[SwimFinFan]

Here is the first part of the article. I'll post the second part in a few days. There are no photos with the article; just some graffiti-style caricatures of them, circa LTI. (Sorry, I don't have a scanner.)


IT STARTED WAY BACK IN HISTORY
THE CLOUT OF THE BROTHERS BEASTIE
By Cameron Macdonald

The Beastie Boy’s albums are like National Geographic issues left on a coffee table. No matter how much they age or how many coffee cup rings they gather, they still hold something new with each encounter. Each album is so dense with samples and lyrical references that it can take years to learn their significance, years to unlock the secret histories of funk, punk, jazz, and hip-hop buried inside. Don’t front.

PART ONE
June 11, 2004. At the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. It is one hour before the Beastie Boys play their set for the Live 105’s “BFD” Festival.

Adam Horovitz (King Adrock) and Michael Diamond (Mike D) sit down for the interview in their backstage portable. The former lacks his caffeinated energy, while the latter focuses on me only after making several cell phone calls and studying a free digital camera from his gift basket. Onstage, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs blare several hundred decibels into a freeway underpass of a drone, bleeding through the room’s closed door. Adam Yauch (MCA) is outside nursing a sore throat with tea, declining to speak in order to save his voice for the show. Adrock and Mike browse through three back issues of WAX POETICS. Mike D immediately has something to say.

MIKE D: I just want to say that I’m a big record buyer and vinyl enthusiast. But I don’t like [the term] “collector.” It implies that you collect records but you don’t listen to them, you’re not trying to get something that inspires you. I mean, I’m not into getting records that just sit on a shelf.
ADROCK: And how many records do you have sitting on a shelf?
MIKE D: I have thousands of records that just sit on the shelf. Which is ridiculous, but that’s a whole other story!
[MCA walks in and sits down]
What was the seed, germ, or main idea that led to your new album? Any key records that inspired its creation?
MIKE D: With any of our records, it’s not one event necessarily. Or one [inspiring] record.
ADROCK: It’s not one thing, it was just time to get it started. We knew at some point we had to do another record. We knew that at some point we had to do another record. So it just happened. We did a benefit show after September 11; it was fun to play again, and that set it off. Yauch also got a really, really nice studio. If we stayed in our old studio, which was in a basement of a basement…
MCA: A sub-basement.
ADROCK: Yeah, there wouldn’t have been this big push to get back into the studio. But Yauch got this really nice studio.
What were some of the main benefits of Yauch’s studio?
ADROCK: Windows.
MIKE D: I’d have to say that having daylight in the studio is huge. The whole thing of being able to make a record as a human being, and seeing the light cycle going on before you, as opposed to being some dungeon and having no idea of what time of day or night it is. But if you want to go to Las Vegas or something, that’s cool. For the way we work, it’s much better to be in our own studio, as it allows us to make records the way we want to make them. That is, playing a beat for a while and just sitting there and creating as opposed to having to come in with a plan or having songs written.
I noticed that your new record has a back-to-basics feel with its drum machine beats. Was it a real Roland 808?
ADROCK: We had samples of 808s. [asking Mike D] Did we actually ever break out an 808?
MIKE D: We never used a physical 808.
It was all sampled?
MIKE D: Yeah, we imported 808 sounds into sound banks.
ADROCK: We had 808 samples for years and years.
MCA: We hooked up [an 808] once, but we didn’t use the stuff we recorded.
MIKE D: Yeah, we did have an 808 in the studio.
I noticed that the album mostly sounds minimal and old school.
ADROCK: We thought it was futuristic. [In our studio], we got computers and laptops and G4s that has flat-screens. So, we felt that it was really futuristic. Maybe we weren’t so ahead of the game, but we were like Kraftwerk in doing this shit.
MIKE D: I’d say that we patted ourselves in the backs for having the hooked-up technology.
ADROCK: Yeah, I learned how to do emails. Crazy high tech shit like that.
MIKE D: I guess that some of our beats sound futuristic. But, I guess that there’s a catalog of hip-hop that we grew up on and we can’t get out of our brains.
What were some of the hip-hop influences that you can’t get out of your brains?
ADROCK: I’d say number one, if you really focused on it, would be EPMD.
MIKE D: And then there’s Larry Love, Roxanne Shante and UTFO. The whole weird, middle school hip-hop.
ADROCK: But with more headspace than EPMD.
MCA: And “Crawlspace,” “Brouhaha.” A lot of things.
Also your song “Triple Attack” riffs a break from “Rapper’s Delight.”
ADROCK: Well this guy [points to MCA] looped up the intro to “Rapper’s Delight.” A lot of people have rapped over the regular groove on “Rapper’s Delight,” the whole Chic thing. But he actually looped the intro instead, which nobody has rapped over yet. I thought that was interesting.
MCA: A different bass line too.
You guys were obviously a product of New York’s vibrant underground of the early ‘80’s, where there was a cross-pollination of musical ideas. Many hardcore punks would attend hip-hop shows and vice versa. What were some key records that pulled you guys into hip-hop during that time?
ADROCK: I gotta say that one record that came from my friend Eric Duncan was a live Afrika Bambaataa record.
The “Death Mix”?
ADROCK: Yeah, I never had it. So he hooked me up last year with that classic. I also heard the Yellow Magic Orchestra’s “Computer Games.” I got that 45 a couple of years ago. And that record got me psyched on computery-type things. Then I heard Bambaataa play that [on the “Death Mix”] with all kinds of crazy shit. So, that was something that got me hyped.
MIKE D: I remember seeing Bambaataa DJ at the Rosy, as I’m really dating myself. I think that was the first time I went to the Roxy, when that was the hip-hop scene. I was totally blown away when he mixed in Toni Basil. I think he did a two-copy mix of Toni Basil’s “Oh, Mickey! You’re so fine!” for like twenty minutes. It was actually too long, in my humble opinion. I mean, Bam is a master-don’t get me wrong. It was just so crazy as a pinnacle in the b-boy/hardrock sense, where he played records that weren’t b-boy at all, but he took their beats and made them work. Toni Basil is a prime example of that.
What caused your transition into performing disco and hip-hop with the “Cooky Puss” single?
ADROCK: With “Cooky Puss,” we first went into the studio to record some hardcore songs. [There], Yauch’s parents’ friends recorded commercials, and he let us come in the middle of the night to record. So we went in a couple of nights to record hardcore songs. We ended up with extra time. This was when [Malcom McLauren’s] “Buffalo Gals” was really big, so we fucked around and made fun of “Buffalo Gals” with the “Cooky Puss” song.
And did you guys also parody Musical Youth with “Beastie Revolution”?
ADROCK: I guess so. Yes and no. I loved [“Pass the Dutchie”] when it came out on 12-inches. At any rate. MCA: Sometimes making fun of shit is our way of trying it out. You know what I mean?
ADROCK: And also become what you made fun of.
Is that what happened with Licensed to Ill?
ADROCK: That’s exactly what happened. You made fun of something then you are it. So, the “Cooky Puss” thing was making fun of “Buffalo Gals.” And we then didn’t use any of the hardcore stuff we recorded-we u thought that “Cooky Puss” was funny, so we just put that out.
What drew you guys more into hip-hop afterwards?
ADROCK: We only played “Cooky Puss” once [live] and it sucked. So we decided that wasn’t going to work.
MCA: No, we actually played it a few times.
ADROCK: We only played it at Studio 54 just once.
MIKE D: No, we played at a few art [gallery] gigs.
MCA: [Art gallery/performance space] White Columns.
ADROCK: No!
MIKE D: Yeah! Definitely at White Columns, one of the art gigs. And we tried it in Detroit.
MCA: Also the Dancetaria. And that one gig inside the UPS building, along with the Kitchen.
[Adrock and MCA argue back and forth]
MIKE D: [talking to me] We were actually on the art circuit for a brief minute after “Cooky Puss” came out.
ADROCK: [to MCA] …but I’m talking about performing the actual song “Cooky Puss”!
MIKE D: We did gigs at places like the Kitchen that had people like [avant-rock composer] Glenn Branca. That whole theoretical scene. And art gigs paid better, so that was fun.
ADROCK: [to MCA] …but I’m saying it’s the music of “Cooky Puss” that we rapped over! [turns to me] I just want to get this straight. We only did the song, “Cooky Puss” once.
MIKE D: [to Adrock] Wait, wait! How come it only goes down to only once.
ADROCK: We only did it once with the phone call [part]. But there were plenty of times when you [pointing to MCA] played bass and Kate [Schellenbach] played drums and we rapped.
MCA: It was the other way around. Kate played bass, and Mike played drums. [smiles and high-fives Mike D]
ADROCK: Whatever dude. We only played the song once, and then we rapped. I’m right!
So, you guys were briefly part of the New York art circuit?
ADROCK: We are still!
MIKE D: I’d say the being “part of the art circuit” is an overstatement. But we played those [gallery] gigs for one year.
Your band opened for Glenn Branca?
MIKE D: It wasn’t like we opened. It would be like these bills with a multi-day festival at an art space, where one night would be Glenn Branka, and the other night would be us, Max Roach, and Fab 5 Freddy; those weird combinations. Sonic Youth also played those things.
What were some of the audience reactions at the art shows?
MIKE D: At art shows, people would just sit anyway. There wasn’t much you could get, in terms of a reaction. Your audience would be, like, all professors with patches on their jackets.
ADROCK: We gotta get back into that scene!
MIKE D: The next step [after the “Cooky Puss” 12-inch] was to MC more and to get a DJ. So our DJ, a friend of ours and our manager at the time, Nick Cooper, introduced us to Rick Rubin, “DJ Double R.”
As for Licensed to Ill…
MIKE D: [hearing a ringing guitar tone that begins the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”] This is the last song; I gotta go and listen. [he leaves to briefly watch the band from backstage]
Adam, you mentioned that Licensed to Ill began as a parody. What were you guys poking fun at?
ADROCK: Good question. It was like these guys wrote the song “Fight for Your Right to Party,” [turns to MCA] you and [Tom] Cushman, right?
MCA: It was just an idea.”
ADROCK: Right. Mike and Adam had an apartment together before Licensed to Ill, and they made “Fight for Your Right to Party”…
MCA: It wasn’t a song, it was like, “Ha, Ha! Wouldn’t it be funny to do this?”
ADROCK: Right. It started off with “Wouldn’t it be funny if we did this?” and we riffed off of that. I don’t know. It was like making fun of Ratt-type stuff.
MCA: It was like one of those songs like “Smoking in the Boys’ Room” or “School’s Out for Summer.”
ADROCK: Yauch and me bought those beer helmets.
With a beer can on each side with the straws?
ADROCK: Yeah, we wore beer helmets, and we walked down a street, and we were talking to these secretaries outside a margarita bar. We then got tickets from the cops and that’s kinda what happened. Does that make sense?
MCA: [chuckles]
ADROCK: We were like, “Hey, wouldn’t that be stupid if we put the helmets on?” But then we were really out there drinking beers, being idiots, and then we got tickets for it.
And so you guys decided to put that mockery of the whole lifestyle into song?
ADROCK: It sorta became that. It was become what you made fun of.
As for Licensed to Ill’s music, did that parody any hip-hop acts?
ADROCK: We were pretty into ourselves back then, just feeling ourselves.
MCA: It’s hard to explain. We were really into hip-hop-we loved Run-DMC, so part of it was making hip-hop in our own spastic, goofy way.
ADROCK: We were really into [Run-DMC’s] “Rock Box,” and we definitely wanted to make music in that way.
MCA: We just happened to make it in a goofier style.
How did the whole crate-digging process work for that album?
ADROCK: We’ve always been into records. Me and my brother bought lots of 45s.
Many of the samples already existed in your record collections before you produced the album?
ADROCK: Definitely. The “Mr. Ed” shit was off a TV record, and we had the Led Zeppelin shit.
And those were the free days when hip-hop groups could sample from artists without fear of any copyright infringement lawsuits?
ADROCK: We had the first lawsuit that used the word “sample.” It was over the Jimmy Castor Bunch’s “Hey Leroy” [“The return of Leroy”]. And rightfully so-we used a whole shitload of that record.
In transitioning to Paul’s Boutique, with its layers and layers of samples, did you guys want to escape the Licensed to Ill sound?
ADROCK: For that, we just hooked up with the Dust Brothers, so it was a combination of their approach in making really good music and Yauch’s engineering mind putting all kinds of things on top of each other and doing weird shit sonically.
MCA: I remember hearing “Shake Your Rump,” the instrumental they created, and “Car Thief.” They actually made them to be instrumentals to be played in a club. I asked, “Can we rhyme over this track?” And they were like, “Oh, we made these to be instrumentals like it is, but I guess we can take the music off and you can just rhyme over the beats.” We were like, “No, we want to rhyme over the whole music! That will be cool and interesting.” But I think that wasn’t being done very much at the time, where most of the [hip-hop] records coming out just had people rhyming over beats. Even from that point, we wanted to do something different then what was out there.
There are a lot of samples from ‘70’s funk and rock records on that album, which was awfully ahead of its time, before ‘70’s nostalgia entered mainstream culture.
ADROCK: And then came fucking Prince Paul. That bastard. De La Soul’s first album came out right before ours came out. We felt that we had the thing, but De La Soul’s first album was fucking amazing, and it got some weird shit out there.
[Mike D enters the room]
MIKE D: I think that album sounds musically a lot different. I remember at the time thinking that [De La Soul] was hitting on the ideas and the territory of what we wanted to do.
Did the Dust Brothers do most of the crate digging, or did you guys also play a part in it?
ADROCK: They had tracks already.
MCA: Their tracks were pre-made, but we made some of the stuff on our own.
MIKE D: I think that in the chronology of it-not giving it too much weight- we started working with them because of the tracks we heard from them, which were “Shake Your Rump” and “Car Thief.” We were just totally blown away by that. And “Shake Your Rump” was dense, and they wanted to keep it as an instrumental, but we were like, “No, let’s keep it like it is.”
MCA: We already told that story.
MIKE D: Oh, I’m sorry.
ADROCK: Yeah, while you were in the mosh pit.
MIKE D: I was watching the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but the tall kid from the Strokes stood in front of me and I couldn’t watch them.
[Publicist Steve Martin walks in to cut the interview, as it came time for their radio interview with the concert’s sponsor.]