Songoftheday 9/11/21 - We've all seen a man at the liquor store beggin' for your change, the hair on his face is dirty dread-locked and full of mange...

 

 

"What It's Like" - Everlast

from the album Whitey Ford Sings The Blues (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 19

 

Today's song comes from Erik Schrody, who records under the moniker Everlast. Growing up in Los Angeles, he came under the wing of rapper Ice-T as part of his Rhyme Syndicate crew, Everlast releasing his first and only "rap" album, Forever Everlasting, in 1990, which went absolutely nowhere. Regrouping with high school classmates Leor "DJ Lethal" Dimant and Daniel "Danny Boy" O'Connor, he formed the white-boy rap act House Of Pain. Capitalizing on the growing number of suburban white kids being drawn to hip-hop, and infusing with an "Irish-American" slant, the trio scored a top ten pop hit in the autumn of 1992 with "Jump Around". Their self-titled debut album made the top 20 on both the pop and R&B albums chart, and sold over a million copies. However, they weren't able to keep the momentum of that hit, and after three albums on Tommy Boy Records, the trio split. 

Everlast continued on Tommy Boy as a solo artist, but his next project would find him changing gears to follow a different musical path. His first record Whitey Ford Sings The Blues did have some rapping on it, but it was totally overshadowed by the folkish-rock played over hip-hop beats that had Everlast singing instead. This was most evident in the lead single, "What It's Like". Written by Schrody and produced by Dante Ross and John Gamble, the track follows a similar path as the Crash Test Dummies' early-90's hit "Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm", giving three vignettes of life parables and at the end asking the question "do you really know what it's like". Tackling poverty, abortion, and the drug problem in America, it was pretty meaty stuff, and the acoustic guitar background really adds to the weight of the track. It's so far gone from "Jump Around" you would be forgiven for not believing it's from the same artist. The music video illustrates each of the verse's stories, uniting them all underwater presumably drowning in their issues...

"What It's Like" became Everlast's first and only hit on Billboard magazine's pop Hot 100 in America, reaching the top-20 in May of 1999. The song was a huge success on rock radio, topping Billboard's Alternative Rock chart for nine weeks, while also spending a week at the top of their Mainstream Rock list. It even crossed over to the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio format chart at #9. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Iceland (#4) and Canada (#6), while making the top-40 in Germany (#17), Austria (#17), Switzerland (#20), Australia (#26), New Zealand (#33), and the UK (#34). The Whitey Ford Sings The Blues album, released in September of 1998, went to #9 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, spending over a year on the list and going on to sell over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2000, "What It's Like" was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal, which went to Lenny Kravitz for his cover of "American Woman" (a bad choice considering Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Chris Cornell also were nominated).

Everlast's follow-up single was "Ends", which followed the same hard life lesson template, with acoustic guitars and hip-hop beats grounding Schrody rap-singing about the depths people will dive in the pursuit of money and pleasure. The song was a decent rock radio success again, going to #7 on Alternative Rock radio and #13 on the Mainstream Rock list, but pop stations must've decided one dour song from Everlast was enough, and the single only "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #109. In the UK, it was a minor hit at #47.  Another track from the record, "Money (Dollar Bill)" featuring rapper Sadat X from the group Brand Nubian, was a moderate hit in Austria at #17. 

Later that year, Everlast guested on Santana's big comeback album Supernatural. His track, "Put Your Lights On", was written by Schrody, and returned him to the Mainstream Rock top ten at #8, and also climbing to #17 on the Alternative Rock list, although the song only "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #118. Nevertheless, the song won the Grammy Award for Best Duo/Group Rock Vocal Performance. 

Schrody returned in 2000 with his sophomore solo effort Eat At Whitey's, but during that time the artist was mostly in the music news for his feud with then up and coming rapper Eminem, who's meteoric rise and venom towards Everlast seemed to have an effect on the latter, as mainstream radio basically ignored the set, and while the record climbed to #20 on the Billboard 200, it sold less than a quarter of his debut. Having the first single with the name "Black Jesus" also may have dampened things, and the lyrics didn't help, and while it made both the Alternative (#15) and Mainstream (#30) Rock radio charts in Billboard, pop stations wouldn't touch it. (It did go to #13 in Sweden and became his second top-40 hit in Britain at #37.)

Leaving Tommy Boy for Island Records, Everlast came back in 2004 with White Trash Beautiful. The album rose to #56 on the Billboard 200, but even rock radio took a pass in America. The title track only managed to be a minor hit in the central Europe Germany/Switzerland/Austria charts. Since then, he went indie on his own Martyr Inc. imprint, releasing four more studio albums, the most recent being 2018's Whitey Ford's House Of Pain. In 2011, his song "I Get By" from Songs Of The Ungrateful Living, was Everlast's most recent radio hit, going to #23 on the Alternative Rock radio list in Billboard. 

(9/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Everlast on Conan O'Brien to promote the album...

Next up, in concert at Atlanta's Rockfest in 1999...

Fast forward to 2004 for a show in Germany...

and lastly, an acoustic take from home in 2020...

Up tomorrow: A couple of singers with a 35 year age difference sing about ancient Egypt.