When Everlast [ tickets ] and Cypress Hill's Muggs mashed Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" with "Insane in the Brain" for Everlast's forthcoming album "Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford," the one-time House of Pain rapper looked for approval from the obvious place--Cash's family.

"I didn't want anyone to think I'm trying to be disrespectful, so I took it down to John Carter Cash and I played it for him in Nashville," Everlast said in an interview with LiveDaily. "I let him know, 'I'm a big fan of your dad's. I wanted to put this on my album. If you guys hate it or don't like it at all, let me know and it'll never see the light of day.'

"He said, 'It's groovy. I like it.' That was good enough for me. That's when I knew it was going on the album."

Everlast, born Erik Schrody, said he approached Cash because of the "hip-hop element" of the song.

"To be perfectly honest, I get a lot of s--- already from the die-hard, older generation," he said. "[They say,] 'how dare you ruin a sacred song?'--which is a bit much, if you ask me. It's a song about prison. Come on. Johnny Cash sang about cocaine and killing whores. His early days were chalk full of f---ing gangster s---."

Everlast talked to LiveDaily about approaching Cash's family, how he handles critics, and the freestyling ways of the song "Die in Yer Arms."

LiveDaily: That was really respectful of you to run "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash's family..

Everlast: The funny thing to me is, a lot of these people are like, "How dare you disrespect a country icon?" Yo, half these people don't even know the real story. Country music as an establishment hated Johnny Cash. They hated him and now that he's gone ... Once he got married and kind of got religious and did some gospel stuff, they kind of brought him into the fold and were like, "Yeah, he's one of ours now." But most of his career, they despised him. They thought he was immoral. They thought he wasn't even country, which he really wasn't. He was rockabilly. He was on tour in the early days--you've seen the movie--with Buddy Holly and cats like this. It was rock music. These country bumpkins that try to claim him now make me laugh.

[Producer] Rick Rubin gave me the famous picture of Johnny Cash doing the flip-off. When he won the Best Country Album for the first Def American album he did with Johnny Cash--that first album won a Grammy--after the Grammys, they put out an ad with that picture, it said--here I'll read it to you right now--"This is how Johnny Cash felt about country music as an establishment. American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support." It's a huge picture of him flipping them off. John Carter Cash told me himself he liked [my remake of "Folsom Prison Blues"]. He told me he thought his dad would have liked it. I don't think any of these people knew Johnny Cash better than his son knew him. Hate all you want. Call it sacred. Tell me I'm a dirtbag for doing it. But it's like, f--- you. Get the f--- out of here with that s---. If you don't like a song 'cause you don't like it, cool. I totally respect your opinion. Don't tell me I soiled a national treasure. I'm not the first person to cover "Folsom Prison Blues." To be honest, this is why most of the people don't like it--it's because of the f---ing black music that's in it. The hip-hop that's in it. That's why they don't like it. That's why they despise it--because most of them are racist dirtbags.

How do you put up with people saying that kind of stuff about your music?

Honestly, I don't care. You asked the question about it and that led into the answer. I don't sit around and worry about it. I don't put out records [and say] "Oh, the whole world's going to love it." I put out records and say, "I like it. Hopefully other people will." If they don't, it's cool. I don't care. I'm not making music for other people. Hopefully they can join in and enjoy it with me. My first and biggest critic is me. If I ain't pleasing me, then I ain't even gonna bother. I'm very pleased with my album. I'm very pleased with the cover. I think I did everything in the most respectful and honorable spirit. Anybody who doesn't like it, cool, don't like it. That's fine. It's not the not liking it that bothers me. What bothers me is that people who have ignorance coming out of their pie holes. Who are you? Did you know Johnny? Did he talk to you in your sleep? Did he tell you I f-----n' ruined his whole catalog and his whole career and his whole legacy? It makes me laugh. It makes me a little bit angry, but, more than that, it makes me laugh.

Tell me about the title of the album, "Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford.

It's really a description of what I think the album is about. The topics are primarily about love and war. Love because I always gotta write about how f---ed up I am at relationships. And then I've always tried to have social commentary on my records. I think this is the most political I've gotten. It wasn't even that intentional. I think it was the times and what's been on my mind. "The Ghost of Whitey Ford," the one thing that I was always conscious of when I would read something about myself, or a review or something, was "acoustic-based artist Everlast." In a weird way, I can understand why [they say that] because maybe the biggest hit I did so far, solo-wise, was basically an acoustic guitar and a drum beat Most of the stuff I did isn't acoustic. Just guitar related. On this record, we tried to move away from it--a little, not eliminate it. Everything I do starts on an acoustic guitar, basically, me sitting around in the dark trying to write a song. But, like, building new instrumentation--bringing a lot more vintage keys and synth sounds. A lot heavier guitars. The ghost refers to that acoustic sound. As a base, it's still there; the spirit of it. Hence the "Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford."

You said that you're your biggest critic. Was it difficult to produce your own album?

Even producing my own album, I always have another guy with me. This album was produced by Keefus [Keith Ciancia], him and myself together produced the album. The prior three records were done by me and my buddy Dante Ross. I produced every record I've been involved in. My opinion is, no matter how talented you are, if you don't have a guy that'll tell you "That sucks" every once in awhile, there's nobody challenging you to make a better record. You need that, unless you're an absolute self-hating motherf---er that can do that to yourself every time. It's hard to do. You gotta have someone [who says] "You know what, that can be better." Or "That just isn't working." It's like being a painter. Everything you paint, you're going to be into while you're doing it. You're going to think that's the best you can be. You need someone every once in awhile to say, "You know, you should just stop and start a new painting." Or, "You really need to change the whole direction of that." Again, if you get through a whole record and nobody challenges you through that record, you didn't make the best record.

"Die in Yer Arms" is my favorite song on the album. It has to be one of the darkest love songs.

That was fun to make. Honestly, that was one of the few songs that I do that my producer kind of threw a beat on and we started building up a beat together. I just started freestyling like ideas and it was such a groovy song, beatwise. It had this sexual thing to it. It became what it was. At first I was kind of leery of it because of the whole "Die in your arms tonight" song by Air Supply or something like that. [Cutting Crew] But the more I listen to it, I didn't even realize some of the things I was saying in it. There's certain songs in my career where it's like the word association game, where you just follow a chain of words, like "Black Jesus" a couple albums ago. This was kind of along those lines. One line led to the next. There's an idea here. It became what it was.