Rich and respected. Can this really be the Beastie Boys? wonders Johnny Davis 25/06/98

THE Beastie Boys are explaining the meaning of life. "People aren't aware of the basic rules," begins Adam Yauch, who is also sometimes known as MCA. "Karma. And reincarnation. People think if they become more powerful or more rich, their life will be happier. People put too much value on things." He considers this for a minute. "If you have your white Pumas on and someone spills tomato soup on them and it ruins your day ; well, you've put too much emphasis on things."

Adam Horovitz, on occasion the Kind Adrock, agrees. "Mankind needs a new coach," he says. "A new head coach. What you give is what you get. If you want to be happy with yourself, that is." Michael Diamond, more often Mike D, is nodding. "All we've got left is our effect on the world. And on other people."

The Beastie Boys are back. And they have changed their tune. You may remember them from the mid-Eighties, when their debut frat-rap LP Licensed to Ill about little more than beer, girls and annoying your parents (the hits: No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn and Fight For Your Right (To Party)) became the biggest selling rap record in the world. Or perhaps you remember them for the time shortly after this, when, touring Britain, they were demonised by the tabloids, partly for their obnoxious live show (on-stage attractions: topless women gyrating; a huge hydraulic phallus), though mainly for their loutish outbursts (throwing beer cans at their audience; allegedly berating cripples).

Or perhaps you have heard tales of the time when, in 1989, the trio decamped to LA to record their follow-up to Licensed to Ill - Paul's Boutique - and spent their record company's advance by crashing cars, buying guns and tripping on acid. or just goofing about in Seventies clothes playing ping pong. Today, on the eve of their latest, and finest, LP Hello Nasty, the Beastie Boys have grown up. Sort of.

We are sitting in Diamond's impressive apartment on the 11th floor of a luxury block in downtown New York. His room is decorated with a collection of musical toys and hi-fi separates. DAT players. Tape recorders. Drum machines. Old Seventies valve instruments. On one wall hangs a Day-glo picture of his dog Rufus, on the other an image of the elephant god Ganesh. , currently at home in Diamond's second house, in LA. Nowadays Diamond is as well-known for his extra-curricular Beastie activities as he is for being a Beastie Boy. He is the president of the flourishing, and widely eclectic, Grand Royal record label (whose roster includes Scot-poppers Bis), the founder of the excellent Grand Royal magazine (recent features: the Paintings of Evel Knievel, an attack on the Gap) and the co-originator of the successful X-Large clothing company, a consistently-restocked outlet which is but a few blocks away in New York's artsy SoHo district.

Yauch, meantime, has become a Buddhist, now devotes much of his time to the Free Tibet cause and has recently married. Horovitz, who at 33 is the youngest Beastie Boy, has spent some time acting but now prefers to spend his days locked in the studio perfecting the dense, funky loops and samples that constitute the Beastie Boys' unique sound. "We are not," says Diamond, emphatically, "still drinking beer and wearing Volkswagen medallions."

Indeed not. The Beastie Boys are working hard. Their mornings are taken up with the tiresome job of dealing with stringently-vetted members of the world's press (most hated question: "Where next for the Beastie Boys empire?"), then, after lunch, they climb aboard their skateboards and bikes and make the journey across town to their practice space, where they are rehearsing for a summer of European festival dates, some with their friend and sometime keyboard player, Money Mark. In between, they constantly twitter into mobile phones, making arrangements for the imminent release of Hello Nasty, which also shows (slight) signs of a more mature side to the band.

For one thing, it contains two ballads, showcasing Yauch and Horovitz actually, like, singing for the first time. "I'm happy that we're doing something different," says Horovitz. , between bites of a huge pastrami sandwich. "Some of the stuff we've done before is actually so bad it's good. What we do doesn't have to be successful. But if Hello Nasty sold three million I wouldn't be mad. That would be hot."

He does not have to worry, of course. That the Beastie Boys' success will continue seems assured. They have already achieved the virtually impossible by staying together. Maintaining success for well over a decade is hard enough in pop music; in rap it is unheard of. Moreover, they have overcome their unpromising origins as three white, middle-class, Jewish upstarts - hardly a recipe for success in United States hip hop culture - to become one of the most respected acts in rap's history.

Now, with Beastie Boys cool available off the peg in magazine, clothing and record label form, they have achieved the perfect synthesis of art and life. In the process, they have surrounded themselves with a court of super-chic New York friends: cult video auteur Spike Jonze, director Tamra Davis (Diamond's wife), Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, as well as assorted offspring of the rich and shameless: Sofia Coppola, Sean Lennon and Zoe Cassavetes.

If the band is keen to flaunt its new-found philosophy for caring, sharing and looking out for the oppressed nations of the world, Diamond stresses that this should not be seen as at odds with their talents as corporate players. "We feel very fortunate that what we do is not restricted to the band. But our concerns are probably different from those of most businesses. We're not thinking: 'Oh how can we make the most amount of money at any particular time.' It was only two years ago we made any money from the record label at all. In the Nineties you see all sorts of people that others have called 'slackers' starting their own businesses."

Horovitz waves his hand in the air. He has something to say. "That whole 'slacker generation' thing. All these slackers people talk about are the same kids who've started their own T-shirt companies."

Diamond: "It's just funny when everything we do gets added up and the article comes out and it's like 'Beastie Boys Moguls For The Next Millennium. The guy who signed Oasis is probably a slacker."

Well, maybe. But if the Beastie Boys do not want to be seen as moguls, it does not mean they are not already making plans for the future. Diamond's latest idea, he says, is for a Beastie Boys shopping mall. "Wouldn't it be cool if you had this mall that was like the Charles De Gaulle airport? It would be great if you could have those escalators taking people from one store to another. I just like the idea of seeing all these criss-crossing people."

Then he begins to giggle. And he keeps giggling. "I'll get on to that: the Mall Development Plan."

The Beastie Boys: older, wiser, but, you sense, still not entirely grown up.