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[Deepak Chopra] I'm Deepak Chopra, you're watching One World with Deepak Chopra today
coming to you from Sirius XM Satellite Radio in New York City, and my very special guest
today is Mike D, MC and drummer of the Beastie Boys. It's a pleasure to have you.
[Mike D] Thank you, thank you for having me.
[DC] Yeah. No it's great.
[MD] You know, it's a cold day out on the streets here in New York City.
[DC] Yeah, but to yogis...
[MD] So it's warmer in here.
[DC] To yogis it doesn't matter, right? We regulate our own body temperature.
[MD] Yeah. Well you're gonna have to help me with that later because it's an issue for
me.
[DC] You just have to imagine a big flame in your ***.
[MD] Well, I don't have to imagine.
[DC] Spreading out...
[MD] Sorry, sorry for the awful... See I came in early, came in hot with the off-color remarks.
[DC] You can only make those with musicians. I'd love to know, as I'm sure a lot of our
listeners would love to know, people watching us, how did the Beastie Boys originate? What
was the germination? How did it start?
[MD] You know, we were kids from here, from New York City. Okay, I grew up here on the
Upper West Side. My two future bandmates actually didn't grow up near me, but how we got to
know each other was going to see music. So I was going out to see bands, and going to
see -- going out to clubs at really a very young age, but New York was a very different
time then. I mean I'm talking sort of early 80s, right? It was an incredibly exciting
time to go see and hear music, live music, here in New York City, so you know, it was
a very small scene of us.
[DC] To the clubs?
[MD] Yeah, and there was -- you know, you'd go, and there'd be maybe say forty people
in the entire club, and two or four others of them would actually be teenagers, the rest
would, you know, be grown people. When you're a teenager, you know, you don't really interact
so much with grownups socially. So we kind of -- I was a very shy teenager, but eventually,
finally, I started to talk to like these other kids that kind of like looked different from
everybody else, and we'd see each other at these shows, and we became best friends because
in school for me I was always -- like music was totally my passion.
[DC] Your life.
[MD] It was my life. You know, yeah sure I was in school, but really where my mind, where
my heart, where my focus was, was music.
[DC] So you met these two kids, and you started a punk band together?
[MD] Well, yeah. We met, and then we started to go to shows all the time, and we love that,
and then, you know it was a funny time because everybody -- it was kind of like the logical,
if you listened to music a lot, it was only logical that you would start to play music,
you know. Not that we knew how to do it, not that we were trained, but it just, the music
itself -- because we were really fueled by and inspired by kind of like I guess punk
rock and then post punk. And so, it was this whole thing of where the energy was more important
than the process I guess, you know, you didn't have to be trained for ten years.
[DC] How old were you?
[MD] When I started going to shows like fourteen, fifteen years old.
[DC] And when did the band emerge?
[MD] And hopefully my kids are not watching that because they're gonna be like -- but
you know it's funny talk with them about it because now they're coming to the age where
they're passionate about their own music, and so I'm -- you know, it's short time before
they're gonna be like, "Dad, we wanna go to see this and this."
[DC] So how old were you when the band emerged?
[MD] So really when we started, I was probably fifteen or sixteen years old, yeah. And I'm
quite a bit older than that now, not that you can guess but...
[DC] You know I can't guess.
[MD] Well you probably can because you got --you know. you can stay warm outside in cold
temperatures.
[DC] Yeah, but I don't believe in time, or age, or any of that so.
[MD] Okay, well all the better.
[DC] Okay. Did you struggle -- you know all my music friends, the famous and the not so
famous, have struggled with drugs and alcohol, everything from smoking to you name it. Did
you have to go through that?
[MD] Well, yeah of course. I shouldn't say of course, you know there are some people...
[DC] Part of the scene.
[MD] There are a lot of musicians I know that just stayed focused. But I'll tell you, I
mean, two interesting insights I think I have on that. There's one, what I was just thinking
about in terms of how it relates to my kids, is that what's interesting, when we're going
to these clubs, you know, I look back at it now, I was like "Oh my God, this is mad, this
is crazy that you had these teenagers running around, king to these clubs." There was plenty
of alcohol, there was plenty of drugs, but you know what, we -- I didn't see any of it.
I was totally...
[DC] Innocent.
[MD] Right. I was innocent, but I was also disinterested. I was only focused and only
interested in the music, you know, that's why I was in the club. I wasn't there for
any of the other stuff.
[DC] But did you fall into it?
[MD] I mean yeah eventually, but it wasn't -- the only time, I think when -- and luckily
I'm still here, and whatever was never that big a, never became that huge part of my life.
But where I think it comes into the picture isn't actually from the music itself, where
it comes in are the, you know, the ego issues you have in life of that you're young...
[DC] You get famous.
[MD] You get famous, so people perceive you differently than to who you are. They relate
to this person who you are not, and then there's a tremendous...
[DC] Pressure to perform.
[MD] Pressure, and also to stay being this one thing whom you are not. You know, so I
think it's the interesting in our trajectory -- extremely, extremely grateful for A) for
just being partners so long with like two of my best friends in l life, you know, we
were very, very, super, super lucky.
[DC] Still your best friends after all these years?
[MD] Well, Adam Yauch unfortunately died, you know, two years ago, but Adam and Adam
were my best friends, and the other Adam is still one of my best friends, absolutely,
hands down in life. And that doesn't mean we don't fight, argue...
[DC] So what as Rick Rubin's role in your?
[MD] You know, Rick was our first DJ. We met Rick -- we needed, we started, you know like
I said, we grew up on Punk Rock music, and then Hardcore, like American Hardcore, and
then as soon as I heard rap music, I was like that's for me, and same with Adam and Adam,
and a bunch of us, you know, because rap had this, again it's all just energy right? And
so, it doesn't matter that it's coming from a different community, or whatever, it's -- as
soon as I heard rap coming out on, at the time on mix tapes, it wasn't even being played,
you know radio would not played rap music because it was way too rebellious because
it was way too rebellious. It's not like now, where rap is, you know, is part of main -- it
is part of the main stream dialogue right? Then it was really, really a strictly underground.
[DC] So the origins of rap are not in the African-American community. They're in, or
are they?
[MD] No, I think -- my experience, yeah. You know, my experience yes it was, Hip Hop was
-- I heard because I would take the train to school everyday, and you'd hear, eventually
I'd hear guess playing cassette tapes on like these big boom-boxes, or whatever.
[DC] Almost like street poetry in many ways.
[MD] Yeah, no but -- the second I heard it I was like, "Okay, that's for me." Like there
was not, you know, literally it wasn't even an intellectual decision, it was like a heart
decision, you know. So, I had to absorb it, I had to check out everything we could. So
we realized we became a lot more interested actually in rap, or hip hop, or whatever you
wanna call it then other music that we'd been listening to. And you know, like anything,
we would absorb everything we could, we'd learn other people's records first, and memorize
everything that they did, and copy everything they did before we could ultimately arrive
at what it is that we would do.
[DC] That made you unique.
[MD] Right, but in any case, in that trajectory, we met -- we needed a DJ. You know, there
was three of us, we rapped, we needed a DJ, and this friend of ours, Nick Cooper goes,
"Yeah, yeah I know this guy, he's going to school at NYU, and he's got, he's got turntables,
he DJs, he's got a whole PA." We were like, "Great! This awesome, he's got all the equipment,
right?" He's got all the technology, all the equipment. So we go over to his dorm room,
he literally has, like a PA in his dorm room.
[DC] The whole system.
[MD] So we're like, "This is awesome." And then Rick became our DJ, and then, you know,
Rick -- we just loved being in the band, but Rick did bring him and later Russell Simmons,
who became our manager, you know they did have I thick a vision in terms of seeing what
we did could relate to a mass audience, right? You know, we didn't, even still to this day,
we never created so much with that in mind right? It was just like we were just like
interested in making music.
[DC] But you soon found yourself with the mass audience.
[MD] We found ourselves that right. But Rick and Russell were I think, definitely more
davy than we were in terms of seeing that playing field, you know, that -- they saw
that...
[DC] You did world tours?
[MD] Yeah.
[DC] You travelled the world?
[MD] Yeah, and the Rick initially travelled with us, and then he didn't like the road,
and rightfully so. Well it's a lot of fun, but it's *** you too.
[DC] And you were the early inductees in the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame?
[MD] No, not early.
[DC] No?
[MD] I mean it took us a minute, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know what's early, what's
middle, what's end with that, but, yeah.
[DC] How did that feel at that time? How does it feel to be recognized by your peers?
[MD] It was interesting. You know, that was an interesting one because a lot of times
we've, in our past, this is gonna sound like a really -- how do I phrase it so it doesn't
sound so pretentious, but you know as a band when you're performing, it's incredibly gratifying,
right, because you have and audience, it's like they're investing their audience, they've
-- their energy, sorry. So you know, an audience they've literally have invested their energy
because they had to work all week to save up to buy this ticket to go see you, so and
then the energy exchange, then your give back is you're going out there, and you're playing
these songs they wanna hear, and you're doing, you know it's just, it's literally an energy
exchange, and it's very gratifying. That's actually, I think, part of the thing, what
happens with magicians. Magicians have this too. No, with musicians and drunks, I think
that's part of the thing, they get -- that becomes, there's so much adrenaline, and there's
so much exchanger of energy.
[DC] They have to come down.
[MD] And you can be very unprotected in that environment, and they have to -- it's hard
to then just go back to being at home and ordering breakfast
[DC] Two of my closest friends, one was Michael Jackson, I met him immediately after Thriller,
and I remember my first meeting with him. He was the total embodiment of innocence,
sweet and totally creative, playful, joyous, and then, you know, as he became more and
more famous, he got surrounded by enablers and people, and after the Pepsi accident,
it was a progressively downhill story. I couldn't get to him over the phone. He would only call
me when he was sober, which was not that frequently anymore. And so, I've seen that happen over,
and over again with lots of people. It breaks my heart actually because these people are
so talented, and still tortured.
[MD] Yeah, I mean, Michael Jackson's incredible right? I mean, incredible talent.
[DC] I went with him to Romania on his tour, European tour, when he was doing Dangerous.
We had the whole city turn out, you know, there were like half a million people on the
street listening to that concert. People on rooftops, on double decker buses, the whole
town was crazed with that concert, and he performed for three hours nonstop, it was
the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
[MD] Cool.
[DC] So has interesting memories. I was also very close to George Harrison. And of course,
when I met him, he was very, very much in his spiritual mode of life. We travelled India,
etc... And you know, it was sad to see him go.
[MD] Yeah, for sure.
[DC] So what do you think it is? Are musicians tortured in general?
[MD] Some people are tortured, some musicians are tortured, you know.
[DC] Are artist tortured?
[MD] We're all imperfect. Well I think, we as artists we're a little more focused, or
maybe preoccupied with the sort of fragile human condition, right? So that makes us a
little bit more vulnerable. But that's why to me, I was so grateful to like say, we talked
earlier about my friend Eddie Stern, you know, to be introduced to different like yoga practices,
right? Because then it was, that was all sudden, a means for, it really is a practice of -- you've
got these ancient practices of getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, you know, and that's
what...
[DC] Exploring the unknown.
[MD] Right. Musicians specially, specially if you're a songwriter, it's tricky because
you have to become comfortable with that, uncomfortable right? You have to be willing
to go into the unknown which could be like a scary place, and you also have to be willing
to take those risks, that sometimes have rewards, sometimes don't, but whatever you do -- I
don't know for me, and for us as a group to stay vital, we had to keep pushing ourselves,
right? And so, you know, in doing so you're gonna have a trajectory. It's not always gonna
be going, going, going, gone, you know, selling more and more and more and more, right? Because
you're gonna at times, you're gonna connect with people.
[DC] You can't write a good song I think just because you wanna sell it, right? You are
not thinking of...
[MD] Right. And also where you are doesn't mean that's where the mass popular consciousness
is, but you know you can, if you stay around long enough, you can kind of keep reconnecting
and reconnecting with it.
[DC] Like the Rolling Stones.
[MD] Right, yeah. I mean, so many. I felt we were lucky enough to stay around long enough
that we kind of like, literally, I mean, we see it in our makeup of our audiences, you
know, because there would be people that grew up with us at different points of our careers.
[DC] And they'll follow you for the rest of their lives.
[MD] Yeah, so it's a cool, that's a cool thing. But in any case it's, you have to become,
it's not always easy, and it's hard to become comfortable with the uncertainty, I think,
you know, usually a lot of times you show up...
[DC] So maybe that's what drives you then to these practices that help you connect to
your soul, for lack of a better word. Yoga, meditation, all of that. Is that the motivation
then?
[MD] Yeah, I think so. I think because you become, you start to become comfortable in
those places. Then you really start to do the work, right? Then you're really starting
to see...
[DC] So you're telling me you were last night...
[MD] Last night, I had Gomees, a friend we were working on a project together, and you
know, we're -- I meet him at this restaurant. Everything is really crowded. I'm just getting
really agitated, and annoyed, and I realized it's funny because then I start -- all of
sudden I realized in my head, you know, like earlier in the day I realized with my mom,
who's eighty-five years old now, and I realized, okay, you know what? I love my mom, of course
as we all do, especially as boys, we're so emotionally connected to our, attached and
connected to our moms, right? But she's eighty-five she's getting older, she is going to die,
but that's a hard thing to really accept, and I just thought, "Okay, well I have to
just value every second I have you know, with her, when I talk to her on the phone, when
I'm with her, whatever we do, I have to just completely really be present and value it."
And then I realized, like as I am getting, you know, annoyed in the bar, you know what?
Every moment -- really the goal is everyone. I'm sitting in the bar, like when I'm getting
annoyed, actually I should value whatever my interaction is with that person, or with
the bartender, or the person who is like knocking my drink over, I should value that equally
as highly as, you know, being with my mom later in life, right?
[DC] That's very evolved by the way.
[MD] Well, I don't low, I'm getting....
[DC] Not many people think like that.
[MD] You wouldn't have thought that if you saw how agitated I was last night, but anyway.
[DC] So where are you now in your career, if I may use that word? You know, you've been
to the pinnacle, been inducted in the Rock N' Roll, world famous man, and where are you
now?
[MD] You know, it's an interesting thing, like now I feel like I'm actually in this
interesting place, where I get to actually explore, and try different things, you know.
[DC] What are you exploring.
[MD] Like I can -- I'm about to go into the studio, working on a couple of records with
a couple of different people that are just bands that I really like. So I get to do that
without being a band member, which I really enjoy. And then actually, the last couple
of years I found myself involved with -- I did a very big project in Los Angeles in the
Museum of Contemporary Art, where I curated a whole museum show, but that was also a festival
that -- because I was interested in how we could sort of make music, you know, because
a lot of times when I go visit visual artists, because I became, I've always been interested
in visual art, but I was always interested in visiting visual artists studios because
they always listen to music, you know, it always seemed like their work would be formed
and inspired by music. So I was like, okay there's some kind of, there's some dialogue
there, there's somehow these visual artist who do this incredible work, and then there's
musicians, who are very interested I think, always in, not always, but a lot of times
in visual art because it's kind of the same, when you, it's the same feeling you get, when
if you look at a painting, and you really connect with it, it's this, it's a similar
thing that happens to you, when you listen to a song for the first time, and really connect
with it, you know, like you experience something profound.
[DC] You know, it's fascinating to me that no matter what, you know, there's all kind
of art, but only music, musicians fill up stadiums with thousands of people, or sometimes
tens of thousands of people, no other artist does that, what's so?
[MD] Well, I think music actually has another dimension, you know, there's a vibrational,
you could probably explain it better than I can.
[DC] It certainly has a, there's a...
[MD] There's a vibrational experience that is going on.
[DC] And chemistry to it to the brain, you know? There's obviously a release of opiates
and dopamine and all of that, which are...
[MD] Well, you know, it also goes beyond, it really transcends language, right?
[DC] It does.
[MD] And I think that's part of the thing that any musician will probably tell you,
ultimately, like we're all just chasing, in like say twenty thirty years of playing music
there's only these little glimpses you're gonna get, where you really kind of reach
transcendence state, but ultimately you're chasing that all the time.
[DC] You're chasing the transcendent state.
[MD] Right.
[DC] I think sports does that to a great extent.
[MD] Yeah, no definitely, sports can do it, anything can, where you have that, just that
focus. But music is interesting because you're doing it with, in collaboration with other
people, so it's this...
[DC] Yeah and you know, if you're in a concert, I can see they're all, we're all in that same
resonant frequency in this other domain, which is beyond this everyday mundane experience
of life.
[MD] Yeah, that's why I think it means so much to people, right? Because literally the
audience transcends their kind of mundane, their okay mundane experiences, taking the
train to Madison Square Garden to go see whoever, and they've had a deal with this stuff, and
they brought their beer, and their duh duh duh duh, and they had to work hard to save
up to get money to do this, but then once the music starts that is all, that's finished.
[DC] Gone, yeah.
[MD] You know, it's all about the music, which is no different then when I was, you know,
fourteen fifteen years old going to these clubs to see, you know, whoever, whether it's
The Slits, or Grandmaster Flash, or The Traitorous Three, whether it was hip hop, or punk rock,
it didn't matter. Like it was just for that moment.
[DC] You mentioned your kids a couple of times, how many do you have?
[MD] Two boys.
[DC] And how old are they?
[MD] Yeah they're eleven and nine.
[MD] And they're musically inclined?
[MD] Yeah, they're, you know, they're boys. So you know, it's interesting to see the connection,
like they have a real profound connection to music, and it's way beyond intellectually,
you know, you realize there's certain music that just works with them because it's like
hormonal, you know, it -- the whole thing that...
[DC] The language of the soul.
[MD] How certain music came into play for me at different times because this literally,
you know, inside that internal chemistry, there's certain things like, okay yeah I want
this, I want - you know, the body is like kind of telling you.
[DC] What are you seeing as the next trend in music, if any?
[MD] Gosh, there's so many. I mean it's interesting with actually seeing, I think there's -- I'm
very interested in kind of the I guess the combinations of -- I think of you're seeing
now musicians that have grown up equally on hip hop, electronic music, acoustic base music,
you know, you've I think you're really heading into like now, we have generations of musicians
that -- it's like I grew up on a lot of different eclectic music, but I had to feel like I had
to really go out and reach and search and go find it. And fortunately, I was in New
York City so it all was within reach, now anywhere you are in the world, all those different
kinds of music from before and from now are all within reach.
[DC] But the business has changed.
[MD] Oh. totally different.
[DC] I mean it used to be a few sold a platinum, and it made a fortune for you, right? Now
it's not the music, right?
[MD] I was very fortunate, right? You know, it would be much harder. If I knighted my
life, and to my livelihood I guess, today.
[DC] Yeah, for the livelihood. Even the most famous musicians these days have to be on
the road, and selling other stuff, right?
[MD] Yeah, yeah, you have to shift it, yeah, it's a totally different business...
[DC] Are you doing business of any kind?
[MD] A little bit. I'm not so, you know, I'm really more interested in music. Oh, that's
what I started about before, so I ended up doing this music festival where, because I
was interested in music and art and combining the two, and then I think food was another
part that we also brought into it. I brought in an incredible chef, who is in Los Angeles,
this guys Roy Choi, who started -- he's one of the first one to do sort of taco trucks,
but very interesting food. He has a truck called...
[DC] You're a vegetarian I believe?
[MD] Well I eat some fish, but yeah, I'm mostly have a plant diet, and have been for a long
time.
[DC] How did that happen?
[MD] You know, that came, it's like any shift in consciousness. I was on tour for however
long, and I remember still at one point in the 90s, just seeing, you gradually, seeing
-- I remember actually I was in New Zealand, and we were behind a chicken truck, you know,
a truck that was, had hundreds or maybe thousands of chickens, who were probably going off to
be slaughtered, or...
[DC] Slaughtered.
[MD] Or whatever, and I just thought, I don't wanna be part of this energy cycle, or lack
of it, so I was like thats it, I'm done, you know.
[DC] I see that in a lot of musicians though. There's some common threads, it's very interesting
to me: Addiction, spirituality, yoga, vegetarianism, social causes, philanthropy, some deep bond
connects al these things.
[MD] Yeah, I guess. Let's put some humor in that too. I think that's important to add
to the mix because a lot of the time that's missing, and that's I think sometimes part
the problem.
[DC] I find maybe even the addictive behavior is a search for their transcendence.
[MD] Yeah, no I think, well it's actually complicated because I think part of it is
a search for that transcendence, part of it is just numbing pain, and fear of uncertainty,
and things like that, and that's where I think the different yoga or meditation practices
come into play too, right? Because those are actually sustainable, those become sustainable
means for you becoming comfortable with that, and you being able, and actually do it over
a period of time, you know.
[DC] Who is Mike D? Who are you?
[MD] That's a good -- I don't know, I'm trying to find out.
[DC] Me too. So what do you want now from your life?
[MD] What do I want? You know, really ultimately I think two things, great, I want to have
as much as possible great relationships with everybody. And probably have a a good relationship
with the world that might be too much to ask for.
[DC] What would make you happy everyday? What are moments of joy for you?
[MD] Moments of joy for me, that's a good question. You know there are different -- they
can be, there's the mundane form, but I don't even think it's so, I think it actually goes
beyond mundane, like just walking to school with my kids every morning is honestly very
joyful experience for me, just both in terms of what I experience, but also that I get
to experience with them, and that we have this really a moment where we're all present
for each other, and we're all there, and that just, you know, there's that ten or fifteen
minutes of we just have together that it doesn't belong to anybody else.
[DC] Are you happy?
[MD] Trying.
[DC] But you're not tortured? You're not tortured?
[MD] No I wouldn't say I'm tortured. No I'm curious, I'm not always happy, but I'm working
on it.
[DC] I could talk to you for a long time, but thanks for coming today Mike D. Pleasure
to have him, DJ and -- MC, I should say, and drummer of the Beastie Boys, legendary Rock
N' Roll hall of famer, and pretty decent human being.
[MD] Well, let's not get carried away, but thank you. [DC] Thanks.