Adam Yauch (AKA MCA) pushes Michael Diamond (AKA Mike D) off his chair, then throws it on top of him. Diamond, lying facedown on the floor, uses the chair as a flotation device as he swims across the floor. Meanwhile, Adam Horovitz (AKA King Ad-Rock) talks about performing onstage.
And that was as serious as the Beastie Boys got in a 20-minute interview with andPOP last week.
“This interview is going fuckin’ swimmingly,” says Diamond, as he rejoins the band.
In Toronto to promote their award-winning DVD, “Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot that,” the Beastie Boys have other things they’d like to discuss.
“The tension that exists in the band right now is that we’ve got two Adams and one Mike. I don’t have Mix Master Mike right here with me to balance things out and it’s a real problem,” says Diamond.
“Of all the rants you’ve gone in,” says Yauch, “this is perhaps the bottom of the barrel.”
“Truth hurts,” says Diamond. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“It seems to hurt you a lot more than it hurts us,” adds Horovitz.
Simple questions about the DVD turn into long-winded rants about the most obscure topics.
“Why don’t you tell the people what you’d like for your birthday,” Diamond tells Yauch, whose birthday is on August 5.
“I actually would like a Mah Jong video game that is compatible with a Mac. Most of the good ones are all on PC.”
“What about, just as a suggestion, as an alternate present, chain mail?” Diamond generously asks.
“Like writing letters to people or armour?” Yauch asks.
“Armour. It’s good to have around the house.”
“I’m planning on doing some swimming so I don’t know if the chain mail is really going to work.”
“It couldn’t hurt to have some armour around the house, you know, in case some shit goes down,” says Horovitz.
“I was trying to get you to get armour when you lived over at that weird Spanish castle,” Yauch reminds Diamond.
“I blew it on that,” Diamond says, “I should have bought the suit of armour from the people who had it before. It’s one of my biggest lifetime regrets.”
Chain mail could not be more off the topic from the DVD, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year. It’s the first live DVD released by the Beastie Boys, the revolutionary hip-hop trio from New York who have been making music for over two decades.
The Beastie Boys provided camcorders to 50 fans who were attending one of their concerts at Madison Square Gardens in 2004. The only instructions the fans were given was to leave the camera rolling the entire concert.
Yauch was browsing through the group’s online message board when he noticed someone posted a 30-second clip of a performance using a camera phone. Seeing that clip, he said, triggered the idea to create the almost bootleg-like DVD.
“It seemed like it captured the energy of the show better than most of the stuff I’ve seen filmed of shows. They don’t seem to really capture the essence of the show and this way did,” says Yauch, who also directed the film under the alias of Nathaniel Hornblower.
Since Yauch had many angles to choose from, the editing process took over a year to complete.
“The hardest part is having so many options, like certain songs we decided to just cut from the DV cameras. Some stuff was overwhelming,” says Yauch in a rare moment of seriousness, before the conversation turns to glue. Yes, glue.
“I have a new announcement. Adam and Adam don’t know about this yet,” says Diamond. “I’m in extended talks with Elmer’s Glue.”
“Extensive?” asks Yauch.
“That too. I think it’s going to culminate very …”
“Is that a solo venture or is it going to help the band?” interrupts Horovitz.
“Long term working relationship with the band,” Diamond says, as Horovitz starts talking about the quality of the glue and Yauch asks if it is the white glue.
“Well there will be some new ventures, some invisible erasing glue sticks,” Diamond explains.
“Because the white glue doesn’t get you high,” says Horovitz.
“This is why it’s a great tie in for us. No downside,” says Diamond. “Nobody died from Elmer’s Glue.”
“Except horses,” says Horovitz, “if you don’t care about that, but that’s cool, Mike.”
“They don’t use horses in glue,” says Diamond.
Horovitz corrects him. “Scientologist horses.”
The Osheaga Music and Arts Festival will return to Montreal this summer with two huge headliners: Coldplay and Beastie Boys.
