Arrogance generally is a bad thing, but with a band, somehow you have to have this gang mentality or this certain degree of arrogance to push forward an idea that's new enough that people aren't comfortable with it at first.
Mike D
We are exercising our constitutional right to be fresh.
Obviously, there are moments that you look back at and cringe - things in the past involving violence or disrespect to women or disrespect to other people that are so far away from what I want to put out there now. But it's actually a privilege to be able to change and be making records that reflect that change.
Dub has been a big influence in terms of production. It's inspired so many people and so much music - in terms of music where mixing desk was the instrument. Central to that is the echo chamber, and I think there's a little bit of a romantic thing there.
I'm the first to admit that we were totally dependent on a particular place and time... for us, seeing Minor Threat at the CBGB hardcore matinee was just as necessary a force in our lives as the Treacherous Three at Club Negril or the Funky Four + One More at the Rock Lounge.
Wine is similar to music in that it's a purely experiential realm, and it's a purely subjective practice. That's sort of the funny thing about wine criticism or, for that matter, music criticism. At times, those are useful guides, but ultimately it's all about how you react to that music or wine.
For me, growing up in New York, it started with Elvis Costello and the Clash and then got into louder things like Bad Brains and Stimulators, because those were, like, the local bands. Then I started getting into bands from England like the Slits. I remember seeing Gang of Four at Irving Plaza; that was a really big show for me.
It's really hard to find a lot of things that rhyme with Michael Diamond.
Wine needs to have a context in a social gathering to fulfill its historical place in this world.
I know for myself, and maybe I'm weird or whatever, but the whole thing is about constantly redefining identity.
When I first became aware of music, it was probably the same way a lot of people do - even more suburban or rural people - from my older brothers playing music.
Each time you present a tour, you're faced with these questions of, 'How do you want to present visual information? How do you want to take the music that we're making on stage and visualize that?'
I kind of idolized older punk-rock and hip-hop bands, and I was, like, 15 when I started the Beastie Boys. And what business did we having doing that at that age?
Things change. I used to have a real resistance to it and hold on to things, but let things happen and go with it, and you will actually go through it, and it's a lot less stressful.
On 'Check Your Head' and 'Ill Communication,' most of the lyrics are much more, 'OK, you take that, and I'll say that' - they're split up.
All the music I listened to in high school that I loved and that moved me wasn't the same music other kids were listening to in school. I got into punk rock and new wave, then dub and hip-hop.
The initial notion for 'Check Your Head' was just all three of us getting back to playing instruments.
The bottom line with a lot of bands that funk is being applied to is that they don't really listen to funk and aren't versed in funk. Like, you know, Gordon Lightfoot.
Every vote matters.
That's the thing with all of us music geeks - music is the soundtrack to the things that happen in our lives, and there's music that's unique to that movie.
We just have to be careful of our actions as world citizens.
L.A. is a town built upon segregated, individual fantasies.
Thinking about the cold weather in England... Don't be afraid to rock the David Niven look.
Hopefully everybody in the audience thinks, 'That's cool. I could do that.' I don't like the thought that they say, 'I saw the Beastie Boys last night, and they're mega-stars.' I'm a lot happier when the kids who come backstage or to the hotel try to give us tapes of what they've done instead of just getting an autograph.
I grew up with a clock radio next to my bed.
Mr. Philippe Zdar is a little bit like the uncle of the whole Daft Punk-Phoenix-Air thing in Paris and known for being in the group Cassius. It was interesting working with Philippe.
The amazing thing about music is that however many thousands of records I've got now, I know that there are still thousands more that I haven't even begun to discover.
When you get to a point where you're not beholden to a record company, then it's up to you to say, 'OK, enough knob-turning. We're done.'
We're downtown New Yorkers and had very close proximity to the events of September 11th. Like everybody on the island of Manhattan, we were impacted by it in so many ways in terms of what we saw, what we felt, what our daily experience became in the wake of it.
In the time we made 'To the 5 Boroughs,' there was a political seriousness because of what was happening in the world.
I'm really kind of a little bit romantic for the lost era. There's a lot of us that are - kind like James Murphy, same thing - we feel like it's this magic era that happened before us. And it wasn't even necessarily disco.
LL Cool J is very well known in Hollywood. He's an established commodity across several platforms, including motion pictures.
Leaving Def Jam was kind of a blessing in disguise because we can make whatever record we want.
We never set out to be superstars.
I don't know - the idea of a specific wine paired with a specific piece of music seems a little far-fetched to me. But maybe I just need to be opened to it.
I wanted to create this dialogue between music and visual art and vice versa. No matter what part of the spectrum they fill, whether it's visual, music, or whatever, artists are interested in other art forms. Your brain is already kind of firing in that way.
What would've been the downside of holding bin Laden accountable by our own values of justice by which our country is based on?
My parents were very, very good about not separating us as kids from their adult friends. So on any given night, we'd have, like, this kind of freak show - artists and art dealers coming over. And these are the people I feel like I learned from.
Japan is brilliant for vinyl. There's all this rare stuff that I've been looking two years for, and you walk into a store, and you find it straight away.
When Yauch died, it was really like losing my older brother. I mean, I have biological older brothers, but growing up, Adam really was my older brother.
At the time, I was living pretty close to Ground Zero. I had to grab some necessary equipment, put it in my backpack, and flee the immediate proximity on my bike.
We're kind of doing what Bob McAllister did with 'Wonderama,' which is making people realize that kids are people, too.
I was a nerdy punk-rock kid.
I have an equal amount of patience as my grade-school children, which is not great.
To me, the whole thing with the roots of rap music was when the DJ had to supply all the music for the group with two turntables. And the whole criteria of what that DJ would use had nothing to do with what type of band made a record.
I remember going to the East Village for the first time as a fifteen-year-old and going to Tompkins Square Park. That really seemed like a pretty edgy thing to do.
Real life is much stranger than fiction, man.
Most interviewers basically just want us to rephrase the bio. You already know us - why do you need to interview us?
Growing up in New York City and hip-hop are two inseparable things, two things that are totally intertwined in our lives.
I'm in need of a man apron. A very manly apron.
