as even [being] given the part was ’cause I was, you know, a popping rapper at the moment, or whatever.
But I got to give a lot of that credit to Danny Boy, because he was the Sub Pop punk rock guy. Like [he] loved all that stuff. He was early on everything. Anything I ever heard that was like punk rockish, or from any like other region, you know, he was the first cat that would play it for me.”
Everlast would go on to credit his House Of Pain bandmate Danny Boy for being behind the decision to unite with Vig on the “Shamrocks And Shenanigans” remix. Another lesser known fact is that House Of Pain took the now Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame-inducted Rage Against The Machine out on the political firebrands’ first national tour.
Everlast credits unwittingly catching Rage opening for Body Count as being the catalyst for him to personally tell his manager to book Rage to open House Of Pain‘s 1993 headlining run. Everlast recalled that trek now to Gangbarg as follows:
“Everybody was terrified of Rage. I don’t care what anybody says. They were terrified. I remember I went —it was the new music seminar — and I was going to check in on [Ice-T], Body Count was playing and [Rage Against The Machine] were opening. I got their mad early and saw [Rage Against The Machine‘s] set and I left, because I was like ‘Oh sh*t!’ I had to process what I saw. That was pretty powerful the first time you see it.
And as I was walking back to my hotel my manager called me and we were doing our first headlining tour, but we didn’t have an opener. I said, ‘I just saw an amazing band.’ And I told him who it was, and they’re like, ‘Oh sh*t. They’re in the middle of some crazy bidding wars, they’re going to be huge.’ He was like, ‘But everybody’s scared to take them on tour though.’ I was like, ‘I ain’t scared to take them on tour, Let’s go.’ And it was a great tour.
It was amazing to watch something happen like that, because ‘Jump Around‘ was kind of everywhere we [went.] It was already there. I watched that tour in the span of whatever it was, you know a month, or 30-50 days, or whatever it was. Nobody knows this band to like the end, every person in the building was saying, ‘F*ck you I won’t do what you tell me.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God these guys are going to be huge.’
Everlast went on to point out that they would also bring Rage Against The Machine out during the end of House Of Pain‘s sets on that tour to do the Butch Vig remix of “Shamrocks And Shenanigans” together. You can find some fan-filmed footage of one such pairing below, along with the aforementioned interview and more.
In a more direct contribution to furthering the unions of rap and rock, upon House Of Pain‘s breakup in 1996, their turntablist DJ Lethal would go on to join Limp Bizkit. He continues to hold that position today, albeit with a few bumps in the road since. House Of Pain would even go on to hit the road with the likes of Biohazard and Korn around 1994, helping boost the profiles of both of those bands.
