Beastie Boys Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad Rock” Horovitz dropped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a quick interview today to celebrate the release of their long awaited CD, Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2. (Check it out in the archives here and read more below.)
If you’re wondering how you missed Hot Sauce Committee, Part 1, don’t worry. You didn’t miss it – it’s never been released. The guys tell us it was purely a “scheduling situation.” They had so many songs, they were working on two albums simultaneously with set release dates. They missed the first one because of “chronic laziness” and decided to just move forward with the second (comparing it to NYC public transit – gotta keep things moving!)
Sadly, they didn’t break any news about potential tour dates (we all had our fingers crossed) but they did bring a lot of humor to our morning, with a chat about their many “Grammy medallions” (their track “Too Many Rappers” got a Grammy nomination and their album wasn’t even out yet!), a story about a rapper sending “spies” to check out their show and much more.
They also tell the story behind how Santigold got involved on “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” and Jason’s favorite track on the album, “OK”. For “OK,” Mike D said he was walking to the studio on a beautiful NYC day and had an idea of doing something musically that sounded like The Cars. Now that I know that, I can totally hear it in the track – and it works.
There was another tribute to NYC as well — Mike D and Ad Rock talk about coming of age during an era when people were moving to NYC to be “whatever artist they wanted to be.” It was an inspiring time in art, music and more and they talked about hearing bands like ESG (out of the South Bronx) and post-punk band Liquid Liquid playing in clubs. They said they were fortunate to be kids during that era and how The Clash making a dub record convinced them they could make a hip hop record.
Ad Rock also added a shout out to musical influences The Slits and Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex – as well as his oldest friend, Arthur Africano, a friend of his since kindergarten who is an avid KCRW listener! Also, off air, Mike D told us he listens to KCRW regularly as well.
If you missed it, check out the interview and a few new songs (“Funky Donkey,” “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win,” “OK,” Make Some Noise”) online in the archives.
RR