Powerflo combines the passionate, chaotic, and authentic urgency of a brand-new band with the unrivaled experience of its trailblazing members. Senen “Sen Dog” Reyes (Cypress Hill), Billy Graziadei (Biohazard), and Christian Olde Wolbers (ex-Fear Factory) are genre giants who shaped heavy music and hip-hop and continue to innovate in this band. Their collective creative fingerprints are all over subculture, including early mashups of hardcore and rap, metal and industrial, and more.
From ripping album opener “I’m A Killer” through brawling closer “Drinkin’ Beer and Gettin’ Loud,” and all of the bangers in between (like “War Machine,” ‘Fuck ‘Em All Day,” and “Isolation”), Gorilla Warfare, Powerflo’s blistering second album, is a full circle moment for the guys and the genre.
Rounded out by drummer Fred Aching Rios, the quartet balances unrelenting energy with veteran mastery. Songs like “Resistance,” “Where I Stay,” and “Victim of Circumstance” from their 2017 self-titled debut demonstrated severe intensity, integrity, and determination. All these things are values shared and represented by the guys who lent their talents and spirits to classics like “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” “Insane in the Brain,” “Edgecrusher,” “Archetype,” “Punishment,” and “Down for Life.”
“Powerflo’s mix of agit-rap, thrash metal, and punk attitude is a revelation to those who only know Sen Dog from his Cypress Hill joints,” wrote long-running metal tastemaker Revolver. “His vocals are clear and sharp, and he drives the band’s full-throttle crunch like a natural-born frontman.”
The group supported their debut on tours with Body Count and P.O.D. and at major international festivals. Gorilla Warfare is even heavier than its predecessor. The second full-length album from Powerflo is energetic, driving, and pissed off. It’s a record that, like the band, was built to last.
Billy is aware of the “sophomore slump” trope and sees a second album as make-or-break time. “A band’s second record is when they really cut their teeth,” he says. “The first record, you get used to each other and see which songs bubble up as the fan-favorites. Those develop into this strong DNA code. You channel all those lessons and experiences into making a great second record. We all love the metal side of Powerflo. Sometimes, the conversation is, ‘Let’s make it bouncier, like Cypress!’ Then, Sen is like, ‘No, let’s make it more slamming, like your bands.’ We are all fans of each other.”
Despite growing up apart, the brotherhood between Powerflo’s core trio traces back 30 years. Billy was born in Boston and came up in Brooklyn. Christian grew up in Belgium, listening to a melting pot of music via skateboarding. Born in Cuba, Sen came up on the streets of South Gate, California, in LA County. They all share a passion for aggressive, energetic, truth-telling, outsider art.
The groundbreaking Judgment Night soundtrack, released in 1993, was an early building block of the rap-metal mashups to come, featuring Ice-T with Slayer, Biohazard teaming up with Onyx, and Cypress Hill with Pearl Jam. Not long afterward, Sen Dog joined Billy and the boys on “How It Is,” from Biohazard’s classic third album, State of the World Address (1994). Christian first appeared with Cypress Hill on the platinum album Skull & Bones (2000) and co-founded Kush with Sen’s bandmate B-Real and Stephen Carpenter of Deftones. (Fred Aching Rios also plays with Billy in BillyBio.)
Sen formed the funky rock band SX-10 in 1996 and later released Mad Dog American (2000). “I’m very comfortable with my role in Cypress Hill. But I’ve always yearned to do what I do over heavy music,” he explains. “I’ve always enjoyed rock, metal, and the blues. Christian and Billy have a deep knowledge of hip-hop, know how to work with a rapper, and know where I fit into the puzzle.”
Christian first met the Cypress Hill crew in Los Angeles. “Being around those guys felt very comfortable,” he says. “Just as Billy and I were playing in metal bands while listening to a lot of hip-hop, when I met Sen, his favorite band was Megadeth. Billy comes from Brooklyn, the land where some of the greatest MCs of all time originated. Public Enemy and Anthrax hit the nail on the head [when they teamed up]. Both styles have a lot of energy and work in perfect harmony together.”
Powerflo began in 2017 when Sen reached out to producer Josh Lynch, who helped him put together some initial music. Soon, he reached out to Billy and then Christian, who also plays in the reactivated classic thrash band Vio-Lence. Downset’s Rogelio Lozano was part of the early lineup, and so was Brazilian drummer Fernando Schaefer. (Both parted ways with the band after the first album.)
“It all came together pretty organically,” Sen recalls. “Once Billy stepped in, the whole production side of things ramped up quickly – making songs happen, getting in there and recording.”
Billy and Lynch produced the debut, with mixing duties handled by Jay Baumgardner (Godsmack, Papa Roach, Helmet). A few years (and the global pandemic) came and went, but Powerflo remained. The second album came together with even more confidence than the first, ambitious and unafraid.
“I developed different styles from playing in Fear Factory and playing with Stephen, for example, to where now what I’m doing is probably a blend of all of that,” Christian says. “Powerflo, for me, is really about the voice on top of it. We’re metal and hardcore guys. We know which rappers have that powerful delivery from the gut. Sen is like another instrument. The Mount Rushmore of hip-hop vocalists who sound great over heavy music includes Chuck D, Ice-T, Xzibit, KRS-One, and Sen.”
The group’s frontman delivers arguably the most killer performance of his career thus far on Gorilla Warfare. “I pushed Sen harder than I’ve pushed a vocalist,” Billy confesses. “He stepped out of his comfort zone. Sen has a style; the way he flows over the riffs is where the name ‘Powerflo’ came from. But on this album, he dug deeper. I’m proud of all of us on this record. We nailed it.”
Gorilla Warfare not only cements Powerflo as a heavy hitter in the heavy music scene (and certainly as more than a “project”) but brings all its members full circle with a genre they helped pioneer.
Billy produced and recorded the album at his Firewater Studios in Los Angeles.
Tue Madsen (Meshuggah, Suicide Silence, Sick Of It All) handled mixing duties. Maor Appelbaum (Faith No More, Halford, Sabaton), who mastered the first album, also mastered Gorilla Warfare.
“I wanted to make something heavier than the first record and push my limits,” Sen explains. “You can repeat yourself or see what else you have in the tank. The strongest critics of a piece of musical art are usually the people who made it. We’re hard on ourselves as individuals. It’s all from a sincere point of view. There’s nothing on this album that isn’t us. It’s all 100 percent genuine.”
While Billy acknowledges their collective history of innovation, he insists it was never a goal in and of itself. “We never tried to come up with a new style back then, and now we’re still a bunch of dudes who love lots of different kinds of music and mix it in the same natural and unapologetic way.”
Christian agrees. “We saw the fusion of metal and hip-hop in the late ‘80s,” he points out. “Then it went through the whole nü-metal phase. Now we’re getting back to where it all came around again. I started playing live with Cypress, as more of a rock/alternative band live, and we’re still doing it.”
As Billy points out, “The three of us are survivors. We’ve experienced so many great times and so many challenging times. Powerflo is so enjoyable because we have a blast doing this together.”
