WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 977 - The Beastie Boys

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz deal with many of the typical challenges of middle age, but they’re still deeply in touch with the alter egos they created four decades ago: Mike D and Ad-Rock. They tell Marc about running wild as kids in late-70s/early-80s New York City, meeting their bandmate Adam “MCA” Yauch, collaborating and then falling out with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons, the differences between opening for Madonna and opening for Run-DMC, and the honest self-reflection prompted by the music and style of their early years. This episode is sponsored by Springsteen On Broadway: The Complete Live Performance Album, Holmes & Watson, Stamps.com, and Squarespace. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf the old standby. WTF. That's right. The podcast that's been around for almost a decade. WTF. Welcome to it. How's it going? You all right? I'm all right, I guess. I'm pretty good. a little bit about the Beastie Boys in general. But I'm going to hold off on that, but they are here. But you might want to hang out for the intro. I don't know where it's going to go right now, but I will address some stuff. If you can fast forward and just get to it, you're going to enter into a world that I haven't set up for you.

You think you know, but you don't know. You know what I'm saying? Isn't that mostly the case? You think you know, but you don't know. Are you big enough a person to say, I don't know know are you a big enough person to go i'm wrong are you a big enough person to say like yeah i fucked everything up and now i don't have a place to live anymore that was kind of specific before i i get to that let's let's let's deal with what's in front of me right now which is that you can get uh to real my latest special in audio format at WTFpod.com.

It's right on the front page there. It's nice to have. It's a nice gift. I think you can give it. I don't know. Also, the dates. I've got a couple of dates up there that are happening. The Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colorado, March 23rd. Probably going to be snow still, right? The Boulder Theater in Boulder on March 24th. I'm going to be flying one of those little jets, right? Aspen, right into the bucket. Get on that little plane. You're like, ooh, we're swooping in and we're swooping out. Two dates. Those two dates at wtfpod.com slash tour. They're available. That's happening. You know, I sort of honed in on something that's probably pretty obvious to most of you.

And that is the incredible capacity for the human animal to be just immersed in fucking denial. And I get hung up on this shit. But denial in the sense that, like, you know what triggered this? And what was kind of this moment of catharsis, this kind of moment where my brain just went, oh, shit. Of course, that explains it. It's humanity. It's humanity. It's humanity. Is that, you know, in this federal court ruling that deemed Obamacare unconstitutional, the individual mandate, I just started to ask myself, you know, who rejoices this?

Who says, finally, we don't have to sign up for health coverage? Finally, that racket is over. Finally, we don't have to chip into the pot so we can all get coverage i who does it's like i i don't i don't understand it on a policy level but here's the fucked up thing is i started to understand it on a human level nobody except grown-up people who have faced adversity or seen it in their life nobody wants to think about getting sick. They just wait it out. You wait it. It's just something humans do. That's why there's such a strain on emergency rooms,

on the existing healthcare system outside of Obamacare. Most people, sadly, I think most people, they're like, yeah, this cough is nothing. Nah, this will go away. This bump will go away. I'm putting some salve on it. Nah, this is go away. This bump will go away. I'm putting some salve on it. Nah, this is like this. I don't think it's a goiter.

I don't think it's a tumor. I don't think it's a glandular problem. I'm just going to put some balm on it. Let's put some Arnica on that lump. And, of course, you wait it out. You wait it out. It doesn't go away. You go to the emergency room, and it's like all over your body.

It's gutting you. It's in your insides. It's something horrible. Because you waited because you didn't want to accept it happens people do that why do you want to confront that shit but then like the thing i put together was like this is exactly what we're doing with climate too it's human nature to rationalize and it's human nature to say nah i don't want to think about it. I don't know. We'll deal with it. We'll deal with it. We'll deal with it. And then all of a sudden the universe has a tumor and it's planet earth and it's caused by a very sort of self-involved rationalizing species of monsters. Anyway, ceramics, I went to a ceramic sale at a house in Pasadena.

There were several people in the backyard, all of them ceramicists selling pots and vases and plates and dishes and art and whatnot. And I bought a little bit from everybody, but I bought this teapot from this woman who I think was Danish. And it was so beautiful and so balanced and so perfectly weighted. And the spout looked great. And she was clearly attached to it. And I picked it up. And it was so beautiful and so balanced and so perfectly weighted. And the spout looked great. And she like was clearly attached to it. And I picked it up.

I'm like, how much? And she's like, oh, that one. And I'm like, what? She's like, yeah. I'm like, what, do you want to keep it? There's that moment where people, I don't know how people with art who do art of any kind do that.

Like you put so much of yourself into something. She's like, that's perfectly balanced. It doesn't leak. It's like, she was so, she talked like an engineer about this teapot she made and it was so perfectly beautiful hand thrown just great and i felt bad for a minute i like it i felt like i was watching a a weird detaching grieving process that lasted about 22 seconds and then she wrapped it up and uh and i swid my credit card but but it was i really envied the precision of how she spoke about making teapots

and I thought, see, why can't I do that? Why can't I put something in the world that's tangible and useful? I know this talking sometimes does that, but you can't serve it at dinner. You can't go, hey, for dessert, if you're wondering what you're eating out of it's mark maron's words you can't say that can you i can i can yeah anyways the beastie boys so here's the deal man i honestly uh for me i was so totally on board uh paul's boutique check your head ill

communication i i listened to the fuck out of those records a little bit of hello nasty but then it kind of dropped off but i definitely listened to three of them like a lot now many of you know me uh you've known me for years i'm not a hip hop guy i'm not oriented hip hop wise it didn't it didn't register with me when i wasn't the age or like i've you know i listen to it now the bigger names but i certainly wasn't immersed in it and uh yeah i knew the mainstream stuff so the beastie Boys are the Beastie Boys, okay? Sadly, Adam Yock has passed. But Mike Diamond and Adam Horowitz are still with us.

And they wanted to come on the show because they got this Beastie Boys book out. Now, my first reaction when I thought about it is like, how are they not going to be difficult? Not in terms of like, you know, like talking to them, but how are they not going to just be kind of dickish? It's just like, it's the perception you might have of the Beastie Boys. I mean, as great as they are, you listen to their music and you're like, that's just going to be hard to wrangle.

Those guys are going to just run around me. They're going to like, I don't know what it is, but it's not going to be the kind of interview I do. So I was resistant. And then they sent the book, Beastie Boys book, which is, you know, what they're out promoting right now. And I just, I started reading it and I read the whole fucking book because it really gave me insight into their music. There's a lot of pictures. There's a lot of essays by other people. Blake and Jonathan

Latham are in here. DJ Anita Sarko wrote a piece in here. There's really a kind of a stunning essay in here that I'm looking for. Oh, Luke Sante, Beastie Revolution, and also the Latham episode was pretty great. But there's also a little chart, sort of interesting little approach to the feminist reaction to the Beasties.

And also there's an essay by a woman who was in the band kate schellenbeck who was who was kicked out of the band in sort of a uh a rude way early on and she wrote a piece so they really balanced out i never even really thought about the kind of uh feminist reaction to the beastie boys in terms of you know who they were when they started the language they used and how that might have offended but you know they seem to get a pass and they seem to have evolved uh i think they were just doing it, the language they used, and how that might have offended. But, you know, they seemed to get a pass, and they seemed to have evolved. I think they were just doing it as a, you know,

it was a character thing. They were doing rap, and it was the thing, and now they're grown men, and they're fairly sensitive, I thought. Well, whatever. The point is, there's great pictures. There's all kinds of ephemera about the records, about songs, about food. There's an old cookbook.

There's a Roy Choi cookbook in the middle of the Beastie Boys book. And I read the whole thing. I don't do that. There's all these essays by Mike and Adam about being in the Beasties, about the things that happened, a lot about Adam Yock, who is no longer with us. It opens with sort of a eulogy. I love the book.

So I'm like, okay, let's do do it let's have mike and adam on now how i approach it you know it's usually tricky with two people but i i wanted to learn a little bit about hip-hop i wanted to you know you know connect and and and talk about the music and talk about new york and you know and everything and well my original fears were slightly realized but not not terribly I mean the thing they've been doing this a long time I get it uh but right out of the gate it was clear that Adam was like you know didn't give I don't know if he gave zero fucks but maybe gave one and a half fucks about being here. But Mike D was like engaged and he was in it and I'm not throwing him under the bus here. I think this might be just the dynamic they do, the good cop, bad cop shit, the sort of run circles around the host kind of business. But

ultimately I got what I got, but I love the book and enjoy, enjoy me talking to the Beastie Boys. And I love this book as a guy who lived in New York and missed this time but there was enough in New York left when I finally did get there to have a certain nostalgia for certain periods in the book it really is a love letter to New York

to their bandmate and friend that passed and just to you know the sort of great time in a way that these guys had so this is me Adam horowitz and mike d talk it's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with uber eats well almost almost anything so no you can't get a nice rink on uber eats but iced tea ice cream or just plain old ice yes we deliver those goaltenders tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes.

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and ACAS Creative. So I was at your house. Yep. And I met you briefly. Yep. And a very nice house. Super nice house. It's a very nice house.

It's a rental, but it's... Is it? Yes. And I hate to compliment... I don't know if I should be complimenting Adam or his lovely wife, Kathleen, but they really did... You guys really... The backyard that night of that soiree looked great.

You guys really just had a very nice out there. Mike, whenever the rare times that Mike gives me a compliment, it's as though I'm like his 11-year-old son. Like, wow, you really, you did a great job tying your shoes. Look at you. Oh, man. Look at you.

Oh, my God. Yeah, it was a powerful yeah and i have the same amount of amazement i know too i could be like when yeah like when my teen sons actually like do something i'm like oh look at that i don't believe you actually loaded the dishwasher without me telling you i can't believe it it was a powerful powerful night. That was a powerful woman who spoke. Yeah. What was her name? Tina.

They had a very big impact on my girlfriend, who's a painter. Her next show is going to be called The Sun Will Not Wait, which Tina brought up in her talking. It was a saying of some kind. Well, the charity is called Peace Sisters, and it's two pronged, and my wife Kathleen's is called Tees for Togo, T-E-E-S-F-O-R-T-O-G-O, Tees for Togo, and it goes to $40 can send a girl in Togo to school for a year. Yeah. And there's great t-shirt designs. Yeah.

Well, assuming they're still available. Of famous people by famous people yes yeah and i personally i purchased the ad rock t-shirt oh and then with this plan i snuck it out of adam's house and then i wore it on stage we were doing these shows to promote the book and yeah this this kind of stage stage spectacular if you will, in the holiday season. Maybe not so spectacular, but we tried. Where was it? At a bookstore?

No, these are theatrical events. Oh, yeah? In theaters. In LA, it was here at the esteemed Montalban Theater. And you guys performed? Yes. We kind of adapted a version of the book, Beastie Boys book. See, I'm being very professional.

Which is available. Yeah. Yeah, fine places. Now, where you buy books. And we adapted it basically for the stage, if you will. Really? Are you guys playing yourselves? We've been playing ourselves for a very long time.

Yeah, in both senses of the word. But anyway, in the show, I do a costume change and I put on my Ad-Rock t-shirt and wore it. And Adam did not comment. He didn't phase him at all. He didn't even notice. He seems very unfazed now. There's sort of a vibe going on, sort of like this has been going on for decades. Yeah.

It has been. Yes. Whatever is happening. It's hard to get a rise out of you see for me it's all about the kids it's all about the children and it wasn't about the flashy shirt that you wore it was about the 40 okay mike so i appreciated it okay yeah but but i was in the workplace so i didn't have time tunnel vision i get it very focused i i want to tell you because i you know i'm very proud of myself but i actually read this whole fucking book really i read the whole it's a lot of you don't have like your assistant or

as we talked earlier your elves no my one l l's that don't exist they don't read it and give you cliff notes no i don't i don't do that i can't do that yeah but the the thing is with you guys is like it was one of those things i'm a couple years old you i, I'm not that I'm 55. I remember listening. Oh, that's, Oh, I know. I know. What are you? 52.

All right. All right. All right. We're not talking about me right now, but like, you know, I knew the records, but I missed the whole thing.

Like I was dug in doing comedy and I missed, I did. There was a lot of things about hip hop in general and about you guys and about that scene in New York, even though I was there a few years later that I just didn't know about. So I was like, I better take a look at the book. But then I was like, fuck it, this is great. I loved it.

It was not just about you and about the music, but about New York. I mean, about a New York that is just not there anymore. And it was nostalgic, and it kind of got me all warm inside. We meant to do that. No, I could feel that. That's good.

Yeah. Well, I don't know what the warm inside i like that because i don't maybe you adam were that clearly intentioned well but i mean we're we're we're here in california yeah the warm part we're right that's true we are x new you so you did time in new york yeah i was there yeah i was from 89 i was there to 89 to 92, and then I went back in like 93 to 2001. I mean, I was there a lot. It was that one year. Yeah.

92 to 93. 92 to 93. What happened? I was in San Francisco. That's all right. That's all right. San Francisco. All right.

You know, I got out. You had to bounce out for a year. It's fine. Yeah, I mean, just going back and forth. New York is tough on people. It's a real, you know, can break people. It wasn't New York's fault. I just, it was, you know, maybe it was just, you know, the desperation.

That's the other thing I like about the story is the, you know, there was definitely ups and downs, even though you were pretty up for a long time. But when you, like growing up there in the 70s, it was fucking crazy. I mean, it was bombed out. It was weird. And you guys were able to just run around and no one, you had parents that, you know, like kind of half gave a shit. Yeah. Well, no, around and no one, you had parents that kind of half gave a shit.

Yeah. Well, no, I mean, I don't know if they half gave a shit. It's kind of like part of the deal. We talked about that a lot. It never even, I don't think even dawned on us until we were writing this book. Like, what the fuck? Like our parents just let us run wild in a New York City that's far more dangerous. It's like 73, 74. and wild than it is now.

Yeah, so in the 70s, exactly. So we were kids in the 70s. And so I think that was part of the deal. Well, let's just back it up for a minute. I was now seven in 1973. Okay, so it's the age thing. I was 78. As a bison, you were a bicentennial child.

You were 10. The bicentennial minute was a big deal for me. That was a big year for New York City. I remember watching the fireworks, the whole thing. But that was the nice, that was the glossy, nice, like. You were young, real kids. Sort of Disney-like part of New York. But the reality of New York, and that's what I was trying to get at,

is that I think it was the thing of like we all had these art, whatever, artsy type parents that all had made this decision of at that time if you had two or three i was the youngest of three boys so it was like if you had three kids you were out of the city yeah you moved to westchester or like hastings on the hudson or some if you call it nice place sure that was a little bit away and then you could safely raise your family away from all this chaos but our families like where these families

decided like no this is this is for us we're part of this like urban renewal culture and this is where our lives are going to be and so

that was kind of like the deal was like alright we're buying into this so our kids are just going to run wild somehow actually you know

what is different because your mom grew up in New York. Yeah. So she's from New York. My parents were like the freaks that came to New York to be artists. Which is more common, yeah. In the 60s?

Which is more common. Yeah, in the 60s. Or late, yeah, in the 60s. Yeah. Early 60s. Yeah. So, I mean, that's different. I guess I hadn't thought about that.

My parents came, but your mom was there. True. But if you ask her, she looks at it like she made it out of the South Bronx. Like that was her, you know, her aspiration was to make it. She looks at it like she went to New York because that's where all the cool stuff was happening. And she just wanted to get out of the Bronx. But both of you grew up in very artistic sort of intellectual households, like open minded. You know, you were learning things.

You had everything the city had to offer sort of came through your parents because they embraced it. And, you know, there was no real restrictions. They were very encouraging, it seemed like. Yeah, I grew up in Greenwich Village. I grew up downtown. And we were just sort of left to our own, you know. The city was your babysitter. We just sort of figured it out.

Yeah. And I knew where my mom was. My mom had a store. And so I knew to be there, you know, when the sun went down. down yeah and that's when she closed the store so i just had to be there then don't you look back at that as like this tremendous gift like just like it was an amazing childhood yeah it's it's it's definitely interesting how how parents are with their kids now as opposed to then do you remember yeah i i i loved my childhood i loved running around new york it's so it's bizarre to me that because like that that's people always talk about just how fucking

dangerous it was but they're even now there's always people out there's a safety that i feel in new york that i don't feel here that you know that i can always walk outside and it's like no there's a lot of people here and they they'll take care of me somehow right well in 2018 the people walking around late at night in york just might help you whereas in 77 they would not they were probably on angel dust or other substances you really think that i always feel like that if somebody goes down to new york out of everybody walking by someone will step in no my favorite my favorite is fucked up but i was crossing the street this is a long time ago and an old woman fell in the middle of the street and a fucking van comes time ago, and an old woman fell in the middle of the street.

Right. And a fucking van comes barreling around the corner and screeches right next to her, right next to this old lady on the street. Yeah. And the guy screams at her, fucking Giuliani, and then just takes off. And we're like, what does that mean? And then we helped the lady up, and I was like, did he mean like Giuliani didn't fix the street so they were, she tripped over?

Yeah. What did he have to do with this poor old woman? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So that's a bad example. That lady didn't get help. I thought that was a good example.

But I think that that's the point is that in that this 70s New York that we're talking about from our childhood, it was like you kind of just, there was the stuff that you accepted as normal which you would never ever see today so like seeing car like i think the term cars on blocks like i remember walking like on the blocks between columbus and amsterdam my house on the upper west side every day you would see and they'd sit there for weeks and weeks you'd see block you'd see cars where people had taken tires and the rims off of and they're sitting there on cinder blocks and that was just what you see or you'd see every day not there would not be possible to walk down the street and not see a car whose window had been

busted out to grab the nothing set deck or whatever's in there exactly for change yeah but but but the thing is a neighborhood is a neighborhood right and if if your kids you know roaming neighborhoods you know most likely at least for me my mom owned a store yeah and the store next door you know where was it it was in greenwich village what was it 10th street it was a used clothing store for kids it was called g the kids need clothes and so i knew everybody in the neighborhood great name yeah yes yeah and and so you know i knew everybody in the neighborhood it's always a great name yeah yes yeah and and so you know i knew everybody in the neighborhood they knew me they knew my mom yeah you know i mean so like i'm sure your mom knew the guy at the bike store on columbus and 80 whatever street you know

what i mean like all those people it's a weirdly rigged game like i remember like that was like the big in terms of this freedom like at the beginning like back to school you know my parents were pretty like responsible my mom's like responsible parents. She's like, okay, you're going back to school. You need to go get your back to school clothes. So there was like the store on Broadway where we'd go. But it was kind of like a rigged game. Alexander's?

Morris Brothers. But it was like rigged with Mr. Morris. Right. He knew. This is how much my kid can spend. Right, right. So I felt totally autonomous. Like, oh, he knew. This is how much my kid can spend. Right, right. So I felt totally autonomous. Like, oh, okay, I'm walking.

Here I am, like, I'm eight years old. I'm walking to the store to, like, pick out whatever I want for, like, my back-to-school gear. I think I'm going to get dressed up like Michael Jackson in the cartoon. No, didn't happen. This is going to be great.

But yeah, well, he kind of, you know, he would steer you a little. Like, maybe not so much purple and fringe for you. Right. Now, were your parents both, were they together through your childhood? No. No? No.

So when were they? No, but I don't think you were allowed to in the early 70s. No, it wasn't. I mean, really most in that time when we grew up. Yeah. My parents were anomalous and they stayed together until my dad died, basically. So, which is still young for me. And then I was brought up

with just a single mom household, but most, I don't know, I just remember, it was definitely more common. Adam and Yowk's parents are the only parents that I could think of from our childhood

that stayed together. Stayed together. They stayed together the whole run? Whole run, yeah. Are they still around? His mom, Frances, is still alive. His mom still had no pass away sometime a couple years years ago maybe two years

way too fast right isn't it now yeah as we get what happens i know yeah but when you wrote the book did you like how how did it make you feel to see your whole life spread out like that i mean did you feel old or were you able to relive it or did you feel you got a lot done and you had you seem to have a really good time. Definitely had a good time. I mean, it's interesting. Everything that's in that book is pertaining to our band. So it's not really like my specific life.

It's my specific life and same thing with Mike. Meaning it could have been a lot bigger, this book could have been a lot longer. Well, but the band also. Yeah, you were in a band for a long time. The band was our lives and I think that's one of the points

we kind of make in it and Adam does it really well, is like, we would just hang out with each other all the time. What was your, the primary focus

was punk rock and you had a resistance towards like mainstream rock. I mean, the primary thing was just getting attention. Yeah. Or just,

you know, like hanging out, like something to do to hang out. But I don't think it was getting attention. To me, it was like I wanted to be able to love something. Most of the kids, I went to this private high school on the Upper West Side, a junior high school. Then I switched to going to Brooklyn Heights. But some of these progressive schools, and most of the kids were kind of like these hippie-ish type kids in junior high school then I switched to going to Brooklyn Heights but some of these progressive schools and mostly kids

were kind of like these hippie-ish type kids that would listen to whatever normal adolescent stuff nothing like

Hendrix Black Sabbath The Who whatever so I was desperately like what do I find that I'm gonna love that none of them

are gonna listen to how am I gonna be different yeah I How am I going to be different? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, when we were kids, when we were kid kids, pop music was pretty amazing

what they played on the radio. Just the variety of things. Like you'd have David Bowie fame. Right. You'd have Carole King. There were so many different styles of music played on just top ten.

Leo Sayre. Leo Sayre, yeah. Big name. Right. No, but it is true. What was his big hit? Pop music, you'd hear everything different styles of music right on just top Leo sayer Leo sayer yeah big name right nobody it is true music you'd hear everything from oh wait the other it's got the words you make me feel like dancing oh that one yeah you should sing what's in there just keep it's really embarrassing there's a slow one just saying the name but you can't just say the name to the way you gotta do the night yeah you guys are like dancing high voice. Wasn't there a slow one?

You feel like dancing, woo, dancing. Yeah. He definitely had a slow one. Yeah, I can't remember what it was. He must have had a slow jam. You make my heart do something. I mean, that high voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That high voice would be a waste if he didn't have a slow jam. Yeah, I remember those songs. Even like Harry Nilsson songs. Oh, yeah, Me and My Arrow. But that's the point. AM radio, I remember vividly as a kid, I'd wake up. I had the clock me and my arrow. But that's the point. AM radio, like, I remember vividly as a kid, like, I'd wake up, like, I had the clock radio by my bed because I was, like, the youngest of three kids.

So my mom, at a point, like, for me, I had to get my own shit together to get to school on time. Like, my mom was over it by then. So I had the clock radio. And AM radio, you'd hear, like, what Adam was saying, like, Paul Simon would come on like 50 ways to your lover then some disco song

like boogie oogie boogie so that was the backdrop disco song would come and then Wild Cherry play that funky music so it just it was like

this weirdly even though it was all pop music but it was it was weirdly wide open I think in a way so when punk

so when you're when you're young and then when you get to be, you know, when you start to form your own sort of identity, that's when you gravitate towards the thing that's you. And I feel like pop music in 1979... Yeah. I don't know what it was.

It was kind of disco, wasn't it? Well, disco was definitely part of the element. Cocaine had really taken its effect on popular music. Shit was just weird and punk rock just and Mike and I were lucky that we had older siblings and so

they kind of introduced us to some things that you need that we really gravitated towards like what Clash oh yeah Clash for sure

or like I had the older brothers that like brought home Devo record oh yeah I was like what this is the weirdest fucking thing I have ever seen I still to this day like what do you compare Devo. I was like, what is it? This is the weirdest fucking thing I have ever seen.

I still to this day, like what do you compare Devo to? Nothing. They're singular. So there's that moment where you realize there's something else going on out there that is not in the periphery. Yeah, this is what I want to be. This is who I am.

What's your older siblings turning on to? No, I think the clash, you know, was it when we were little kids, me and my brother and sister would listen to same thing with Mike Jackson five and all of that great stuff. We were kids. Yeah. And then as you get older, you want to, you know, choose the thing that you're going to be that you are interested in. Yeah.

And for us, it just sort of happened at punk rock, you know, in 77 blew up enough to come over to America and then bands in America and the Ramones. And it just sort of was all happening that we got in touch with that at a young age. The whole New York punk scene like sort of like came up when you were like 15, 16? Well, no,

we were too young. Too young for that? Again, you know, I'm noticing a trend here of some advanced Asian techniques. I apologize. No, no, yeah.

We were too young for that initial like CBTBs, Ramones. For the New York Dolls and shit. Ramones. Definitely New York Dolls, but even the Ramones, Patti Smith, Talking Heads. Right. That era.

We were still, whatever, 10 years old. So we were, even in all our freedom, we weren't going to CBGBs as 10-year-olds. That had to wait. We were at 13 and 14. Yeah, 14, we were. Yeah. They would let you in at 10, right? Yeah, no, they probably would have.

You might have. I mean, nobody. You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have.

You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have. You might have.

Yeah. I mean, but certainly as 13 and 14-year-olds, we went everywhere, and that included bars, whatever, because it was that. That was another aspect to New York then. You could do that, yeah. You could do that, and the drinking age was 18, so it was kind of like, yeah, basically they were like, the myth was always if you could reach the bar, you could get a drink. So where did you all meet?

I met Adam Yauch, MCA, at a Bad Brains show. Bad Brains were this weirdly incredible hardcore band from Washington, D.C., but then moved to New York. They were faster. For us, that was next level exciting to the punk rock and I just happened to go to this teeny bar. I saw an ad for them playing.

Yeah. This is boys and girls way before there were things called smartphones. Uh-huh. Adam likes me to show the phone. I actually hate it. Mike normally would take the phone

out of his pocket. I'm illustrating the point, Adam. That's what I'm doing. But anyway. So you met him at a bad brain show. I saw him at it and went with my one other punk rock friend from high school who was named John Barry, who was the first guitar player in Beastie Boys. We go to the show and there's like 12 people there and there's only one other like young teenager, one other teenager period. And it was Yauch.

And so I was way too scared to start talking to him. But John, our guitar player, he was more socially skilled. Oh, it wasn't because Yauch had an aura or a presence? No, well, Yauch was cool because he was wearing this like trench coat and a couple of homemade buttons on it. And he was more advanced and more skilled in punk rock looking than i was i was still looked like this like schlubby yeah and defined from the upper west side i didn't have it all down yet certainly not the chiseled hunkish look you have now and where did you guys meet you oh man, man, it was Milan, 72.

Must have been. On a film set. Yeah, we were listening to some metallo disco. It was like 5 a.m. The sun was coming up. You know, that slow, sleazy disco. I think I met Adam and Mike for the first time at the Black Flag at Peppermint Lounge.

I think. I'm not 100% sure. I kind of remember Rat Cage. It was this record store we'd all hang out at, but the basement one on Avenue A. That was right. The Rat Cage was sort of your second older sibling thing in terms of turning you on to stuff, right?

Yeah, there was this record store that we would all sort of cut school and go and hang out at. Yeah. Some of us would go after school, Adam, like having completed a school day no i and then take the subway there i'm just saying i know i'm not i didn't mean to implicate you um and it was like our hangout it was really cool to have like a hangout like it's the best yeah it's the best and it's also that thing like i think we try to get

across in the book is like that at that time in new York, that's how you to find out what was going on. You had to go to point A to run into this friend or that friend or just even somebody you don't know. That's like, oh, yeah, you should got you guys should go to this thing tonight. Otherwise, you have no freaking idea like what. Yeah, because it wasn't it wasn't mainstream and you didn't even know if the bands were playing and you had to sort of be in the loop to figure out what was going on or even get the records at that point i just got sidetracked thinking about our circle of friends in 1982 and how we all sort of gravitated because manhattan's an island right yeah and so but there's some some of us were in brooklyn heights a little deeper into brooklyn yeah then mike's uptown mike and john were way uptown and we're in the village

but like so you and john came down because you met Yauch and Yauch and Arabella, right? And then Yauch went to school with Matty Ginsberg. No, he was still going to school way out in Brooklyn. Way, way out, but pretty far. It's pretty far. Pretty deep, like Murrow. And yeah, he was the one punk rock kid at Murrow. Which must have been tough.

It was hell. That was hell for him to be in deep Brooklyn and just have all these ID Guido dudes yell at you every day because you're the weird freak-looking kid. Yeah, there's never a shortage of commentary in New York on the street about how you look or what you are.

Oh, definitely. And much more then, I feel. I feel like now people are probably reasonably polite. Like then it was, like that was the normal, like I was going to walk by like the Hayden Planetarium, which is where the subway is, and it was like a Friday or Saturday night, and that's when Laser Rock was going on.

It was like all these guys getting wasted to go see Laser Zeppelin or whatever. It was the normal that they would yell at me and basically want to kill me. When you guys started, did you take lessons? Did you play? Did you just learn to play your instruments just by getting them? Actually, well, basically by getting them.

Somehow, I had a really sweet... I called her the last living bohemian in Greenwich Village. I had this very lovely and out there godmother. Yeah. It was almost like

a fairy godmother. She convinced, I don't know, she convinced my mom to get me a drum set. Oh, so you started And my mom said yes. Like, I can't believe.

It's really cool having a child with a drum kit in an apartment. Yeah. Out in an apartment on the Upper West Side with a drum set.

Yeah. And I was able to play it, like, whatever, after school. It was pretty crazy. And how did you start playing guitar? My mom and her friends bought me a guitar for my 12th birthday. They decided that I was going to be a guitar player. Uh-huh. And somehow, I guess my mom hooked it up.

She knew someone who knew a guitar teacher who happened to be Laurie Anderson's sister. Yeah. So I took a couple of guitars. That's New York, right? I never, I didn't know this. I told you that like maybe once a long, long time ago. You know, I'm a huge Laurie Anderson fan. Yeah.

Who isn't, but I'm just saying. Like when I saw United States. No, I know, but this is Laurie. I'm talking about Laurie Anderson's sister. Yeah. The guitar teacher. Yes. Well, she taught me how to play.

My first song I ever learned on guitar was Mystery Dance by Elvis. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I want to learn it. That's a fucking hip guitar player. It's a great song. Well, I asked her to teach me that song. She's like, what song do you want to learn?

So you learned the essential rock and roll thing, the thing. The Mystery Dance. I want to tell you about the mystery dance. Try it in. It's such a great song. Yeah, yeah. But then, so I only took

a couple lessons with her and then Adam Yauk gave me a couple guitar lessons. He was like, this is how you do this and that. So he was a good guitar player as well? And I don't think he ever had lessons.

Uh-huh. That's the sort of like the feeling about Yauk's absence in this book is that he was this almost mystical, all-knowing kind of dude who understood things innately. And was there always for you guys to sort of show you and keep you pushing you ahead into things. He seemed to know things that no one else knew in a way.

Well, I knew things at a time when I don't, we still to this day, we're mystified. How did he know this? Because it's pretty, you don't have YouTube. You don't like, you have like, there were, there wasn't like he, in his bedroom, there was this stack of textbooks of like how to rewire a guitar amp. He just, he just knew. He was the kind of guy who would take things apart and put them back together. Um, yeah.

Well, I mean. No, he literally would take stuff apart and put it back together for fun and like stuff that you would see in his room like he'd literally have well that's how

he figured it out what's going on there he's like oh I wanted to see I was curious I took it apart and I'm just putting it back

together so the punk rock thing what lasted a couple years for you guys like seriously when you were playing punk

before hip hop came in lasted for our entire lives well yeah no I know the spirit of it but actually being a punk band well being a, I know, the spirit of it,

but actually being a punk band. Well, being a punk band, I think you get tired of it after a bit. Sure. Because it's, the chord is great in terms of like the access point.

Like, okay, well, you just, here's the A part, here's the B part, you know a few chords. Yeah. Write a few stupid words. It's like,

you get it together so it has a great, and also you're able to then book gigs and make your own flyers. It's all, you can do it all yourself and also all your friends

are doing something that's related too so everybody's doing stuff and it's really exciting but musically. Making your own clothes. Yeah, that too

but musically it kind of runs its core, it's just limiting after a little bit. For us. Yeah. For us.

That's just how we felt about it and that's not punk rock general. That. For us. Yeah. For us. That's just how we felt about it. And that's not punk rock general. That's specific hardcore punk rock. Hardcore, yeah. American hardcore, yeah. And we, you know, after a while, yeah, we got sort of tired of it. We wanted to do different things.

And we did try to play, we can't sing. Right. I think that's a major thing that held us back. That if any one of us could have. They're still holding you back adam with that not singing stuff it sucks yeah it sucks we could have been contenders we could have done something you did something but i'm just saying we actually wrote and recorded some songs where like mike was singing and it was like we suck yeah and it's not a slight i'm i'm worse

than mike yowk's worse to me and yowk's worse like me, and Yowk's worse than, like, we're all terrible. Right. And so, and at the same time, as kids, when rap was getting played on the right, right when rap was sort of starting to get, to come out of the Bronx and downtown, we loved listening to rap records. And that was something that we could kind of do. Right. True.

And that was more inspiring. Yeah, but- Well, I would also say rap was more inspiring, but it also seemed more, at least to Well, I would also say rap was more inspiring, but it also seemed more, at least to me, it seemed more radical at the time. There was no precedent to it in my world. There was nothing that prepared me to hear something,

especially when rap changed, like when records like Run-D.C., Sucker mcs came out and things were kind of reduced down and more minimal and just a drum machine and rapping yeah that was so just completely different and radical to anything it felt more punk than like yeah than chrome eggs or whatever not to say i'm definitely not saying anything negative against the chrome controversial podcast first we went in on me ghost, now Cro-Mags. I'm not saying anything against the Cro-Mags.

Send an armored vehicle for us, please, after this. Right. I just don't want to get beat up. Please. Well, I think also, when you talk to people like Watt, who we talked about earlier,

the idea of punk initially, it wasn't a sound, it was just the ability to do whatever the fuck you wanted and make your own thing. Right, I retract that. It sounded more punk more punk than say rap music in 83 sounded more punk than the minute men right i get it right so but it spoke to you in a way where you saw possibilities you're like this is like it moved you and you're like holy shit what is it and we

just loved it like this thing or i just loved it i mean and and not unlike when i like when i'm talking earlier like being younger kids in a household, when we heard The Clash, it was like, okay, that's for me. But then hip-hop was like exponential with that. As soon as we heard rap records and rap music, it was like, wait, we can do that? And then like what Adam said, when those hip-hop artists started coming downtown

from the Bronx, from Harlem, whatever, and you saw everything kind of just unfolded in front of you again, which is another thing about growing up in New York. You can go to this club, Negril, where also the very first downtown hip hop nights had happened. Or then that moved to Roxy because it got too big. And you go to Roxy, it was like packed with like B boys and B girls from all over. And like dudes were doing cocaine in the bathrooms.

And it was like this whole crazy, people getting robbed in the bathrooms. Mike, again, I was not doing cocaine in the bathrooms and it was like this whole crazy and people getting robbed again i was not doing cocaine in the bathroom i'm not implicating you okay but you're also no but that's the point we were kids yeah we didn't actually even know what was going i was just like yeah this is what's going on we had no idea before hip-hop this is like when rap was just when because of these places break dancers are there graffiti writers are there rappers are there djs are there and and they were just sort of formed into this thing. Oh, quick side note. I want to go back. This goes back to Laurie Anderson's-

I have another side note. I want to borrow that book over there. Which one? The Wrecking Crew. Okay. I'll return it. Okay. You can.

You've seen the documentary. I haven't. Oh, yeah. But I'm going to read the book. Oh, you should see the- I know. I haven't seen Titanic either. I like that you put them in the same category.

Oh, wait. my footnote. Yes. Back to Laurie Anderson's sister as a guitar teacher. Teacher, yeah. This is another footnote of us growing up in New York at the time we did. Somehow we were exposed to all this freak show that our various parents had in their homes. We never kept out of it. It was always integrated into it.

What do you mean? Which part of the freak show? It was just whatever. It was all artists, music, all these super strongly opinioned New Yorkers. These are people who had chosen to be in New York for a reason, and that's because they were going to have their say in what they made and in what they said every single day of their lives.

And that just seemed normal to us. Right, right. But you guys were tapped into the whole sort of like dance thing too, right? The club thing outside of the rap. Because I remember Danceteria. I remember going there once. But you guys had a real experience with that place. No, we lived there.

It was just so exciting to go to the club where there's all this different music happening. It was all mixed together and you loved it all. And then also, whatever, we're teenagers. All of a sudden, you like there's girls dancing. Yeah. You might be able to actually, well,

we couldn't really dance with girls. Cause that was like, we, that just wouldn't really, wouldn't really go down like that. Then that would be way too normal. Right. But you could actually just talk to girls was pretty exciting. And that,

and so what was the first, cause I know you made a, you made a punk record, right, that you guys sort of pressed yourself or that Dave Parsons helped you out with. From the Rat Cage. Yeah. And then what was the, was the Cookie Puss song the first sort of rap song-ish?

Yeah, that, oh, so yeah, so that's, we actually went and recorded some songs kind of more punk right well like i said we were kind of trying to sing a little bit which was terrible terrible idea and everything we made kind of sucked in this we went into the studio was this friend of yauk's parents that gave us like hooked us up with studio time but the one thing we made that we liked were two things was cookie puss and this other song, Beastie Revolution, where both we were just like screwing around, kind of making fun of music

that we actually loved, which is a weird New York kid thing to do, maybe. But yeah, Cookie Puss comes out, and it's kind of like, I don't know, I guess us trying to do, we loved world- famous supreme team buffalo gas so we we wanted to make our thing and and all of a sudden like at like this club dance they started playing that so that was like the most thrilling thing ever as a teenager they

started playing cookie puts exactly mixed in with these other records so like to have that as a teenager then you're kind of like whoa things are really happening for us yeah now it was kind of and then we were on the joe franklin show joe franklin yeah that made me spill my water on myself um yeah that was that was that was what she's on that was a little bit later i know i was just timing that one yeah yeah you got you got me on that one yeah on that one joe i like you drink your water. You got me on that one. You got me on that one, Joe. I like that Crazy Eddie plays an important part in the story somewhat. Right?

Yeah. Because when you grow up on the East Coast, because when I go visit my grandmother and shit, I mean, they had those stations. Crazy Eddie was everywhere. And then there was like those two stations that only ran like the Bowery Boys and the Laurel and Hardy movies. Like, I can't remember, like Channel 11 or something. That was so good. Yeah, yeah.

No. Right? And Little Rascals. Right, Little Rascals, exactly. All day long. They're not showing that anymore. No, man. They're not showing

Little Rascals and Valerie Boyce. Wait till you see that new movie with the Laurel and Hardy movie. I know, tomorrow. Oh, I'm supposed to go? Yeah, but you're not gonna be here. I can't go tomorrow. Oh, it's so good, you guys.

It's tomorrow. It's so good. Yeah, it's tomorrow's right. I didn't RSVP. I can't go. It's so good. I know. Okay, all right. You did you i think i can't go it's so good i know okay all right yeah i saw a screener because i interviewed coogan it was great it's really touching i don't know a little bit but john raleigh he's you know he's he's in uh laurel

and hardy but he's also in homes and watson yeah homes two historical couplings no he's great as as hardy it's like it's kind of one of my heroes it's it's really a stunning movie but let's shout Holmes and Watson. Tough call. Two historical couplings. No, he's great as Hardy. It's like, it's astounding. He's kind of one of my heroes. It's really a stunning movie. Shout out to John C. Reilly for that. Let's try to like do some history here. Okay. So what, I thought that's all we've been doing.

It is kind of, but isn't that what you've been doing? Yeah, I know. We're stuck in the past. Are you tired? Are you tired of it? Are you tired? No. You know, you should get a dog.

I feel all right. I got cats. Okay. I got three cats. I don't get a dog all right i got cats okay i got three cats i don't i don't need a dog okay three you went with a third one i have a third cat after two yeah i had two and then i found one he found me showed up i took him in i had no choice how the other cats feel about that it was rough because they're old and this guy's driving them nuts they were in their retirement enjoying their later years now they got this fucking lunatic where uh where's the pan Where do you keep the pan? In the house?

Outside the house. What, the kitty box? Yeah, the cat box. There's three of them now. I got two. Do they each have their own kitty box? Well, you got to. It's a lot of shit, man.

Cats, they run the house. I went through a thing this morning. I can't deal with it. I got the house clean and they get the litter all over everything. There's nothing you can fucking do about it. There's a lot of things that aren't cool about cats. You have them? Had.

Uh-huh. What happened? You let it outside? I can't. You can't go into it i don't know that's it that's what you can't kick psychologically let's just say yeah they're dead okay yeah well you gotta keep them inside out here yeah all right so anyway sorry back to history we went to feline history. But so after Cookie Puss, what's sort of fascinating to me, even though there seems to be no shortage of resentment and bad blood there, is that I really had no idea that you guys sort of, in a sense, found Rick Rubin or you were brought into him and that he was sort of integral in helping you define who you were at the time how did that happen well i mean that was again that goes back to cookie puss we made cookie

puss and we wanted we somehow we had this idea like okay we we couldn't play that replicate that song live because it's a crank phone call and whatever so but we love there are all these rap songs we've memorized every word to. So we'll just start doing that. We needed a DJ. So this friend of ours is like, here, I'll take you over to this dorm room. This guy I know, he's got all the equipment. Yeah. And supposedly he had a bubble machine.

Although we never saw it with our naked eyes. A bubble machine. The bubble machine. But he did in his dorm, his little teeny NYU dorm room, he had a full PA with all DJ equipment and it was like I guess he was the first person we knew with a drum machine too. So it was like, you know, he was the kid that had all the equipment

so it was like, you're hired. Right. You got all the shit, you're hired. He was just some weird kid at a dorm, sort of a stoner kid who had all this shit? Definitely not a stoner kid, but he was definitely, he was very strange. He's like just a couple years older, but he just, I don't know, he just was very intense and very ambitious.

Right. And you wouldn't put it like that when you were a kid, because you don't understand what that means, but he was just making it happen. Right. Yeah. And he had all the equipment so he hired it. Well, and his parents, somehow, yeah, his parents were like, here, little Ricky,

you want drum machine, here's the budget, you're right. You want a PA, fine. And somehow also in the dorm, it was great. This PA was fucking loud. And it was in his dorm room. I feel like now, wouldn't you get kicked out of a dorm for having that?

He'd get in some kind of trouble, maybe. But he was a rap fan and a hard rock fan. Yeah, well, he came from, unlike us, he came from like, he, unlike us, like he came from, so he came from like this Long Island heavy metal thing that we rebelled against. Right. And then, but then he got into hardcore and then he got into rap. So we kind of had that shared. And then he started playing like ACDC and stuff and Zeppelin and all this stuff.

And we were like oh actually you know what this is actually kind of cool well the interesting thing at that time was that at least for me personally

I never really thought about production yeah like the first record I ever made was with my band The Young and the Useless and it's great

a hardcore band yeah a hardcore band but I mean it's so bad yeah at one song, the drummer just stops. And there's like, we just keep playing. And then he starts kind of back playing again. And then at some point, we finish the song. It's like, we weren't thinking about production, certainly. Yeah.

Wasn't that part of it? As well as like skill level or any of that stuff. Yeah. And then Rick was a producer. I don't know. He just decided at a young age, I'm a record producer, which was inspiring. Yeah. But yeah, Rick had this thing with me.

He's like, no, no, Mikey, you're going to sound like you're working hard. Don't try to make it sound like you're smooth because you're not. Yeah. He had that identity and that sense of being a producer that, like at Adam's, that was way, that was beyond our right grasp and it was funny after he he went to see the the show that we did here in LA and he said something kind of interesting we were recently yeah we were texting back and forth you guys are okay now yeah well I mean like there's a lot of there's a lot of fucked up shit that happened but we were

all we were all really young and all handled stuff really really badly when you get down to it and I think we can all look at it. But I think we're able to be okay because we all came out of it all right. Okay. It's not like we're starving. It would be a different story if we never got paid for our license and we're just working at the car wash. Right. I don't think we'd be quite so forgiving.

The cliffhangers in the book, it made me angry was did you ever get restitution no but i think we got free we got it was more than that we got we got freedom we got we were allowed to be who we wanted to be and anyway that was and that's the text that he said he was like you know what he's like this weird way uh everybody everybody got what they wanted that doesn't mean that's not at the expense of somebody else right but but he's like look i got to produce lots of different artists which is what i always wanted you guys got to i mean this is his words i wouldn't call it but he's like you got to go on and become an iconic group and do exactly what you wanted and he's like and russell got a check and that's all russell wanted. All right. Well, you seem to be handling it better than me.

Well, no, Mike, Mike, see, Mike is a jerk, right? And everybody knows it. But he is much more forgiving. I don't know everyone. There are a couple of people I've fooled. But he is much more forgiving than I am. Right. You know, ultimately, I'm fine.

Yeah. I'm happy. We're happy. Yeah. We're all doing things in the world. Right. We're healthy. Yeah. Okay. Got it. No problems. I got happy. We're happy. We're all doing things in the world. Right. We're healthy. Yeah.

Okay. Got it. No problems. I got it. But so can we just talk for a minute? Run DMC changed your life. Yeah. In terms of like, you know.

In a lot of ways. Yeah. Like when did you first meet them and how did that happen? We met them through Rick Rubin and made a record called It's Yours. He meets Russell Simmons, who had heard It's Yours and Russell's DJ Run from Run DMC's brother and also the manager of Run DMC

meets Rick at Dance Interior where we go all the time and I can't believe, okay, wait, you made It's Yours? You're this like white guy with long hair? Like, this is really weird. Somebody outside of my, you know, and rap at that time was such a small universe. It was like, there's only one,

there was like two producers, whatever. So then they started talking and they were like, okay, we're going to work together. And then Rick told Russell about us, about Beastie Boys. Like, here, I got these white guys. Yeah. Love the rap anyway um so that so then uh then russell introduced us i mean obviously we are already huge huge run dmc fans right i mean sucker mcs i don't that would that was 80 83 84 yeah so that

was before your new york yeah but it was like that was one of those records like the same way after it, Public Enemy, Bring the Noise. There's certain songs that like summertime in New York that would just take over. You hear out of every car driving by, every boom box, every open window, you would hear that song all the time.

It's like when Sorry dropped, Justin Bieber's Sorry. It was like that moment. I'd like to say Despacio more. Like you heard it everywhere. That's next level, but that's international. You heard it everywhere. It was just everywhere. Not really everywhere, but kind of everywhere.

Well, within New York, within the island of Manhattan, it's everywhere and it's really dense. You can walk down one block and then 30 seconds later on the next block, you're hearing another part of the same song from a different radio station or different whatever. So that was – and it was just completely revolutionary. We loved it. And so then when all of a sudden we meet Run-D.C., it really was meeting our heroes. It really was like, whoa, these guys are doing it.

They know what they're doing. Yeah. And then you guys, you opened for them and now you're on the same label as them. That all happened. Not same label, same management. Yeah. Russell Simmons is run from Run DMC's brother.

Yeah. And so he managed, Russell managed Run DMC and then he managed us. Yeah. And so he ended up, we ended up opening for Run DMC on a tour with us, Timex Social Club, LL Cool J, and the group Houdini and Run DMC. And we all spent a magical summer together. Yeah. That was your first tour?

That was not our first tour, but it was our first time playing shows with them. Yeah. We were on a tour with an esteemed artist before that madonna oh the madonna tour that yeah they wrote about that that was a year before that yeah but anyway just being on tour with run dmc was it was for us it was kind of amazing it was like three of them three of us they were a little bit older and they were definitely way cooler than us yeah and just and way better than us like as a rap group and so it was just like education every night and just the way they commanded the stage,

how they worked their set list, how they're like, we learned so much from them. Yeah. And as just people hanging out in the summertime, like we just can't thank them enough. Yeah, no, I mean, literally it was the blue, like they gave us the blueprint of, okay, this is how you do it.

And especially, I mean, Jam Master Jay RIP, Jay had this way of like, he really saw how they were going to present themselves, how the show was going to look. None of that stuff was even on the table to us. None of it had occurred to us. To be a showman, how to put on a show and how to arrange your stuff.

Well, I mean like, so the year before that, the summer before that, we had opened for Madonna on tour. And so that was like next level show. That was like real showbiz. That was like showbiz, showbiz, which was awesome. But like, that's, we couldn't, it would be crazy to think that we could do that. How were you received on that tour?

Oh, they fucking hated us. It was awesome. Literally booed off the stage night after night. Well, we didn't, well, booed as we were leaving. Well, they fucking hated us. It was awesome. Literally booed off the stage night after night. Well, we didn't, well, booed as we were leaving. Well, we didn't get off the stage because we would stay on the stage

despite the booing. It was just a 10 minute, maybe eight minute boo fest. It was pretty great. It was all little girls too. So it was like high pitch boos. Well, it was young, you know,

like eight to 11 year old girls and their parents. Well, their parents, remember they're young. They can't go to the show themselves or the parents bring them and it's like yeah

it's like it's all young girls with the Madonna bracelets and the mesh everything yeah and um yeah Madonna makeup the raw beastie boys yeah we're basically

making them cry and um yeah that they didn't think that was funny or ironic or like cool in a New York City kind of way at all

they just wanted those assholes to get off stage right but you saw a real show business from Madonna we did but there was

nothing we could really take away from it because we're not capable of that right we're not gonna studio musicians we can't sing dance

and you know look beautiful but still just to like be on a real like we had been on stage at CBGB's you know just punk clubs still just to like be on a real like we had been on stage at CBGB's you know just punk clubs

or whatever and now we're at Radio City Music Hall which was definitely a big lesson because it's a huge stage and we got winded really quick

yeah not pace ourselves we did not pace ourselves well but no we looked like we never barely ever saw a show like that let alone

be on the side of the stage watching it all the time so we learned just a lot from Madonna. But from Run DMC was like something more that we could do. Right. A template. Yeah.

And was also just socially, we got... Oh yeah, Madonna didn't hang out with us. Yeah, it's not like you're to hang out with Madonna. Right. Oh no. I mean, we wanted to, but she, you know...

You guys aren't pals now. She was smarter than that. She had stuff to do. But Run DMC were like, they took us in and we'd hang out every day. She wasn't looking to drink 40s with us and like watch basketball games. Not to say that she doesn't drink 40s and watch basketball games. She does. Yeah.

But there's that nice story you tell about Run DMC coming up with that first line for the first record. You know, that he comes running around the corner. I don't remember which one. Oh, yeah, for our song Paul Revere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a story in the book, which is available in the marketplace. I'll sell the book for you. As told by Snoop Doggy Dog on the audio book.

Mike, I'm working hard right now. Yeah, really. Just checking all the boxes. Are you serious? Dude, we have an audio book for our book. Star-studded. John C. Reilly. John C. Reilly.

He has incredible readings on it. John C. Reilly, guest reader. Snoop Dogg, guest reader. Rachel Maddow. Bette Midler. Tim Meadows. Maya Rudolph. It goes on and on, Talib Kweli,

Chuck D, LL Cool J, Jarvis Cocker, Jarvis Cocker, I'm just repeating words, names that Mike says. Isn't that, but our audio book is,

I mean, it crushes the competition at Christmas time, Mike. Yeah, that's true. It really does. In terms of quality,

it kicks ass, Mike. How does that make you feel, though, that these, Bobby Carnival, yeah, that these people, like, they have this respect. How does that make you feel, though? Bobby Carnival. Bobby Carnival.

Yeah, that these people, they have this respect. Steve Buscemi, sorry. Steve Buscemi. They love you. All these people, you had such a profound influence on everybody. You have such amazing, eclectic fans. How does that make you feel? Great?

Yeah, it's confusing. I would just assume that they had absolutely nothing else to do that day. No, no, no. These are busy, accolade-filled people. No, it's weird. It's weird. If Steve Buscemi called you and was like, I want you to be in my movie for a day, you'd be like, of course. Yeah. But we did a video years ago that Yauch directed.

It was the last video. Well, it wasn't the last video. It was the second to last video and this long video and a lot of people are in it and Steve Buscemi's in it. Yeah. And it is Buscemi, not Buscemi.

Uh-huh. I always said Buscemi, but he said Buscemi. Yeah, I always made the same mistake. And I'd ask him. He was there. He was in our video and I was like,

why are you here? Yeah. And he was like, of course I'm here. Yauk wrote to me and asked me to be in it and of course. The New Yorker. And it doesn't make sense. I don't get. And he's like, of course I'm here. Yowk wrote to me and asked me to be in it and of course. The New Yorkers.

And it doesn't make sense. I don't get it. It's awesome, but it was awesome. You had a profound effect on so many lives. I'm working on a show right now with Alison Brie

and she said she went to see you on the Hello Nasty Tour at the Forum and she was a teenager and she fainted. She fainted. Alison Brie fainted at your show.

So she's blaming us for her. No, I mean, is there some kind of responsibility here no it's like Beatlemania you know you had an effect

I mean yeah put on a good show I don't know how else to say it I mean you can go see other bands

right I mean Belle Biv Devoe they would have that effect on people sometimes right okay but you know what I'm saying

so let's we're gonna be here all day yeah so you make the first let's get to saying. So let's, we're going to be here all day. Yeah. So you make the first, let's get to the first record. Can we order in lunch if we are here all day? Sure, we could.

Oh my God, I had soup dumplings last night at a new place. Yeah, where? Where? Yeah, you own it. In Pasadena Lake. It's called Dan Modern

or some weird name. Great. It's the dude from Luscious Dumpling, I think, got his own spot on Lake Avenue. I also like you have a cookbook in your book. Roy Choi.

Yeah, Roy Choi. LA Zone. Yeah. Roy Choi, who I imagined. Out of nowhere, here's a little reprieve. Here's some recipes. Enjoy. And they're good.

Yeah, they look good. Well, we've mentioned food a lot in our songs. We also spent a lot of our time recording together, thinking about and ordering food. Yeah. That's the thing that I don't know people know about bands, that the thing they do more than anything else,

more than concerts or recording or whatever, is eating together. Sure. Or ordering food. Yeah. Or talking about where to order food. Yeah. That's the number one thing in a band.

That's it? Mm-hmm. So after the first record, I liked how, there's a couple things in the book that you do where you both comment on each other's essays in the side notes which i think is funny that was good but also the way that you know because i even talking to my my girlfriend and you know who i said loves uh your wife who was a bikini kill that how you kind of had to reconcile

with this sort of thing you unleashed with License to Ill, that you were doing this music, you were sort of elevated characters, you had a way of doing it, that one day you're looking out at 20,000 bros who are not necessarily your ilk. And then how you look back on that

and kind of, I think you're contrite about it, but you're also sort of you own it. But, you know, that was something you had to think about. Like, how does this look now? Who were we then? And what does it mean to women? And, you know, because you actually have a feminist defense or two of your work in the book.

There are other essays by other people in the book. Now, when you first started to realize that, was it just, were you angry about it? That you had these fans that were alien to you? Because I hear that from a lot of bands. That how did we attract these guys? No, you can't be mad at people coming. These are paying customers.

These people came, they bought our record, they bought our tickets to come see us play. I'm not mad at them. We made this music that, They bought our record. They bought our tickets to come see us play. Like, I'm not mad at them. Right. We made this music that, you know, if you're a ska band and a bunch of people that love ska music come to your concert, like, that makes sense. Sure. So if we make Fight for Right to Party and a lot of party bros put money down to see you play, that makes sense. Yeah.

So I'm not mad at them. Yeah. It makes you question what you're doing. It's a's all it's a reflection it's a mirror you know what i'm saying and so is that is that what we're doing here yeah this is not what we should know i thought oh wait this was a joke you guys and now it's not it's not a way of life no it's not it's not funny and and there's a there's a story in the book that's called Become What You Hate. And we basically became these jokes that we made. You had a persona and now you were like, am I that guy or am I not?

I was that guy. Well, we created it and it was really exciting when you do create it and it's working. And all of a sudden thousands of people are paying to see you be that. There's a point in that arc where it's really, really exciting. But then there's this thing of like then you wake up and it's your job. And it's also us coming in like these New York punk rock kids that love rap music. It was like, this is not what we we didn't sign we didn't sign on in our we didn't see it that far down we didn't see the timeline that far yeah it wasn't

like okay we're gonna do this and then we're gonna become this and then it was just we're never good at making plans it was just like okay this is funny to us haha then we're doing that oh whoa this is actually working this exciting and then it's like wait You mean we have to be these people that I have and not only be these people play to this audience every forever I what how do we how do we make this stop? But also if you're if you're a comedian and you're just making racist jokes, right if you're just making sexist jokes You're like no no, no, it's it's ironic. All right.'m not that, but these jokes are. Right. Don't you get it? Yeah. You're going to get a bunch of people that don't get it.

But you are that. If you make a bunch of sexist jokes and you stand behind them, then you are the sexist in the joke. Yeah. So your reaction to that was Paul's Boutique. I don't think it was even a reaction. That was like the next- Right, but that was a way to elevate-

That was the next evolutionary step because but that was a way to elevate. That was the next evolutionary step because with Paul's D's, that was actually really the falling out with really more Russell and Rick. Rick had kind of bounced out. He wanted to do something totally different and produce Slayer records and whatever. Russell's like the business person

and wanted money. He's like, well, you guys got to make... Give me Fight Fair at the party. You got to make give me five for the party you got to go back into part two you gotta be that guy be those guys you don't want to guys and keep being that yeah and you're gonna get paid so just go and do it and we're like i think he he misjudged us thoroughly because we came from this whole other by by being like these weird punk rock kids we were just like as soon as he said that, it was like, fuck you. Yeah.

We're not gonna just do this. And then- We're not gonna take it. No. No. We're not gonna take it. And with Paul's boutique- We're not gonna take it anymore. You jumped record labels.

You moved out here. Right? I wanna see if you could do that once. It's a tough one, that thing. I don't think I could do it even once. Yeah. You can. We have one, there's. I don't think I could do it even once. Yeah. You can.

There's one of these grippy muscle things. Oh, my God. It's a hard one. Man, I'm... No, that's a hard one, though. It's a hard one. I have to do an exercise once. It's a hard one.

So... Is it a stress reliever, though? What does it get done? It's stressing me out. That just sounded like something you would sample. Right. But, yes, Paul's Positivity was more a reaction of just everything that happened with Rick Rubin

and Russell Simmons and the fallout and being sick of all of that, wanting to get out of New York, friends around in New York. Things were just getting fucking weird, so we wanted to get out of there. Yeah, it's that weird moment of like, wait, who's our friend?

Who's not our friend? We can't really trust anybody in New York anymore. Oh, really? Yeah. It was like Russell had given friends of ours jobs, and it was like, wait, we need to get as literally,

you know, that's kind of like the amazing thing with LA. Like you can go across the country, get as far as you can within this country from New York

and be in this completely other world. Yeah. Yeah. And then start. Meet the Doss brothers. Also, you know, Hollywood is calling me, Mike.

I mean, let's be real about what's going on. That's true. Well, they really wanted your talent. Yeah. And you made a masterpiece. That's what I say. You mean the motion picture Lost Angels that Adam was in?

That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, you were great in that. Terrific, yeah. Yeah. I'd say forgotten masterpiece, but... I'm trying to forget it, but it keeps coming up. Don't you think Paul's Boutique sort of changed the game for everybody?

I mean, I know, I don't want you to be- Yeah, but we didn't know. Not at the time. No. Yeah. I mean, at the time it was a commercial flop. How the fuck is that possible? I listened to it when it came out over and over again.

It doesn't have, the hooks aren't there. Is that what it was? I mean, let's just be honest. The hooks aren't really there. Yeah, there was no, I mean, I think like now we're able to talk about it because it was like- But it's almost like a psychedelic rap record. It's like fucking- Yeah, the hooks aren't there. Is that what it was? Let's just be honest. The hooks aren't really there. Yeah, there was no... I mean, I think now we're able to talk about it. It's almost like a psychedelic rap record. It's like fucking... Yeah, but who's buying that?

I did. Everybody wanted... They wanted to hear what was going to come next for the Fight, Fight, or Party dudes. They wanted the hits, yeah. Right, they want... So, and there's nothing... You look at it, it's pretty simple, pretty basic.

There's nothing on Paul's Boutique for that person. I know, but you also had trouble with the label, right? They kind of buried it? Yeah. They decided to sort of focus on other esteemed artists like Donny Osmond. That is fucking crazy. Out of all the people in the world. What?

Big name in the game. What? What year was that? He had that one song. He had a TV show. Yeah, Donny and Marie, big. No, no, he's got more than, I mean. Donny Osmond has probably played Las Vegas like a hundred show. Yeah, Don A. Marie, big. No, no, he's got more than, I mean. Don A. Osmond has probably played Las Vegas like 100 times more than,

maybe 300 times more than we ever have. We've played Vegas three times? Right, so I'm saying he's probably played 330 times, I would imagine. Wow, that's a lot of times. It's a big name. No, no, no. Okay, so they got One Bad Apple. Is that Donny Solo?

That's Donnie Solo Or is that Osmond I think it's the Osmond Brothers Okay I can't name a single Osmond I'm a little bit country Rock and roll It wasn't really a song

It was just like a TV That's Donnie Marie though Name another song Yeah it was a song Name another song I don't know They got nothing So after Paul's routine

How did Osmond have such a big Career off nothing I feel confident in having a beef With Donnie Osmond have Such a big Career off nothing I feel confident In having a beef With Donny Osmond At this point I think you're alright I'd like to move away

From Cro-Mags and Migos Yeah And go towards Open the door to Donny Okay Yeah After Paul's Boutique You were disappointed

Angry What Lethargic Despondent Despairing We were kinda good I don't know We were actually

Kinda feeling good Really But we were bummed out you know you go to when you go to like the record company president

dude's office and you're you know in the fancy office where the assistant shows you in and you're like okay we put

all this work into making this record and we were excited about it because we thought like we loved De La Soul we loved Public Enemy

we were like okay this is like our place in this. You put it all in. You went all in. We went for it. We sampled everything we could possibly think of and just layered sample after sample. We're like, okay, this is going to be great. Then they're just like, go make next time.

Go make another record. How long did it take you to do Paul? Was it like two years? Probably. I don't know. Really? It was a year. It was just that one year.

It was 88. Well, it came out 89. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like a year and a half. And License Ill came out 86. Then we were on tour for a year and a half. We started in like early 88, and it came out in 89.

It was like a year. Yeah, I guess a year. Why did it seem so much longer though? I don't know. Is that about right? I guess that's what happens when you're 19, 20 years old. Like a year seems like forever. So much pot.

Yeah. It was actually, even though that we didn't tour, we didn't play any shows. Yeah. Because that was a whole other thing that we got this new manager that was, he was Kenny Rogers' manager. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. No. No. other thing that we got this new manager that was um he was kenny rogers manager yeah no wait yeah no share no no that would be really big yeah but they were there was like heart no it wasn't even you're giving like a listing it was like heart and like the eagles or something those are pretty big i'm sure big names in the game eagles is pretty big. But at that point it was Don Henley.

The Eagles hadn't reunited yet. I'm telling you, there was some fucking Kenny Rogers motherfucker. I'm telling you. Michael Bolton, maybe? Ooh, massive. At any rate, we played a few shows, and they were terrible at these discos, but we did have fun. My man Rich.

It was so bad that it was fun. My man, Rich. It was so bad that it was funny. It was really bad. But then we're in like LA and we're like these New York dudes and like, we're hanging out and you go to like the source for breakfast, Hugo's and shit. Like we're hanging out, smoking pot.

Yeah. That's great. Driving a car. Living in a house together. Kind of awesome. But we also made every mistake, you know, but you, you're,

there are happy mistakes. Like we, we spent all this money on these fancy studios making the record and we like hired these fancy managers who didn't understand what we were doing at all. It was the worst thing we could have done. Yeah. Yeah, it's totally textbook LA. And then, you know, and then I guess, but then somehow we were lucky enough to realize like, wait, all right. So now, and that was also another part of sort of our freedom and being able to do what the fuck we wanted was that then we were basically in terms of the record company, we'd become a bag of dog shit. But, you know, they do not want to touch this bag of dog shit. But you stayed with them, right? No, I don't want to.

No. And I've had dogs too right yeah so they don't they want to keep it but keep us at arm's distance so like nobody wants to touch it and it's like a ziploc bag of dog shit yeah yeah and so but but so then they're like we'll just go make another record so it's like here so here we are we're gonna make another record and nobody from the record company wants to talk to us at all. So we have this wide open freedom. So we're like, all right, we started like actually practicing at Adam's house.

Then his neighbors were not so excited about that. Yeah. And then we moved into like a Hollywood rehearsal studio. Again, very cliche what happens in LA. And then we were like like we should get our own or somewhere yeah exactly it was cold it was cold that place that place exactly there yeah and then we were like all right we need to get this kind of sucks to like go smoke pot set up your stuff and then it's second you kind of think you're doing something halfway decent then you

got to pack it back up so then we're like we got to find our own studio and somehow through a friend i'd never even been to atwater like i was living in silver lake though just over the bridge this is the 80s yeah and so then this or beginning of not yet ladies beginning of nights and this friend's like oh there's this place there's like an old ballroom or something in the studio in atwater you got to check it out it's like really there. There's nothing much happening. And we're like, okay, perfect. And you built a studio. And that became, what was it called? G-

G-Sun. Yeah. But that really became our, like we needed that. We needed to have like this headquarters, this place we could go every day and just listen to records, play music, have all our friends and just start. It's a clubhouse and a studio. It really was a clubhouse. And you had a skate ramp in there and a basketball court and everything. You know what?

I should have moved closer there. Where were you? You and Yowk should have. We should have just moved out. Right, where were you? And think about it. If you'd bought houses then. I know.

Like in Sylvia, you would be a. I know. You'd be like David Geffen right now. Where were you living? Hollywood? Maybe not like David Geffen, but. I was in Laurel Canyon. It was nice.

I'm not saying it was. I'd love the house that I used to live in. Yeah, it was nice where you guys were in Laurel Canyon. It was nice. I'm not saying it was... I loved the house that I used to live in. Yeah, it was nice where you guys were in Laurel Canyon. I had a little pool and all that shit, but I'm just saying, it's a drag having to sober up and drive home at four in the morning. Every night.

It seemed like at that point, there was a crew that sort of developed around that space, right? Like Spike Jonze and Jason Lee and those cats and people started hanging around. And Christian Hosoi. We had a lot of people coming in and out of that place i love it like q-tip when and it was also just the thing because it was like this certain time in rap music too where everybody from new york would have to be in la to like whatever do soul trip do some promotional

meetings and whatnot thing meetings for sure meetings and then they'd come by this you know come by the studio and then we had because we had this place where you could smoke pot and play basketball and make a mixtape or yeah do whatever so yeah it was and it's interesting because it's not like we ever could have planned it we were not i'm still to this day are not good at planning but we it this thing evolved or took place where exactly it was this place where a lot of stuff could get made because it was where all these different people could hang out. And you did three records there?

You did Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Yeah, and some of Hell and Asty there as well. And other things, right? We did other records there. Videos. Tons of videos. I did DFL there. We did tons of other things and produced other, I don't know, what the fuck.

I did a whole, Mike started a magazine there. Grand Royal Magazine. And the label. And the record label. And tons of bands would come in and play. You were actually producing stuff in that space for other bands? I think so, right?

Yeah. Someone brought up the song that I did with MC Milk the other day. You don't even remember that. Yeah, well, now you mention it, I remember, but I had completely forgotten about it up I had completely forgotten about it, too. And you did the clothing line for a while? Yeah. X-Large was kind of like that was a junk.

Yeah. That was in the neighborhood. You guys were like full empire builders. Entrepreneurs. Yeah. Yep. That's how I see it. Unfortunately, we didn't have the Maybachs to prove it or whatever.

Whatever you're supposed to have as an entrepreneur. Private jet. I don't know. What happened to that space? What's in that space now? Oh, Adam was recently there. They're doing things. entrepreneur private jet what happened to that space what's in that space now um oh adam was recently there they're doing things they're just doing things it's still a space it's still a space there's there's the actual i wish i'm sorry to whoever this is i've forgotten your name but he's

the actual little small room where we did all the mixing of all of the songs i had the tape decks yeah where we did all the mixing someone actually still has that and uses it to mix records or songs or commercials or something so that actual room is still in use as a musical actually an interesting note diplo was had the studio for a while but then he became too big time so it's still a studio you guys built the the studio and it's still a studio. And the rest is like businesses. Yeah. Weird. Fun fact, Eli Bonners,

who was my partner, one of my partners in X Large, he owns the building now. Or has for a while. And like at some point you guys decided to, you know, just play your instruments

for real. And I thought that was, I love those, that record, those records where you guys just play. And so like, because you talk about in the book that there was this moment you had where you're like, I'm a musician.

I can accept that. Yeah. But it took a while. That was not that long ago. No, I know, but it's an important moment. But it took a while. No, it is. I agree.

But it took a while. Like, you know, like, check your head, we weren't there. We couldn't say that. Like, we were really excited to play our instruments. And we were excited to make music that we, that was inspired by all these different records that we'd gotten to know from actually from sampling and all this music that we love. But yeah, we just decided you could do it.

And like, I listened to that this morning, the one, the, the later record where it's just, Oh, the mix up. Oh yeah.

Yeah. It's great. Yeah. It was great for you guys. Did you have fun doing that? That one. Yeah, that was fun. The you. I like it. Yeah, it was great for you guys. Did you have fun doing that? That one, yeah, that was fun. Next Up was fun. We kind of, it was a tight-

I had more fun making it than the record is, than I like the record. Yeah. Well, I like how you're honest about it. There's a couple moments on it. There's a couple moments I really like on that. Still back in, there's a couple little breaks, a couple little things where we actually,

we would talk about how we'd want to make something to sound like this and we usually wouldn't make get there and mix up a couple couple nuggets

couple bars. Yeah you guys got a couple two songs on that record. I don't even know are there any songs?

I don't know but there's some moments for sure. No it's not it's nice to have on. It's a nice to have on record. It is but I

thought it was very funny the amount of time you put into that, the Hot Sauce Community Part 2 and making up these samples and sort of meticulously recapturing sounds to make a bunch of fake samples in order to sort of baffle and confuse record nerds.

And the fact that you put all that effort into it and as you wrote in the book that it didn't really register to the people. Nobody cared. Nobody cared. But that's why I feel like good about that in the sense that just, yeah, that's our story, but it's also, it's probably your story

as a comedian at some point. It's any filmmaker's story. Anybody who does anything creative, there's these things that you just go down the hole and just expend all this effort and you're totally consumed by doing this thing. And you're like, Oh,

this is going to be the best thing ever. And nobody ever, but I liked that. It was almost like it was a comedy bit. It was, you know, you did it so perfectly that it got, it got by like,

you know, nobody picked up on it. Well, I, yes, I think so. Yeah. That was the idea going in.

Yeah. And, and for me, I like it because we had, we'd made, we'd been a band for so long, and at that point, we'd actually kind of figured out how to play our instruments. Yeah. Kind of figured out how to produce records. Yeah.

Kind of figured out how to make these things that we never would have thought we could do that. Mm-hmm. And we could kind of know what we were doing, which is kind of cool. Yeah. It doesn't mean you're good or bad at it. It's just we kind of knew how to do it. Yeah.

cool yeah doesn't mean you're good or bad at it just we kind of knew how to do it yeah but um and that's the thing about the big ideas yeah in pop songs like nobody nobody cares about a big idea in a pop song that's why i love fucking daft punk around the world it's just a dumb song that is awesome yeah nothing against daft punk yeah how big are those guys are they big they were for a little while no i mean physically could they be no no they're talking about they're they're slight in build okay although guimond from daft punk does he studies some he he was in a neck brace for a while from some martial art jesus christ yeah so but you know what i'm saying like it with popular music like you just want to fucking dance yeah you know i'm saying so you don't need the whole big idea right the brainiacs need to get off the dance floor but but in making it no the brainiacs are usually pushed off the dance floor but am i wrong with that no you guys are kind of brainiacs but then daft punk

are brainiacs that are on the dance floor you guys just clearly don't get what i'm saying i don't because i'm not a brainiac i'm just saying you just wanted if like popular music you just want to listen to the song you just want to like yeah move you just want to move move me don't fucking give me some

don't be clever at me yeah but you're an obsessive guy you're saying like Lakeside Fantastic Voyage that's what I'm saying you don't want to overthink it you just want to get on

don't overthink it around the world around the world they don't see anything else than around the world yeah so but you don't regret doing it no I love it that's what that's you know that's what unfortunately that's what we do They don't see anything else than around the world. But you don't regret doing it.

No, I love it. That's what, you know, unfortunately, that's what we do. But it seemed like a real sort of obsessive kind of weird project. You just kind of kept going, right? You wanted those samples to sound perfect as if they were archival material. You know, honestly, it was the thing of us, me personally, collecting records and obsessing over 45s and rare records and searching and sifting in any kind of pawn shop

or thrift store anywhere to find little rare records to sample and blah, blah, blah. That time had already kind of passed. So that obsession, I didn't really have that obsession anymore. You don't? Not anymore. Do you have the records still?

Yeah, I still have the records. But so that album, Hot Sauce Committee, was kind of like that obsession twisted in this weird sort of way. Yeah. And I really like it. But my friend Dante Carfagna, big name in the record game, is mad at me because I don't have my records out. They're all in the storage.

How many have you got? I know, I'm getting them. Get them. Because you may as well enjoy them. I'm going to get them in January, which is something else I don't have my records out. They're all in the storage. How many have you got? I'm getting them. I'm getting them. Because you may as well enjoy them. I'm going to get them in January, which is something else I need to talk to you about, which we don't need to talk about. You want me to help you schlep all these records?

Yes, because you carry my records. How many have you got? Thousands? Yeah, I've got thousands of records. And that's what you do when you're consumed with records. I know. I love them. I've been getting records.

But these are just records I got for a quarter. Yeah. 50 I love them. I've been getting records. But these are just like records I got for a quarter. Yeah. 50 cents a dollar. You know what I mean? Yeah, for the samples. But through that process you became very

like knowledgeable and open-minded and like, well, your brain is out, right? By looking for samples you learned about all these different kinds of music. Yeah.

Yeah. I got 15 different copies of the Hair soundtrack. Different versions. Well, there's so many different kinds of music. Yeah. Yeah. I got 15 different copies of the Hair soundtrack. Different versions. Well, there's so many different versions of Hair. So many versions. Same with like, how many covers of Spinning Wheels?

I mean, how many versions? I've got like 20. Of Spinning Wheels? Put your hand in the hand. Has a breakbeat every cover version. 10 past 12. Okay, we're going. What are you guys doing now

outside of pushing the book? What are you working on? I think we're going to work on lunch in the near future. Yeah. Get some coffee. Coffee and lunch would be, I'd love to have in my future. You ever go to Cacao? Cacao.

Cacao? Wait, no. Where's Cacao? You're in Pasadena now, right? I'm staying in Pasadena. I'm sorry. Well, Cacao is like a- That's what New Yorkers say about LA.

It's on Colorado next to the Trader Joe's in Eagle Rock. There's a little strip mall there, and there's a place called Cacao Mexicatessen. It's great. It's great. Wow. Cacao. Cacao. If I come visit you, which I rarely do, will you order cacao?

You should check it out. You like Mexican food? I won't. Yeah, I'd rock. You like mustard, right? I don't. But I like tacos. Yeah, I'd rock. You like mustard, right? I don't. But I like tacos. Yeah, they do some real good shit there.

Okay. Mason's Dumplings, Eagle Rock. Oh, that's good. I haven't been there yet. You like soup dumplings? I haven't really had them. Really? That's my new thing.

And he's obsessed with them. No, but I have a new thing, and it's... What? Do you like it? You hate it. It bothers you. It irritates... It's like I get stressed in the root of my neck when you do it.

It's like I can't even control my mental reaction to it. That's your new thing. All right, guys. That was great. I love the book. It was fun talking to you. Thank you. Thank you for tolerating us. No, I enjoyed the book a lot, and I love the book it was fun talking to you thank you

good luck with it for tolerating us no I enjoyed the book a lot and I like the music there you go thank you take care alright

so that was it that was what that was what happened it was that's the Beastie Boys it's a good book the book is now available. So yeah, I would recommend that.

And there's never a bad time to listen to Paul's Boutique or Check Your Head or Ill Communication. Those are my Beastie records. Again, my tour dates, Wheeler Opera House. Wheeler Opera House in Aspen and the Boulder Theater in Boulder are happening in March, correct? Yes.

March 23rd, Wheeler Opera House. March 24th, the Boulder Theater in Boulder are happening in March, correct? Yes. March 23rd, Wheeler Opera House, March 24th, the Boulder Theater. Tickets available for that at wtfpod.com slash tour. You can get my latest special, Too Real, in audio format on the homepage of wtfpod.com. And now I will play three to four chords for you with a wah-wah pedal and an echo box. Thank you. Boomer lives. We'll be right back. Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

Product availability varies by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m.

in Rock City at torontorock.com.