Mix Master Mike shot the intro scene to the Beastie Boys’s “Three MCs and One DJ” video 10 instances over the course of eight hours in 1998. He would start by strolling from a espresso store in New York Metropolis to the Beastie Boys’s “secret” rehearsal house—which he says was “mainly a dungeon”—carrying a Ghostbusters proton pack he’d picked up from a Hollywood prop store and a NASA spacesuit. MCA (Adam Yauch), Mike D (Michael Diamond), and Advert-Rock (Adam Horowitz) didn’t count on that, however this was Combine Grasp Mike’s first video with the Beasties and he wished to make an impression.
“They’d no fucking concept I used to be coming in with that,” Combine Grasp Mike tells Excessive Instances.“To see their faces after I walked in with that jetpack for the primary time, they had been like, ‘Yeah, he’s superior.’ I wanted one thing that was gonna stick in everybody’s minds.”
It took Combine Grasp Mike, whose actual identify is Michael Schwartz, virtually two minutes to stroll from the espresso store and down the six flights of stairs to the room the place Beasties had been patiently ready for him to place the needle on the document. Mike later came upon they ended up utilizing the primary take, which makes him surprise if the 9 additional takes was their approach of hazing him. In spite of everything, these are the identical guys who toured with a large inflatable penis through the Licensed To In poor health period and basically made debauchery right into a full-time (and really profitable) job. However Mike didn’t care—he was simply joyful to be alongside for the trip.
Combine Grasp Mike, a founding member of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz turntablist crew and DMC World DJ Champion, was crab scratching his approach into turning into the fourth Beastie. When he was requested to contribute to 1998’s Hi there Nasty, the trio’s fourth studio album, he seized the chance to actually present them what he may do. It will show to be one the Beasties’ greatest albums, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with greater than 681,000 copies bought in its opening week. It was virtually just like the Beastie Boys had been getting a second probability.
Following the juggernaut that was Licensed To In poor health, the Beastie Boys subsequent two albums—Paul’s Boutique (1989) and Verify Your Head (1992)—didn’t fairly have the identical affect as their predecessor. Actually, Paul’s Boutique was thought-about a “flop” upon its arrival. However by the mid-’90s, it appeared they began to hit their stride once more. In poor health Communication, launched in 1994, landed at No. 1 and the Beasties had been again on the proverbial prime. Hi there Nasty took it to an astronomical degree, however Mike by no means anticipated that form of success.
“I didn’t actually take into consideration none of that,” he remembers. “Once I was within the studio with them, I used to be simply liking what we had been making. I used to be liking each track that we made and I used to be identical to, ‘Man, that is superior. I’m in a fucking dream proper now.’ I simply didn’t comprehend it was gonna include all this additional shit till we till we did the primary present and I used to be like, ‘Oh fuck. This album is large.’”
Mike was additionally busy selling his personal solo document, Anti-Theft System, and he admits it was “lots to absorb.”
Hi there Nasty turned 25 on July 14, so Mike has been reflecting on the making of the album extra so than traditional—regardless of having the platinum plaques in his home as fixed reminders. Mike, a San Francisco native, holed up in New York for a month whereas they had been recording it—and hashish might or might not have been consumed alongside the way in which (wink).
“There might need been,” Mike says. “There have been instances once we would exit on the balcony, and I imply, a few of it was closely weed influenced, but it surely was simply extra inner pleasure on my finish that we had been collectively. However yeah, there have been numerous joints, numerous Zig-Zags [laughs]. I don’t know, however they in all probability smoked after they wrote ‘Three MCs.’ I keep in mind being within the studio with Mario C [producer] once we did all of the monitoring for ‘Three MCs,’ and the blokes disappeared. They mentioned, ‘OK, we’re gonna go drive round and write lyrics.’ They in all probability did smoke. Once they got here again, they had been [rapping], ‘I’ve acquired the D double O, D double O model.’”
On the time, Combine Grasp Mike wasn’t precisely a member of the Beastie Boys—at the very least not but. DJ Hurricane, who started DJing for the group in 1986, was nonetheless thought-about a part of the crew and closely concerned within the creation of each Verify Your Head and In poor health Communication. At one level, they needed to have a severe dialog with each DJs.
“It’s form of like a scenario the place after the Hi there Nasty recording session, the blokes introduced me into one of many sound rooms,” he recollects. “All of us sat on the ground and it was me, Adam, Adam H., and Mike. They had been so pleased with how the method took place they usually requested me to turn into their DJ in that second.”
However then Mike’s ideas turned to DJ Hurricane—what would they inform him?
“I used to be identical to, ‘Oh shit,’” he continues. “Being the empath I’m, I used to be like, ‘What about Cane?’ And so they’re like, ‘Don’t fear. We’ll inform Cane. I’m like, ‘OK cool.’ It was a scenario the place I mentioned I used to be gonna take them to the following degree in relation to this division [DJing]. A few weeks after that session, they referred to as Cane and let him know. I’m positive he was fairly heartbroken, however they instructed me Cane was extra into rapping and was engaged on a solo album, so he’d be OK.”
Combine Grasp Mike wound up contributing to 2004’s To The 5 Boroughs, 2007’s The Combine-Up and 2011’s Sizzling Sauce Committee Half Two. Between The Combine-Up and Sizzling Sauce Committee Half Two, MCA was recognized with most cancers. In 2012, Beastie Boys had been inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, however MCA was too sick to attend.
“We actually didn’t care, like none of us actually cared about it,” he says. “We’re simply going with it. Truly, the boys had been gangster about that scenario. They had been requested to be a part of the Rock Corridor two, three years prior, they usually denied it. I believed, ‘Wow, you guys are in all probability the one dudes which have denied the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame honor. It was gangster.”
MCA died a short while afterward Could 4, 2012, leaving the Beastie Boys in shambles—not simply because the Beastie Boys would now stop to exist as a hip-hop group however as a result of they misplaced their finest good friend. During the last 11 years, Mike D and Advert-Rock haven’t made any extra albums because the Beastie Boys, however they did launch the Beastie Boys E book in 2018 and the accompanying documentary, Beastie Boys Story, in 2020. Mike, within the meantime, has finished large stadium excursions with Metallica and Godsmack, launched a slew of tasks—each solo and collaborative—and is at present engaged on a documentary about his journey.
“I’m simply working,” he says. “I’m engaged on scoring my documentary and getting and compiling all this footage. I’m getting my story collectively and doing an audiobook as nicely. I made 70 tracks through the pandemic, so I’m sitting on three or 4 albums proper now. I’m simply ready for the precise time to launch them. However it’s loopy as a result of my story simply retains going. I’m not finished right here.”
This story was initially Up to date within the October 2023 difficulty of Excessive Instances Journal.