A new Beastie Boys memoir, written by surviving members Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Mike “Mike D” Diamond, is due out October 30th.
Spanning 600-pages, the book covers the band’s entire career, including first-person recounts of their lives, old photos, cartoons, recipes and testimonials from friends like Amy Poehler, Colson Whitehead and Luc Sante.
Excerpts from the new Beastie Boys memoir reveal shameful stories from the band’s early years.
It also doesn’t shy away from the regrettable moments of their early career, some of which have been revealed ahead of book’s release. These include why fired their first drummer, the gross working title for License to Ill, and how they are still paying to store a giant penis that was once a prop from their live show.
The band have repeatedly apologised for what they represented in their early days. In the book, Horovitz writes about how they originally set out to mock what they despised: “sloppy drunk dudes trying to creep on young women was repugnant to punks [like us].”
“Unfortunately, when you’re a straight guy in your late teens/early twenties, you can easily fall into the stereotype’s own trappings,” he continues. “[We] became what we hated.”
Here are the excerpts from the book via The New York Post.
They fired their first drummer because she was a woman
From 1981 to 1984, Kate Schellenbach played drums for the Beastie Boys as they transitioned from punk to hip-hop. “We kicked Kate out of the band because she didn’t fit into our new tough-rapper-guy identity,” Horovitz writes in the book. “Maybe Kate would’ve eventually quit the band because we were starting to act like a bunch of f–kin’ creeps, but it was just s–ty the way it happened. And I am so sorry about it.”
In the book, Schellenbach says producer Rick Rubin gave the band an ultimatum of working with him or her. “Part of me was jealous of their success,” she says, although she knew she wouldn’t have been happy if she had stayed. “What would I be doing when they were rapping about f–king a girl with a Wiffle-ball bat?”
They almost called Licensed to Ill something gross
“The original title to this record was ‘Don’t Be a F–got.’ It was Rick Rubin’s idea,” Horovitz reveals in the book. “It was meant to be a joke about jock frat dudes but homophobia’s not funny and we are truly sorry.”
They’re still spending money on storing a huge hydraulic penis that was a part of their stage show
“Seemed funny at the time … [But] you gotta really think before you say or do some dumb s–t,” Horovitz writes in the book. “Think about the people you care about most. Will they be embarrassed for you, and of you? Yes . . . And you’ll end up paying thirty years’ worth of storage locker fees in New Jersey for a 5-foot-by-5-foot dick in a box.”
[via The New York Post/CoS]
