Beastie Boys: Documentary ‘Beastie Boys Story’ and Classic Rock Influences | Apple Music

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so in the late seventies starting with you Adam what was what what could you hear in New York the thing about New York is that you walk everywhere and there's just so many radios coming out of stores and just cars just sounds

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everywhere and so there were songs that we loved on a radio and just like the popular songs from the kids day but then you'd hear all these other sounds that would sort of get you interested like what is that later down when we got

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older you'd be like oh that's that thing so he said you appreciate playlists so I had I had a lot of songs and I did my homework as what was asked of me 15 songs it was hard to choose there was a lot of songs I finally picked I

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committed to my 15 and then I went back and I put him in alphabetical order what believe me medical I mean I understand what I have a better goal but in this context like I went chronological wouldn't chronological make more sense coño logically speaking where do we

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begin do we begin with well you've begun with Paul Simon the interesting thing with pop radio in the 70s is that yeah songs had to be popular like you weren't gonna hear Velvet Underground you know on on AM radio but

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there wasn't like it's not like a format like white black disco versus rock you heard all different types of groups and so for some reason Paul Paul Simon I just always remember hearing that song I would also hear me and Julio down by the

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schoolyard but you'd hear that song 50 ways to lose my lover would come on and it was like he's kind of rapping in a way and it sort of has like a beat at the beginning and so I just like it he got my attention right away it's been

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something different and it interested me in a certain way and just the idea that music could be different I mean I don't have to mention the Ramones because I think the Ramones were the first band that probably they're both Adam and I

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looked and listened looked at and listen to and loved and thought oh we could do something like that but but the thing that but when you're a kid it's like it's like comic books combined with great pop songs at but it also really

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feels like you could do it like when you look at the Ramones I do feel like I'm gonna pick up a guitar and learn all these moan songs right now and it's not that because it isn't that hard it's not that hard to learn them it's just but

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the fact that they wrote them and they did it so well it's really incredible you know when you're sitting around you working out what you want to make and how you want to make it was hard cool playing a role you know in your mind when you when you

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started making a rat records but one thing is we knew we wanted to make short rap songs like The Ramones like punk songs right that was one of the things that we sort of talked about was you know cuz because the older rap records

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were all like that spoon the Jimmy Spicer record that I'm talking about it's like 10 minutes long and he's still rapping as the song fades out yeah and that was the format too like it was I really it was a 12 inch and they just

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would just keep it going as long you know the idea wasn't to have tight songs it was almost more like in the this I guess like dance / like disco mode of like keeping people dancing for a long time or something but then you know Rick

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it Rick had a huge impact on us a Rick taught taught us about heavy metal we weren't like none of us listen to metal records because we were too into being punked and - and then and then discovering like other like weird downtown music and then when Rick played

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us Led Zeppelin and ac/dc or Black Sabbath whatever we were first we were listening to the brick we're like oh these records actually these drum brakes on these things but then it's also we're like what we started to love them when

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we started appreciate the music which was like kind of out of bounds for us just being punk rock kids I'm sorry Rick introduced that and then Nick also you know Rick knew how to make out take what we're doing and make it sound and get on

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a radio at what point did you realize coming out of Licensed to Ill that you need it it wasn't even wanted - you needed to swerve well that's because we had a break with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons and Def Jam Records we had to get away from them

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we had to get off that record label and that was a case of finances that was a financial decision based on the way the contract was structured it was financial and friend decisions friend financial and and creative differences you know

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I'm gonna be fair Rick had bounced out and he had the place that we could hang out where he had he had the PA system and the turntables and the drum machine you know and he and he was like a DJ he would get records from the record pool

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so of course we go there every day and then Rick was like Rick was already starting to make you know it made started made uh he made a rap record with Tila I call it with Tila rock and jazz yours that's like legit you know great and

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kind of like important early rap record and so that was like a big big deal us right so we but we like looked at like we're in this scene you know we'd come from this punk rock scene so we looked at the same way we're we're all friends

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here we're all in this together I don't think we did really you know we didn't have the maturity to see how Russell's ambition was different than ours and also different than Rick's and at Rick's ambition was different than ours

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and ultimately was actually all okay like everybody is alright to have different ambitions you know it's just nobody who when you're 18 19 years old nobody communicates that clearly with each other so on songs on license till

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we got really into loops and throwing in like weird scratches of Records and trying to make it as weird as possible and Rick was making wanted to make it as clean as possible and pop as possible which is cool that he wanted to do that

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and cool that we wanted to make it our way so when everything fell apart we're like let's get out of here we went to Los Angeles and we decided to make another record and we decided to put every crazy idea that we had in the record yeah all right so let me say

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something I'm gonna say something now so you know I spent you know a few minutes on my playlist okay going to talk about some on a playlist oh you can't wait are you getting defensive right now I put the song The Rolling Stones song

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shattered on my list for a few different reasons one because it's a great song great band right it is one of the best New York songs of all New York songs but I put it on my list for a specific reason so I used to go excuse me pick my

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nose I used to go to my mom's friend's house a lot when I was a kid and she the friend had these older brothers and they had the record some girls Rolling Stone and I used to listen I record all the time specifically shattered because

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they're vert their record had a skip in the middle right before like the fourth chorus and it was a perfect loop and so it would skip and loop and skip and loop and that was my introduction to sampling and so that's why it's on my list I've

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really enjoyed talking with you good luck with the movie Beastie Boys story on Apple TV plus we're proud to be to be it to be a part of it we didn't really get a chance to talk about spike but I know that spiked and you've had a lot of

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conversations together and promotion for the movie so I don't feel too bad about it but shout rate Spike Jonze Spike Jonze well spike will be joining us seen on the equity very well there you go I said I lift you something lift you something you