Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 597: Mike D On: The Value of Failure, the Addictive Power of Adrenaline, and How a Beastie Boy Got Into Lovingkindness

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Today’s show features one of Dan’s personal musical heroes, Mike Diamond — “Mike D” from the Beastie Boys. Their conversation is wide ranging and covers topics from the role of failure in achieving success to Mike’s personal meditation practice. They say, “never meet your heroes”, but Mike D doesn’t disappoint in this smart and thoughtful discussion. Mike D formed the Beastie Boys with Adam Yauch, aka MCA, in the early 80’s, winning a number of Grammys and spanning a multi-decade career. In 2018, along with his bandmate, Adam Horovitz, Diamond co-authored Beastie Boys Book, which told the story of the band in its own words and reached #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list. A limited series of live shows, in which the two brought stories from the book to life, was captured in the 2020 film Beastie Boys Story. Content Warning: The content is a little mature at points so take care if you’re listening with kids. In this episode we talk about:How Mike reconciles the misogyny of the Beasties early workThe evolution of the band — and how they freed themselves from feeling imprisoned by their own personasThe role of failure in achieving successThe value of taking risks in creative endeavorsWatching his late bandmate, Adam Yauch, find Buddhism, and how that impacted their musicThe addictive nature of adrenaline when performingThe role meditation and yoga played for Mike as he tried to calibrate the highs and lows while on tour — and how these practices also now play a role in parenting his two kidsHow he works through self-judgment while meditatingHow he and the other surviving bandmate, Adam Horovitz, managed their grief in the wake of the untimely death of Adam YauchAnd how a Beastie Boy came to embrace, of all things, loving-kindnessFull Show Notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mike-diamond-597See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, I'm very excited about this. We've got one of my personal musical heroes on the show today. I was genuinely nervous for this. We've got one of my personal musical heroes on the show today. I was genuinely nervous for this interview. You might actually hear it in my voice. They say, I don't know who they is, but they say you should never meet your heroes. But Mike D did not let me down, not at all.

Quite the opposite. He was so smart and thoughtful and friendly. I've been listening to Mike D's band, The Beastie Boys, since I was in junior high. As you'll hear me say in the interview, The Beastie Boys were my first concert. Anybody who's ever heard their early tracks will know that some of the lyrics were a wee bit problematic,

but The Beasties went on to become one of the most innovative and progressive and amazing musical acts of the 1990s and beyond. In this interview, we talk about how Mike D. reconciles the misogyny of the B.C.'s early work, the evolution of the band, and how they freed themselves from feeling imprisoned by their own personas, the role of failure in success,

the value of taking risks when you're being creative, watching his late bandmate Adam Yauke find Buddhism and how that impacted the band's music. The addictive nature of adrenaline when you're performing, the role meditation in yoga played for Mike as he tried to calibrate the highs and lows out on tour and how these practices are now playing a big role for him as he parents to young men, how he works through self-judgment while meditating, how he and his other surviving bandmate, Adam Horowitz, managed their grief in the wake

of the untimely death of Adam Yauke, and how a Beastie boy came to embrace of all things, loving kindness. Heads up, the content can be a little mature here in this particular episode, unsurprising, given the Beastie's over. So just take care if you're listening with kids.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the great meditation teacher Alexis Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm all one word spelled out.

Okay on with the show. Hey y'all it's your girl Kiki Palmer I'm an actress, singer and entrepreneur. On my new podcast Baby This is Kiki Palmer I'm asking friends, family and experts the questions that are in my head like it's only fans only bad where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcast. Mike D. Welcome to the show. Oh thank you. Thank you for having me. Do you prefer Mike Diamond, Michael Diamond, Mike D. What do you go by these days? Well it's funny. What do I go by these days? I take what I can get honestly, as long as not too derogatory.

And none of those are. Right. This whole conversation could devolve. I mean, we could get derogatory, but we're not being polite for now. Okay, fair enough. In our correspondence prior to doing this, you mentioned coming to see

Beastie Boy's shows at the Worcester's Syndrome. There's something, and I don't to doing this, you mentioned coming to see BC boys shows at the Worcester centrum. There's something, and I don't really know why, but our shows at the Worcester centrum pronounced with a local's accent would be Worcester centrum. Not bad, right? Worcester. I'm going to a wicked pisa at Worcester centrum. That crowd was just the most hardcore toughest crowd. We basically had to reinvent security techniques

just to keep the crowd at a place where they could go nuts, enjoy it, enjoy themselves, but not be actually destructive to themselves into each other. Yes, I was with a group of very scared timid Jewish people up in the bleachers, and it looked like there was a bunch of crazy drunk people in the front roast. Were they getting on the stage and accosting you? No, no, that's what I'm saying. We are loved, right? Because we played there as like the headliner many times, and thank God you and your fellow

Worcester natives supported us. Well, just to be clear, I'm from Newton, which is a cushy suburb closer to Boston Okay, and I imagine the crowd I'm visceral memories I think the first concert I ever went to was the Beastie boys There was a huge penis that came out of a box on the stage and oh Wow, you're early. I was probably your first early in your first tour You were guys were spraying the crowd with beer. I think. Yeah, well anyway, so as time evolved, the penis was left out of it. And, you know, we came to see the ramifications of our actions a bit differently as one.

Pretty much everybody, I think. Well, hopefully everybody does with maturity. How did that journey go, though? How did that transformation go from giant dick on the stage to songs like Bodyshire Vow and Shambhala that was on ill communication? Yeah. That's a huge shift. What happened? What provoked it?

How did it go? I think there's a number of things we went from being in this period of our lives where it was almost kind of neuronic of like growing up in New York City and going out to all these clubs and being totally immersed in music and loving all the music. And because we were in New York City, we had access to all of this different kind of music that was all happening at a time that the only way you could get to it then was I think really by being in New York City or at least get to all that different kind of music

literally in the same night. The only city in the world probably that had that at that time and I'm talking about you know mid 80s before obviously before this thing called the internet or digital streaming music. And so we were just like so happy to be in this world. And then we have this band, we start this band called BC Boys. I'm in high school. We put out our first hardcore punk rock seven-inch called polywax-doo when I was like 16 and I was still 11th grade I'm thinking. And then we go on and we make this record called Cookie Puss, and that actually starts getting played in these nightclubs that we're going to as still kids in New York City. And then we're kind of,

in that sense, there's almost nirvana chorus, because we're like in the culture that we really relate to and sort of dreamed about being part of, and now we're actually part of it. And now, not only are we part of it, like we're going to get to go into all these clubs for free. And we're kind of like celebrities in this very microcosmic sense, right?

And so it doesn't have any of the downsides that come with being celebrity only the upsides. Like you get to go into a club for free, you get to give in a drink, people are nice to you, as opposed to rude to you. It is all, you know, upside. And then we're making licensed sale and licensed sale comes out and that's even better because then we're just obsessed with rap music and we're in this world of like we're on tour with Run DMC, we're on

tour with Elle Cool J. They all helped us immensely and taught us a lot and they've all totally taken us into this world that is so exciting and meant everything to us. And that was great. But then life's as hell comes out and it becomes this like huge thing where it has this moment where you know you in junior high school or wherever you were in your arc and many others are also like, oh my god, I love this group, but that did change our lives. And it changed our lives in a bunch of ways.

But one of the ways is that all of a sudden, there's money generated to what you're doing. And then as soon as you have money, and you're young, we're at this point, gosh, I'm maybe like 20 years old, then you have a lot of people who are trying to manipulate the direction in which you go and somehow we got completely screwed over by the label we were assigned to called Def Jam, which is Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin and Rick I'm still friends with and Rick to his defense, I guess, you know, Rick also about, he was like, I'm kind of out this world, I started it, but I don't really want to be part of it anymore. He was gone. And we basically had this fight with Russell Simmons,

who then was sort of solely deaf-traumatic. He just wanted us to just keep being the wild, crazy sort of, we really became self-parading, right? It was like, we had this idea that it would be funny to throw beer on stage. We read Led Zeppelin Hammer, The Gods, and we kind of, we really liked this idea of creating our own myth, and it felt very free in a way to create our own myth. And it seemed really funny to us because it was so different than the world we actually came from of like this very downtown New York City artistic liberal, yeah, just very, very artistic world.

That seemed really hilarious to us until it wasn't. So I think the process that came apart of being successful and being manipulated and then becoming successful and having this weird feeling of like, wait, all sudden in 12 months we went from being completely passionate and completely in love with what we're doing to feeling like that's not us on stage at all and being told literally that that's your job and you have to go do it.

And we realized very quickly, like that's not what we wanna do. And actually thankfully, I think that's the luxury of being privileged. When I say privilege, it's not, I don't even just mean that in some kind of economic sense of like we all came from these homes in New York City where even as disfunctionals are households may have been, we were taught that we had a voice

and that our opinions mattered. And so I think Russell Simmons actually totally misread us, honestly. You know, I'm curious to get his take on it wherever he is in the world because I think he just, he blew it in terms of he just figured like, okay, I just sort of basically say, like, you have to keep doing the same thing you did or I'm not going to pay you, which is what that's what he did. Our reactions, that will go fuck yourself. We realized right away we don't want to just be a circus act as a job. And we realized we wanted to get back to making what we loved,

making which was what we were doing with Rick originally, when we were making license to Il, even though we were laughing a lot of it, we were like jokes that we didn't realize that then when they get to be massly communicated, also become massly misunderstood. So anyway, so I think that was all part of it. And then the other huge part was that we all sort of had this wake up of,

wow, we can joke around about being misogynistic on our record. But if that actually then empowers people to act that way, holy fuck, you know, it really felt weird. It didn't feel good. And it made us really feel like the band wasn't ours. It's almost like we had to take the band back. And then in doing so, we're very, very fortunate because then I think it made us really close friends

to three of us. The paradigm shifted where it's like our relationship to each other became the primary, most important thing. So you invent these personas of like kind of frapp boys on crank, even though you're coming out of, you know, a really liberal, open-minded artistic community. And it's funny because you think you're making this record, nobody's going to hear it, then the whole world hears it.

And they take it way too seriously. And you start to feel imprisoned by your own personas. And you kind of walk away from it all, go to LA and reinvent. Yeah, 100%. So we have this falling out with Decham and we go to LA and it's interesting looking back at it, right? Because we couldn't have become what we became if we didn't have that falling out. Because then we go to Los Angeles and it really is up to the three of us because people we thought were our friends didn't pay us.

Me and Def Jam, like I said, Rick is kind of split and he's doing his own thing and he coincidentally moved to LA as well. Then yeah, we're left to like think, okay, well, what do we want to do? And we realize we do want to be with each other. You know, that was always a very unique thing for us as a band. Sure, we get into arguments and be completely passionate about one idea that maybe one or two others of us in the group didn't get sure that's going to happen with any artistic collaboration. But we really did value and really liked being with each other and spending time with each other.

And that became like an important thing. And so, yeah, there we are in LA. We meet these guys, the dust brothers, love the music that we hear that they started working on. They played for us and we were like, can we work with you on some of these tracks to start making our new record? And two of the dust brothers, John King and Mike Simpson, they were computer engineering students at Claremont College, which is I think outside of LA,

like Pomona or something. So they had like an earliest version of music recording software, we'd ever seen where they by using two mono samplers, we were able to go into stereo. This is technical and boring, but it was it was technology that hadn't existed for us like on licensed to ill technologically. The thing is that you hear that our samples are actually physical tape loops that we had going around the control room of the studio, but the only samplers that existed were these machines to cost more than like a Bentley or something. So, license away of tape loops and then all of a sudden now because of these computer science slash musical geeks, the dust brothers,

we were all sudden able to sample all these different records that we love. And so we go completely ballistic on making Paul's boutique of just delving into, not even really knowing, it's just sort of technology enabling us to go in a certain direction. And then really having that freedom, again, because we have this falling out with Def Jam. So now we're completely on our own. We don't have anybody telling us what to do. And we've had this success. So there's major record labels that want to work with us, but it's not like when you have a young band and you can say, oh, great, we're going to put your record up.

But we really think for you to fit in, you've got to be like this and you've got to be like that. And you know, no, we don't hear anything for the radio. So we really want you to go back in and work with this producer. We are free of any of that because we'd had this huge success with a license to ill. So then we yeah, we moved to California, we make polls, we teak, we really put a lot into it. We're really happy with it when we finally finish it and it's a total commercial failure. Totally flops. But you know, maybe it's just some degree probably because we didn't have anybody who was able to say,

hey you guys, you know, your last record had like these songs on it called like Fife Eric Departy and there's nothing on this album that's like that at all. You know, you can do that, but there's going to be ramifications. And there were. And people just that audience that bought licensed ill and drove at that time couldn't connect with Paul's fatigue. And that's where I actually lose my ability to explain. Because I'm very grateful that over time,

it's this record that people love and point to and shifted culture somewhat because of how it was made and the technology involved and how we used and abused it. But it's just honestly, it's miraculous that the first time around that we basically were these kids from New York City and have this success with licensed ill. And then it's all the more miraculous that we then in this sort of like Phoenix rising from the ashes moment and we go and we make Paul's we take and it works for us artistically, but it's a total failure. But then is like the best thing that could have happened to us in terms of the longevity and the

actual sort of quality of life of the pen ever. Really? That makes sense. Right. Well, we talk about, yeah, I was trying to do that. So here I am selling failure. I mean, I'm trying to do that sell failure. Well, failure is worth selling.

To your, no, it is. I actually have had a lot of the piffony moments as a parent, but what of the biggest I had was like, I think like, good old parents, I ended up in this weird ego fragile space of like, you know, my kids were going to like competitive schools here in New York City and doing the whole private school thing. And you're, you know, you're going to like parent teacher night, and you're really worried about like what's the teacher's going to say? I was like, what the f is the worst grade you can get. And I'm only where I am in life because of multiple F's. Failure is just the greatest thing to ever

happen to me, basically, right? So, how, why are my valuing putting my kids through a culture that's saying that failure is a bad thing? So what did you do with that? Eventually, putting my kids through a culture that's saying that failure is a bad thing. So what did you do with that? Eventually, then my kids are going to school in Bali. Indonesia Bali. In Indonesia Bali. Bali, that place called Green School, where hopefully they were a little free

to make their own mistakes. And I think it worked out. My father used to say that the hardest thing about being a parent is letting your kids make their own mistakes. Yeah, well, it's still hard. My kids are 18 and 20. It's still hard.

I have to zip my mouth shut a lot of times and just be like, all right, no, they're gonna have to experience this to learn it. It's no point in me saying, this is what is going to happen. Yes. What about you and your own life now? Are you still getting Fs? I hope so. Yeah. I am, I guess. Yes. What about you in your own life now? Are you still getting F's? I hope so. Yeah.

I am. I yes. Yes. I think I do. It's not the same with pride. Yeah. No, I don't know how to learn without having that kind of investment and failure. I guess what I'm saying is I'm putting myself out there enough to fail. I hope that I continue to do that and that I am continuing to do that now. I think that's key. Yeah. I mean, another word for that would just be courage. Yeah, that's interesting. I think you're right, but I would not be comfortable. I'll have to talk to my therapist about this at first, because no, it's you're like, I wouldn't be comfortable saying, oh, I'm courageous. I wouldn't be comfortable embracing that. But you're probably correct. It's interesting.

Ruben wrote this book on the creative process. I'm making a note of that, because I'll put them on the show if he needs it. Yeah, you should have a try to reach out to him and see if you could say it would be a great episode for your show. Anyway, he's just talking about the creative process and that, yeah, it's an interesting thing, right?

That's a huge thing in whatever your creative pursuit is. We're totally not aware of it in the time. A guy who have no problem saying, looking back at it, calls for teeth was a very courageous effort because we didn't listen. We didn't compromise. We didn't try to make license to Il Part II. Which would have been commercially almost guaranteed to succeed. Maybe, I mean, who knows?

We'll never know, actually. Right. There are no sliding doors here. Right. It could have been it. It could have been like, look warm, license to Il and okay, fine now. Everybody's grown up. We don't need to hear from these guys ever again.

Well, yeah, we just don't know. On this issue of taking risks, especially as it pertains to creativity, I believe was Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer who said, creation is embarrassing. And I love that. Because as I, you know, spend years writing books, like the process, as I show early drafts to people,

it's totally embarrassing. Because they suck. Yeah, well, and by the way, same with songs, and say we learned this, I don't know, or have a side learned this the hard way Like the process as I show early drafts to people, it's totally embarrassing because they suck. Yeah. Well, and by the way, same with songs. And say we learned this, I don't know, or if it's I learned this the hard way in terms of when we did our book, these two ways, book, same thing, right, the early drafts of it. It sucks and it's even worse than making a record because records, it was very interesting to find this out.

And I know this makes me sound like a supreme dumbass which maybe I am. But records at least you're working on something and it might still suck but you get to play it back aloud and you get some kind of gratification, right? There's some way you can play it back for yourself for the people you're working with or people that are really close to you and like, this part is great, you know, 98% of it might still suck, but there's still something where you're like, oh, this is cool. In the written word, you don't get any of that.

No, you spend all morning writing, and you go back and you look at it the next morning, you're like, I don't know. Is this just terrible? Like, this is even me. This is even sound like me. There's no gratification. This only work

refinement and suffering Yes, all right use the word suffering, which is of course a big Buddhist buzzword I want to go back to this arc from License to ill and fight for your right to party to having songs on a record that are overtly Buddhist Mm-hmm, and I think a big part of that was MCA, Adam Yalke, your bandmate becoming a Buddhist. And as you watched that happen, how did that go down with you?

Yeah, that's a good question. So first, Paul's reteach, we have the commercial failure, going back to the failure word, then it actually is great though because it gives us this even bigger degree of artistic freedom because at that point we got signed to this big record deal, capital records. Everybody who is

involved in signing us to that record deal gets fired because it's like, guys, you made the worst commercial decision in history. You've signed this band that's clearly going nowhere and now they've made a failure. We we gotta change directions here. So we're literally, nobody wants anything to do with us, but we're still signed to capital letters and we still have a budget so we can go off and make music on our own. So we literally regroup it, Adam Horvitz's apartment,

we start picking up our own instruments because we're like, you know, all these records we've been listening to that we've been sampling, what if we just start playing some stuff like sort of inspired by that. Like everything we've done in our lives very naively because we don't really think about the fact that, okay, yeah, we've grown up our lives playing instruments, but most of the artists we love, you know, are like, prodigal examples and well studied musicians that have put huge vast amounts of time and effort into mastering

their craft. And here we are. Just like, well, we'll do it. Whatever. Anyway, so we start working on Check Your Head. We build our own studio. Adam comes in one day and I forget what it was. He's like, no, I'm going on this trip.

I'm going to go to Kathmandu. I'm going to go trekking through Nepal and then eventually through India. And I try to think what it felt like when he said that. So first, it's kind of like, hold on, we're making a record here. And you're talking about going to high elevations in Nepal trekking. And then we're also, it's just a kind of unfathomable, right?

And it's also very courageous, right? To kind of leave this creative process that you're in with your friends and somehow just follow this calling and go off on your adventure. So he goes and he comes back, but looking back at it, I don't know what to attribute it to, like what was the calling that got him there?

And then led to him having these experiences, but he was very struck by in his trekking experience, he met Tibetans, you know, diasporatic Tibetans that exposed him to the idea of Buddhists concepts, and also not only Buddhist concepts, but the sort of situation that they were living in exiled from Tibet and having, you know, an exiled spiritual leader with his holiness, the Dalai Lama. You know, he didn't make it to Dom Sala on that trip, but got exposed to the idea of the teachings of the Dalai Lama. He didn't make it to Dom Sala on that trip, but got exposed to the idea of the teachings of the Dalai Lama and what Dom Sala itself represented. You're kind of like on the one hand, the fuck you disappeared and now you're back. But then at the

same time, it was incredible because you see this friend of yours that you truly love have literally their mind broken wide open and sharing it all with you. And it was an incredible thing and what a gift for all of us. He's sort of continued his path in a just kind of gradual and maturing way than when he would have time either doing a multi-day body-s fit course with his holiness was still obviously decades pre-pandemic when this holiness would still come to North America with some frequency or he would go to d'arm sala when he would have time and do a bit of studying. And if it was interesting with Adam, I think it's also a lot of people will go and embrace a lot of the teachings,

the Buddhist philosophy and from his holiness, but Adam really took on the political plight. But in a very, I don't know, it's a very sort of Buddhist principled way of like if we can kind of speak up for what's happening, but these people having to live de aspiratically just because of their ideals and their beliefs. And we can affect change nonviolently. That this could be like a very transformational moment for all. Hence the concert for free to bed. You put on a bunch of Tibetan freedom concerts. We did.

They became kind of like an annual thing. And but you know, again, to give Adam credit, I mean, talking about courage, the one we did when we played the first year was in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. And it was like, what I felt was like the first huge kind of charity concert that was done from when live aid happened or something. I mean, it was tens and tens of thousands of people in Golden Gate Park with a lot of artists, lending their talents and names to it.

It's really, yeah, really beautiful. Coming up, we dive deeper into Tibetan Buddhism and its influence on the Beastie Boys. We talk about Mike D's own meditation practice and how his practice helped him offset the addictive nature of adrenaline when he was out on tour. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest

and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone.

So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. You say he took on the political part of it, but it's interesting in preparation for this interview my step, put together a little dossier on you. And I was reading some quotes from Yoke, I mean, he's a young guy, but it's clear if you read

his quotes talking Yoke, I mean, he's a young guy, but it's clear if you read his quotes talking about Buddhism, he understood something key, here it is. The people that I've met, this is Yoke talking Adam Yoke. The people that I've met are really centered in the heart. They're coming from a real clear compassion of place. And most of the teachings that I've read about almost seem set up to distract the other side of your brain in order to give your heart center a chance to open up.

In terms of what I understand, Buddhism is like a manual to achieve enlightenment. There are these five things and these six things, when then the first thing and all these little subdivisions, despite all of that right brain information, it's really heart centered. At least that's the feeling I get from the Tibetan. So also the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism have been passed down for a long time now. They seem to have the system pretty well figured out. Anyway, I read that. I was like, huh, that's like a really smart 25 year old

concise explanation of Buddhism in a nutshell. We just turn down the volume on the monkey mind. Whatever the ego is constantly vomiting up. And when you clear away that noise,, then the good stuff can come out. Your capacity for kindness, clarity, calm, compassion, connection. And then of course, he goes on to describe Buddhism and all of its great details as, yeah, they come up with all these lists and it may seem technical, but at the nub, it's really designed to just like make you happier and a better person.

And he got it. You can turn. Yeah. No, it resonated, obviously, really deeply. And it's very palpable for him in this tangible way. And he took a lot of it on. You know, we talked about it in the book and in the film BC Boys' story. I highly recommend that. It's incredibly good. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

But yeah, I'm not good at doing plugs, but I did a plug there, pretty professional. Yes. I think a lot of what was joyful from both Adam Horowitz and myself in the writing of the book and the writing and creation of Beast of Boy Story was that we got to talk about Yaku's so anomalous in that he was this friend of ours that could go deep into Tibetan philosophy and

Buddhist philosophy with a real understanding, but at the same time, would at the drop of a dime, literally the drop of a dime would be like, oh, this party is happening, let's go buy costumes and dress up ridiculously, let's go there. You know, he didn't lead the life of Nacetic or a monk in any classic sense at all. He really did live this very rich life where he was willing to just dive into things with complete passion and commitment, whether it was putting on a costume or attending Buddhist lectures. Or not even attending the lectures, really like you pointed out. He really was able to distill it

down in a, you know, like you do over podcasts, right, distilling Buddhist information, putting it out there in a relatable way. Thank you. But he, you know, I'm an old man and he was doing this at a much younger age and the conditions in his life were at least, you know, through at least one lens not as conducive to Buddhism in other words he had all the worldly temptations and everything, you know, wasn't at an age where he was doing that much suffering yet at least on the surface. And yet he was clearly drawn to this thing in a very powerful way and it changed his life. It does kind of bring us back to the beginning of this conversation with the dick coming out of the box and all the stuff that you guys said on the internet as a joke.

You had to go back there. I know I did. But, but, but I do talk about suffering. You're going to be happy with what you're doing. Make your guest really uncomfortable here. Yauke then goes on to write the lyric in Shore Shot, which is on ill communication, I believe. Yeah, correct. Yeah. It's basically a complete refutation of your earlier, joky or thesis that people took the

wrong way. Yeah. I think it felt great to Adam and great to us, like how lucky are we that we get to exist, we get to continue on as a band, to not only go and have all this fun together originally and come up with the most absurd thing possible having a dick in the box on a stage and then get to go on and make records

and sort of comment on it. And really from a place from speaking from the heart, where, you know, just, you know, how great and how amazing is that that we get to sort of continue to go on and do that. I mean, to become a force for good in the world, not only through the sheer beauty of the music, and I mean, that's sincerely, but also the promotion of protection of an entire culture that got kicked out of their own country, the Tibetans, of course. And this music that lives on, you know, my son is eight. We listen to the Beastie Boys. Well, before I was able to book you on this show, by the way, I'm obsessed with, you'll

know this, maybe you'll resonate with this as a father of two boys, but I'm obsessed with impressing my son in any possible way. And the only time I've come close to succeeding was showing him that I was emailing with you the other day. So, I mean, yeah, we all do embarrassing shit when we're younger. And you guys did. Yeah. And as you said, you were blessed to have a long enough career to really turn it around.

Yeah, everybody does embarrassing shit, especially at the age that we did it. Like, on your 20 years old, just most people are at that point getting their undergraduate degrees in college. And well, now everything's captured. But then nothing would be captured. Just happened that ours was literally broadcast everywhere. Yes, this goof that you guys were coming up with,

not thinking anybody would hear it. Yeah. So having had this incredible experience of having achieved so much success and then having this beloved bandmate find Buddhism and then very unfortunately pass away way to soon, where are you now? Do you practice Buddhism? What's your spiritual or meditative game?

My game. My practices. I'm a, essentially just because I've found what compartmentalized sense it works best for me is I'm a very dedicated TMR. I actually have a trans-adetial meditation because that, for me, it's a very transportable practice. And as much as I like being surprised and like being sort of tested

and testing myself with uncertainty, I think to be able to do that, I need routine in my life. And I come also from something you mentioned when we were emailing prior to this show. I have this yogic asana background because here we are at where this band were on stage.

Like the events are like high energies is a term that's not accurate at all. It's so beyond. It's like full unfiltered hormonal. It's just, it's so full on. And, you know, it's a really interesting looking back at it, because I don't like any of us, none of us knew that we actually had this thing called a nervous system.

Again, I know it makes me sound like a dumbass. But I didn't, I truly didn't. I know I think I was well into my forties when I learned that I had this thing on a nervous system. But I think that's where as another part of a pragmatic sense, Buddhism really resonated with him because all of a sudden we're going on stage night after night, every night in front of 20,000 people and having to both put out all this energy and take on all this energy that's happening. And that's really is what's happening. In this concert

arena, it's a big level mass energy exchange. And I think for you out that just felt good and it was like the only thing that actually would calm his nervousness. And for me, The only thing that actually would calm his nervousness for me, then I remember influenced by him going to India, then I went to India a little bit later and I go to my son, I studied in Shnonga yoga there. And it was interesting. I think that was part of my survival mechanism on tour, with again, not knowing that I had a nervous system. It's probably the first time that I actually experienced

something that was calming to my nervous system and took me to a place that was outside of ego. We try for that as practitioners. All of us as meditators, practitioners, whatever, so many times we're like, oh, God, we're very judgmental and... That was shitty meditator. That was a great meditator.

All of these things that are completely meaningless and are just ego chatter, but as long as we keep showing up and practicing, it's fine. Exactly, because what you can get when you show up in practice is a glimpse. I was fortunate enough to have that experience of course, through my time of practicing also in a meditation,

I'd have these glimpses that would, I would always say like they're the glimpses that keep you in the game. Yes. That like just you're struggling with a practice a little bit and then you get this like glimpses and you're like, all right, that's why. I've done a non-trivial amount of meditation

and I've done some yoga, but I've never had a moment in yoga, the physical postures where I've had a glimpse of anything other than wow, my hip flexors are tight. So what for you, like what happens, this is my ignorance. I can see how it would work, but I don't understand the mechanism of how doing these postures would create a glimpse of something beyond the ego. That's where Yacht Square quote about Buddhism resonates with me,

because I think again, you've got Ayurvedic knowledge that is going back, I mean, it's predates that you're talking ancient civilization here, and you've got this tradition of practices and of osmosis that these practices have survived thousands of years. There's probably a reason that they're passed down from generation to generation. In the yoga practices, yeah, there is something in this, it's this ancient lineage and then you taught a series of practices or asanas and then also you're feeling something that is beyond you,

right, that is you're having little glimpse of transcendence or of something bigger than you or that you're part of something much bigger. And it's, I think, for Adam and I and everybody who's been a musician, I'm part, I know a lot of other things too, but music very specifically, when you're sort of, I feel like I don't wanna say it happiest,

but there's this feeling you get in collaboration with music where it really is a transcendent form. You can be playing drums, you can play bass, you can play guitar, you can be a pianist, you can be a floutist, you could be first chair, cellist, I don't care, but there are these moments where you are so absorbed in the work you're making with others that your communication with others is totally beyond the right brain, right? You're like off into not only other hemispheres of the brain, you're literally off into other hemispheres, period. And

I think your ass was in all the first place ever where I had a little glimpse like that, like that I'd had in music. And I think that's what I started learning is I got older, was like, oh, now I guess it, it makes a lot of sense to me why like so many musician friends of mine end up being complete wrecks when they get back from tour, because they're out on tour and this vast amounts of like adrenaline pumping through

their system every night. Again, this comes back to the nervous system. There's nothing putting them back in balance. And nobody's like handing them a manual. Oh, hey, you're 25, and this is kind of crazy, but you're doing this huge exercise for your ego, 300 nights a year, and it's these things that kind of help things feel a bit more in balance, this is a very powerful thing, I think. Yeah. Two kind of stories are coming to mind for me. One is, you know, I spent a lot of my early 30s in war zones as a correspondent for ABC News and it's, I don't know if I can compare it to

being a rock star because I've never been one, but is a lot of adrenaline. It's very exciting. And then I would come home and get depressed. And that started doing drugs. And it was the, I just didn't have any other coping magnets. Yeah. Like you're actually it paid correspondence in a place

where people get degrees in journalism. There's the whole process to getting to the point where you were that you'd think there would be a manual like Hey, listen, we know you really want to go out and be a war correspondent We have to tell you you're gonna see some crazy stuff But it's not even that when you come home You're not gonna know who you are. Yes. Yeah, anyway, yes, or it is a similar thing And that's why I think you over and over and over you see musicians who get back and they're basically they're sort of chasing

this moment of transcendence, and maybe it's a drennel and two and all these other things. So the only thing is drugs of one direction or another to just try to, hopefully, they don't feel as weird when they're back or not in that process of being a war correspondent or being on a big rock tour. And I wanna be clear, because in this sensitive times, I would no way compare what we did to somebody being out actually in a war zone because we had a very, very cushy life

comparative. I totally get it. It's a rough analogy. And I wouldn't compare being a correspondent in a war zone to being a soldier in a war zone. So everybody's experience is different. The other thing I was going to say is like, so there's the adrenaline of music and I'm being on tour that I can see being addictive in a way that it's like roughly analogous to being in a war zone. You also talked about the transcendence of the creative process in music and how that can be roughly akin to breakthrough moments in yoga or meditation. And I was having this memory of, I have a very close friend, a horrible thing having to

him. He lost two of his children in a plane crash and they were very young. And he and I, we used to play music together. He plays guitar, I play the drums, like you, but not as well as you. And about a year after the accident, he and I were playing together just the two of us and up here in New York City, you can rent, as you know, you can rent little studios for the night

and they give you all the instruments. And he and I were in there bashing it out. And we finished one in coherent song and he just looked at me and said, this is some healing shit. Right. And he's right for him and for you. So you're about that moment, you're communicating without having to resort to words

or directions or anything. So he's totally right. You were literally having a heartfelt communication. Coming up, Mike D talks about how he got through the end of his band and the passing of his friend Adam Yalk, loving kindness meditation, which is a huge fan of, apparently, and the role it plays in his parenting.

And then we kind of flip seats for a moment, and he asks me about your questions about like how I got into the Beastie Boys, and then we talk a little bit about what it's like for him to hear how his work is received out in the world. I want to fast forward to now, but I also, before I shut up and let you talk, there was a thing I read that you said when Yauke died, and I believe 2011 or 12 in the Beast of Voice broke up, you said, you're not sure breakup. We sort of ceased being because we just felt like, how can we be without? Third like of the same.

Yeah, yeah. As part of our living breathing is this. I take your point, the correction very well, but you said that you kind of didn't know what to do with your life at that point. And so I'm curious with that as a backdrop, what's in your toolbox now for being as happy as possible? Hmm. This is good, Dan.

I'm didn't a couple of really good notes for talk therapy here, good things to follow up in my therapist. But in that time, after Yachtide, it was for both Adam and I, it was really tumultuous time because it's not only losing, you know, this friend that was beyond a friend because he really was like the older brother

in chosen life, right? As opposed to your birth given life. You know, he really was like that older. Brother figured for both Horvets and I. And so it was like really was that older brother figured for both or if it's an eye. And so it was like we lost the older brother and we also are like, well, what's our work identity now? And how do we relate to that or whatever? So it was a tumultuous time. And that's actually really where my TM practice thing came to the forefront for me. Of like, all right, but I just started every day with 20 minutes.

You know, I sort of quickly would start to see, especially as a parent, like the amount of patients having a regular meditation practice, the sort of infusion of patients and equanimity. Not that I still don't have my moments of losing my shit. You can ask both my teenagers. They are becoming, by the way, more and more rare as time does go on, both in terms of, I think, just practicing and my maturity, and probably also really my kids' maturity.

But, you know, I had one of those moments this last weekend where I lost my shit. So they will happen, but now I can see how much shame I feel right away when that does happen. I'm not good at letting things go. I'm very loyal to my friends, but if I weren't introduced to other philosophies and practices, I would be the worst vengeful,

or vengeful version of myself. And just a little bit of loving kindness meditation can go a really, really long way. There's a lot I've learned in life now. I'm a meditation I'd like to let go of resentful behaviors on my part, right? If you're paying attention, it feels like shit. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of talk therapy

and a big proponent of it. But I do think one of the things you do see what I really am trying not to to do and this is where I think say things like loving kindness meditation are a huge very important tool is people get into this for some reason and maybe it's just even part of American culture but we get into this thing of self-fictimization right we're like oh and you know this is my pattern from earlier like you know I have my trauma so I'm going through this enzyme. But okay, what are you doing to try to actually change your relationship to that and to everybody and everything else in the world, then where's the growth going to come from?

I totally agree. I mean, I was just talking about this. You and I have a mutual friend, Danny, tomorrow, who's actually sitting right outside here, who he introduced us, shout out to Danny. And I was hanging with Danny yesterday and we're talking about this concept of the second arrow. Have you heard of that? No, please. Edify me.

I will. I'll drop some knowledge. It's a Buddhist thing. Some guys walk through the forest to get hit by an arrow. And there's the pain of being hit by an arrow. But then he adds the second arrow voluntarily of why am I always the guy who gets hit by an arrow and what's wrong with me. And now I'm going to be like, for dinner, that whole thing. And what loving kind of meditation for me has helped me do is when I see something really embarrassing like petting this competitiveness unnecessary anger, bigotry, whatever it is that the mind coughs up, I can say, well, I didn't order this. I can view it with some warmth, not get stuck in a second arrow, shame spiral, which by the way is just more egotism and move on. Is what I'm talking about resonating with you in terms of

what you said earlier? Yeah, I mean, I would probably go a little more for me on the shame. Yeah, I mean, I would probably go a little more for me on the shame. You go further into shame. I go further into shame, aberres. But we are all going to have our own vocabulary for the things that pop up that are the things that make us not feel great. And then it's sort of like, well, then what, what do we do? And so the same way that how quickly those things come up and will make us feel shame or make us feel frustrated or make us feel embarrassed. But that's, I guess, the thing I'm sounding a bit billboarded in terms of loving kindness meditation here, but that it is a tool where it is incredible how quickly you can

really affect the dynamics of the situation. I'll get even more woo-woo about the whole thing, say, I had this argument with my kids last weekend. And to my younger son, Skylar, who's 18 to his credit, he was so great because he said this thing. It was actually, I think, maybe one of my proudest parenting moments ever, he's just, he said, and it's not even for me to be proud of you. This is totally up to him and his knowledge and where he's as a human, but he has said, and it's not even for me to be proud of you. This is totally up to him and his knowledge and where he's at as a human, but he has said,

you know, dad, it doesn't feel good for us as your sons to sit here being called selfish by you. And I was like, you know, I'm instantly melted, right? Because I was like, wow, you know, I'm barely capable of being that articulate at my thoroughly middle-aged age. But then I was also was like, I'm so impressed that you could say something like that so accurately.

But then it was so interesting because then I was having a really hard time letting go and being embarrassed and being upset with myself for being upset. And I go home and thankfully my girlfriend and Nadi, who can be a very good influence on me, is like I've been mentioned, think about loving kind of meditation,

I've been mentioned about what's the Hawaiian phrase, like I'm sorry, I forgive you, I forgive myself, then going into this loving kind of meditation space where then I swear instantly right away, Scarlet called me and we just had great conversation. You know, and it was like, as if nothing happened, nothing had to be said, you get these dividends that I now, I'm really sound like a spiritual sales person, so I'll stop.

But anyway. You're in a safe place for spiritual sales. This is when people come to this show for that spiritual sales. The other thing though is that, I mean, the other component to all of this is that it's so important to have smart people around you, not yet your girlfriend being there to remind you. I mean, that's just another component of happiness, I think, is you can do your practices, you can do your therapy.

I know you do a lot of surfing and nature's really important. There are a lot of components for you and you're a toolbox, but a huge one's gotta be surrounding yourself with people who can give you a compassionate smack on the snout or give you a supportive word that redirects you away from your shame. Oh yeah, 100%. Right, so community, yes, whatever,

whatever you're gonna call it, Saga, Satsang. You wanna apply a Sanskrit word? go ahead, be my guest. Or you could just say in English community. Yeah, it's a huge, this is a huge factor. And I agree with the unit nature. That's why I think one of the things that you mentioned for me being in the ocean and surfing was also a transformational experience practice because

that's where I actually sort of to some degree reprioritize my life and I'm so grateful for it. Living all my life in proximity to being able to surf because it's very immediate to us. We're so much smaller than this vast ocean and we are literally so not in control. You know, this wave is going to come. We're going to have zero control of where it's coming from. The exact direction, no two ways are identical. Every moment is unique. It's not in control. It comes right back to a theme you keep hitting in this conversation, which is getting out of your head in music, in yoga, in meditation. The same thing can happen in the ocean. Oh, absolutely. Depending on what your proximity is to nature, just going for a short hike in nature and immersing yourself that way, it takes you totally out of your, I think, self-judgmental

thinking brain and into this real profound place of appreciation very quickly. I like to ask these two kind of like little questions at the end of interview. Is there something I should have asked that I didn't ask? Is there a place you wanted to go to the extent that you had any agenda that I didn't take us? Well, I had a question for you because I'm just again, curious going back to your earlier in life self. I understand like a first license to listening. There was something that brought you in. But then what made you have any continued interest in what we're doing? And what do that feel like? Oh, I have a bunch of things to say about this.

First thing to say is it kind of blows my mind to do the jump cut from being in the to do the jump cut from being in the cheap seats at my first concert ever and watching these three older guys who I thought were so cool. Jump around and spray beer. Jump around and spray beer. And to now be sitting at the same table with you. So that's just coming up in my head. In terms of my relationship to your music, you were ubiquitous at that time, and I loved hip hop.

I loved Run DMC. I love LL Cool J, Curtis Blow. I was into early hip hop. I was from Boston, but when I would come to New York City, I would make my mom take me down to the subway platform so I could watch the trains go by with the graffiti on them. I had watched the documentary, Wild Style,

and had my own tag. And I was just really into hip hop. And then as I grew older, almost immediately after I saw you, my musical taste switched to Indy Rock. I started getting really into you, who's could do the replacements, REM, dinosaur, junior, sonic youth. And so I slept on Paul's boutique.

I didn't even notice it when it came out because it wasn't my genre. But then in 92, when check your head comes out and you guys are playing your own instruments, I'm reading about it somewhere and I realize, oh, this is probably closer to my tastes. And that record blew me away and actually got me back into hip hop,

got me into electronic music. Then I, of course, loved everything you put out after that, I followed it very very closely. And for me in the 90s, like I was a young local news reporter and much of that time in Maine. And I felt really isolated. And for me, BC Boy's records and so many of the records I was listening to felt like transmissions from a more sophisticated world than the one I inhabited. And so the music was just incredibly important to me. And again, that just goes back to what I said before

about how cool it is to be sitting at the same table. Yeah, I always hesitant to ask you that because I'm not trying to be ego indulgent, but I'm actually, I'm fascinated because I only know my experience. That's where I guess I'm just sort of very fascinated, not just for mine, but everybody's experience in creatively making stuff

because I know what our experiences were in making. Say, check your head, but I have no idea than what happens the second it leaves. Right, you know, our control and then becomes a master record that people buy in a store or stream through their phones. I don't know what those experiences are. So I actually am kind of curious,

and I get an opportunity to ask someone what that is. It's just, it must be so cool. Like you go into a studio with your best friends, you make this thing and it is additive to other people's lives. Right? It's the soundtrack to their lives, it's meaningful to them, and now I'm planning to my kid.

You know, we've like, we're extremely, I've been taught not to their lives, it's meaningful to them. And now I'm planning to my kid. You know, we've like, I've been taught not to say lucky, but we're uniquely fortunate. Why can't you say lucky? What's wrong with lucky? You are lucky. Because there is ultimately, there's so much involved, right? There's karma, there's work, there's all these seconds

have come before it, whatever, right? So it's serendipity that we go on for several podcasts about, you know, in any creative moment, right? All the nanoseconds that led up to that thing happening are that you really want to get deep that this lifetime and prior life texture. So there's all of that. And so I guess, yeah, I do feel lucky to somehow that for us as a band, like, we prioritize this relationship between the three of us, but that somehow ended up resonating with people

in this kind of like ongoing way that's beyond even just like this song at one time. And I can't explain it and I don't want to be able to explain it, I don't know, it's weird. I'm not comfortable in that. It's not my role, it's not my job to explain that, but I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for it too.

Like I was saying before, I mean, it's still a part of my life. And when I play catch after dinner with my son, we play inside with Nguyen Trouwee while often play music and it's off in the BC boys. So in your saying indoor catch, just to clarify, so that you know, child's protective services don't come to your house. You're making a job God forbid, throw them all outside in the Northeast in winter. Right. Not after dinner.

We do it in the afternoon. So child protective service, you don't need to come today. I think I asked all the questions I wanted. Although I am embarrassed about the picture that you have on your notes. I'm just going to point out to people listening. It's like 19 year old me with the VW emblem hung around a fake gold chain around my neck and leather hat. It's actually vinyl. It's vinyl.

It's vinyl. It's better. Bucket hat. Anyway. It's been a huge pleasure to meet you. I really appreciate doing this. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks again to Mike D. Thanks also to our mutual friend Danny. Tomorrow. Shout out to Danny Who set this whole thing up in the first place wouldn't have happened without you Danny really appreciate that Thanks to you for listening and thanks to everybody who worked so hard on this show 10% happier is

Thanks to you for listening and thanks to everybody who works so hard on this show 10% happier is produced by Lauren Smith Gabrielle Zuckerman DJ Cashmere Justin Davy and Tara Anderson DJ Cashmere is our senior producer Marissa Schneiderman is our senior editor It came to regular as our executive producer scoring and mixing by Peter Bonnaventure of ultraviolet audio and Nick Thorburn of The band Islands delivered our theme. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a brand new episode. As you know in May, we're toggling back and forth between boldface names and deep Dharma. So coming up on Wednesday,

we've got the great Joseph Goldstein wrapping up our series on the Eightfold Path. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-replus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.