ADAM YAUCH: We started working on a script for a while with Spike, and then we just decided that we should be focused on an album for a while.

KURT: But the movie's dead. There'll be no movie.

AD-ROCK: Well, we could do something with it.

MIKE D: Dead's a very final word. It's on hiatus.

YAUCH: It's circling above the airport, running out of gas. (Kurt laughs)

KURT: When did you first start recording this record... this fabulous, brilliant record? We love it, don't we?

MIKE D: Adam actually traced back the lineage of the record.

YAUCH: What was it? October '95.

AD-ROCK: The summer of '72 actually.

KURT: That explains all the different colors.

MIKE D: That was when we did the Isle of White festival... Back after the Isle of Wight festival, we jetted over with ELP, but the guy was rocking his organ so much he actually wouldn't let him on the plane. We made it back over.

KURT: So that's fall, you are saying pretty much, you started recording this right?

AD-ROCK: Give or take, summer '72 to October '95.

KURT: You two guys are singing here. You're singing a lot.

YAUCH: Singing what?

KURT: Was there a band vote in this or did you just step up to the mic and let loose?

YAUCH: We were just messing around...

KURT: There is a woman singing on one of these tracks and we couldn't determine who that was. Was it someone you know?

YAUCH: That's Madonna.

MIKE D: I don't know if you are familiar with, are you familiar with the singer Tiffany?

KURT: She's back? That's excellent. Who is that singing on that track?

AD-ROCK: That's our friend Brooke.

KURT: Thank you, that's all I wanted to know.

MIKE D: Well, there's actually two cause Brooke sings on two songs and Jill from Luscious Jackson and Miho from Cibo Mato sings on this other song called "I don't know."

AD-ROCK: Sammy's dad plays drums on one of the songs.

KURT: A lot of people are going to take a cut of this when it comes out.

MIKE D: Just setting the tone.

KURT: I remember way back in the day, it must have been in 1986 or something, I saw you guys at a Columbia party of some sort and you were pouring beer over people's heads. Remember this period?

MIKE D: Not really.

KURT: Women were dressed in jewels and fur coats and you were pouring beer over their heads. I will never forget this. Do you think things have changed since then?

YAUCH: I don't remember those guys.

MIKE D: We didn't take the camera.

YAUCH: We didn't take the phones or the camera.

MIKE D: I just want to say from that very time that you were speaking of, 1986 era when we were on Def Jam through Columbia or whatever at the time, apparently there happened to be an episode where maybe we were at the offices, at the Columbia Records offices and a phone and a camera seemed to disappear and we.

AD-ROCK: Actually, the camera disappeared supposedly at Columbia but the American Bandstand telephones all disappeared.

YAUCH: Did you ever give that stuff back?

AD-ROCK: Still got it. Still got Dick Clark's phone.

KURT: So the record is done now, how are you going to unleash this upon...

MIKE D: Well, it's almost done.

KURT: What do you mean?

MIKE D: Well, we still have some final...

KURT: It isn't going to be delayed is it?

MIKE D: No, no.

YAUCH: We still got to do mastering and maybe a little more sequencing.

AD-ROCK: Basically done.

MIKE D: A little tweaking, a little fine... sort of getting in there with some fine instrumentation just very subtle.

KURT: Nothing that will hold it up.

YAUCH: No, I don't think so.

MIKE D: Unless we figure out a way to in a holographic form project the image of me spinning on my head throughout part of the album and we don't quite have all the technology all the way there.

YAUCH: That's a great idea though.

KURT: Are you looking forward to getting back into this... making videos, touring? Don't you wish you played more? Don't you feel guilt about not playing more, actually?

MIKE D: Tremendous.

KURT: Why don't you play more?

YAUCH: What do you mean?

AD-ROCK: We do play.

KURT: Well, you think in a few years you drop by and play a show?

AD-ROCK: I mean, yeah, not really. I mean, you would probably get sick of it after a while.

KURT: Well, you could do it twice a year, that wouldn't be so hard.

MIKE D: Well, maybe this year we'll do it twice.

KURT: You're a great band, with a new album, you can play a little more.

MIKE D: Well, we're going to do that. We're going to go out and play. No, actually we were just talking about, Adam and I, a real special moment out there looking at the Boggle game and we were thinking how much fun it's going to be.

AD-ROCK: Internationally, playing Boggle.

MIKE D: Internationally, as this record is actually done, behind us, being finished, and then we will be just traveling the world the three of us playing Boggle.

YAUCH: In other languages.

KURT: So how do you occupy your time?

YAUCH: A lot of times, when I'm focused on the Tibet stuff and Mike is working on the label, this guy (Ad-Rock) is going nuts on the SP1200, and a lot of the beats on this record are all stuff that Adam has made over the last couple of years on the SP12. He's just got boxes and boxes of disks of stuff that he put together.

KURT: Is some of the stuff left over from this record?

AD-ROCK: There is a lot, and a lot, and a lot of stuff left over.

KURT: Finished tracks? Almost finished tracks?

MIKE D: Well, a variety. Some are finished and some, I don't know like we have the boards out there of all the stuff we worked on, it's just like a lot of ideas. Some unfinished, some more finished and some finished.

AD-ROCK: Some un-good.

MIKE D: Yeah, some just not good and should not be heard.

KURT: A lot of the samples on here, there are some amazing blazing, kind of deep sounds on here. Are any of them really unusual, I mean samples from some strange sources that you can tell us about?

YAUCH: There is one point when we were in the submarine crossing the Atlantic. We had a sound studio on the submarine. There was a flock of whales that actually came by. They were huge whales, actually some of the biggest whales in the world and Adam went out with scuba gear with the boom mic and actually caught some of the whales mating and some of the kick drums that you hear are those flock of whales.

KURT: You aren't taking my question seriously. I was genuinely interested. I really wanted to know. I thought these are the greatest sounds I have ever heard.

YAUCH: So what, you don't buy that whales come in flocks? What was the problem here?

MIKE D: Where was the lack of validity?

KURT: What went wrong with the story? I think it was when we were in the submarine, just the start of it.

MIKE D: That part is true.

KURT: When you go on tour, are you gonna start your tour in this country or are you going to go to some foreign country to do it.

MIKE D: Well, what happened is...

YAUCH: We're going to do the Tibetan Freedom concert and then we're going over to do some festivals in Europe and then we're coming back and we're going to tour in the summer in the US, and then I don't know exactly what after that.

MIKE D: We got to figure it out.

KURT: Do you have different stage costumes at the Tibetan Freedom show this year? I think last year was boiler suits, wasn't it?

YAUCH: Those were the zoo keeper suits, weren't they?

MIKE D: The red, yeah.

YAUCH: They were the submarine suits.

KURT: I mean this time you have an album coming out, you probably want to do a more flashy kind of show business presentation.

MIKE D: I will say this, I don't want to give away particulars about the outfits or specific routines, but for those who are watching, if you're familiar with "Fame" or "Flashdance", these kind of things will be worked in -- just a lot of exuberant dance numbers.

KURT: Do you guys like to go back to the country occasionally and kind of get away from it all?

MIKE D: Not really. We mostly like to hang out here.

KURT: It seems to me that the hardest part of this, is you have what, 28 tracks here in this record? Something like 27, 28 tracks and you are sequencing them now? That must be really hard isn't it? Like to find out which'll go first and third. How hard is it?

YAUCH: When you are playing around with the sequencer you try things in different spots and see what they sound like, because it does change the way a song sounds where you play it and it sounds completely different.

KURT: Doesn't that drive you nuts after a while?

YAUCH: No.

AD-ROCK: It could've been a lot worse.

YAUCH: It definitely could have been worse. Yeah, we tried one sequence and you go that sounds really good after that, but then the sound is wrong coming in and we just move the stuff around until it feels right.

KURT: Do you all have to agree or does somebody have the final word?

YAUCH: We all kind of haggle.

MIKE D: Haggle, arm wrestle.

KURT: Do you have fights? Does it ever come to blows?

YAUCH: The other day, Mike dive-tackled Adam across the room.

MIKE D: It was a friendly dive-tackle.

AD-ROCK: (To Yauch) To hold me back. (Beasties laugh)

KURT: What do you make of the "new" Disney slum Times Square?

MIKE D: I miss the "nude" Times Square. I mean, now it's the "New" Times Square -- what about the "Nude"?

KURT: I miss the theaters that show movies all around the clock myself. Do you think this is a good thing for New York? The mayor keeps saying it's a good thing.

YAUCH: I don't know. Every city needs to have a red light district. I thought it was kind of cool to have a "police area." But what are you gonna do?

MIKE D: It is odd being someone who grew up my entire life here. I remember being a kid, and one time, I think I was finally old enough to go to Herman's World of Sporting Goods on 42nd Street. I don't know, is Herman's still around anymore?

KURT: It's a Disney store now.

MIKE D: Oh, it's gone. All right, so anyway, I was finally old enough to go there to get a baseball mitt or whatever, and my mom would give me all these cautionary tales. Like, "Listen, you're going to be on 42nd Street. People might come up and try to talk to you. Don't talk to them. Go get your baseball mitt, get back on the subway, and come back home." And I was like, "OK, OK." And now, that's no longer. That whole, what 42nd Street was.

YAUCH: You could get robbed in a quick second back then.

KURT: Now, where do you suppose all that stuff has gone? It's not on 42nd Street, but it's happening somewhere else, obviously.

MIKE D: All lot of it's on 6th Avenue down by Bleeker Street.

YAUCH: That's true.

MIKE D: I'm telling you.

YAUCH: You walk down right through the Village by Bleeker Street.

MIKE D: Somehow, that's Giuliani's new zone. He's not having press conferences or anything about it. But somehow, he must have a whole separate set of press conferences, where he tells everyone who used to work the scene on 42nd Street and Port Authority, "Listen you guys, OK?"

AD-ROCK: "Your new area is..."

MIKE D: "Between the West 4th Street Station and Bagels On The Square, that's where you can do your thing. You got four blocks. Make it happen."

KURT LODER: Were any of you every Deadheads, by any chance?

AD-ROCK: I went to see them when my mom took me and my friend when I was a little kid, twice.

KURT: Did you like it?

AD-ROCK: We both fell asleep.

KURT: Oh. Adam?

ADAM YAUCH: I saw 'em at the Garden when I was like 13.

AD-ROCK: Mike had a bad experience seeing them at Nassau County.

YAUCH: I had a borderline bad experience. There was definitely some weird hippie standing near me with a big cape on, just like (he holds both his arms up in fists. They all laugh) -- but not compared to the bad experience that Mike had that time.

MIKE D: I was in New Jersey at the Meadowlands, I don't know if you're familiar with the product.

KURT: Wow, it's starting off bad already.

MIKE D: It was at the Meadowlands, that big giant stadium. And I knew it was getting bad when...

YAUCH: He was tripping on mushrooms. Let's just fill in the story here.

MIKE D: And I was with this guy who was our manager at the time, this guy Leroy...

YAUCH: Who was also tripping on mushrooms.

MIKE D: Who was a big guy.

AD-ROCK: He was too big to be doing that sort of thing.

MIKE D: I knew things were going south when there was this guy in front of us, yelling and dancing and going off...

YAUCH: He was tripping on a lot of mushrooms.

MIKE D: This guy definitely hadn't bathed in a while. I mean, that's his prerogative and everything, but that was definitely giving off an odor as well as an aura.

YAUCH: He just kept screaming, "Jerry!"

MIKE D: Yeah. "JERRRYYYY!!!" He kept banging into me and banging into Leroy just by accident because he was getting into the show, and Leroy finally just pushed him back and yelled at him, "Stop being a hippie in my face!"

YAUCH: But you're even understating how bad... this guy had a crazy rash on his face, and he had some old, horrible blanket on him, and the dude would just look so scary, and he's like, "Yyooorrraaahhhhh!" going out of his mind, screaming like one inch away from Leroy's ear, over and over again. Then that got in a fight and it was great.

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: As far as the live show, the last time you guys went out, you had the rap set and the live set. Are you going to do that again this time around?

MIKE D: There's going to be some hip-hop sets, some live sets, but like I said before, it's going to be more incorporate more within a Mummenchance, "Flashdance" and "Fame" kind of thing just seamlessly holding it all together.

KURT: The Cirque du Soleil flourishes.

MIKE D: Yeah, we're just going to like exuberantly jump into dance, like Riverdance Posse, stuff like that. Kind of like at the NBA All-Star Game they have all the different Broadway shows... not unlike that kind of spectacular.

KURT: Is one of you in charge of coming up with the album title?

AD-ROCK: It would be nice if one of us was. Then we'd have one.

MIKE D: Yeah, since we're collectively in charge, it's a painstakingly slow, careful process. But I think maybe a simple, sexy title. Elegant, yet understated. With a little bit of chutzpah in it.

KURT: And street cred.

MIKE D: Something like, "Keepin' It Real For The New Millennium."

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: With all the bands that you work with, have you ever thought about taking some of these acts on the road?

YAUCH: What do you mean?

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: You know, go on the road, like a John Popper...

MIKE D: Do you mean like a Mummanchance extravaganza?

KURT: Beastiepalooza.

YAUCH: You mean making our own festival? Yeah, we talked about it a little bit. But our manager was definitely not psyched about it. It's probably a giant pain in the neck. So he was like "Ar, ar, ar."

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: Ad-Rock, some of the beats feel a little bit out in front of the curve of what we've been hearing as far as the DJs from France and some of the European stuff. Have you been paying attention to that stuff, has that been influencing you? Or you just kind of went in and did it?

AD-ROCK: I guess it's influencing. I mean, whatever. You could hear things... It's not necessarily the new music that influences, it's the old music that you sample from that gets you... off. (Grins)

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: So the old school sound on this record wasn't a reaction to anything, it was just what you guys were doing. Is that...

AD-ROCK: That's right, basically.

KURT: You're still buddies that hang around together?

MIKE D: It's kind of weird. Most bands that we've known or are friends with and who have been together for a long time, it seems like they get to a place where they work together well but they don't necessarily hang out. But then, we're weird.

KURT: What kind of input did you have with the Sean Lennon record?

MIKE D: I really went into the studio and basically did it. But there were a lot of times where he'd play stuff for Yauch or myself, and say, "What do you think?" And different sequences of the record kind of evolved that way over a period of time. Sean was really amazing because he had the vision of what he wanted to do with Yuka, but at the same time, he was really interested in what we thought as his friends and as a band he's into.

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: What was the Lollapalooza experience like for you? Was it enjoyable, or was it a big, messy headache?

YAUCH: I think it was really cool. We were able to bring the monks out there and have the booth, like, giving out the information about Tibet, and stuff. I thought that stuff was really cool. For the monks to get exposed to that many people and travel around was really cool. We kinda learned a lot from doing Lollapalooza and how to have the educational stuff come across at the Tibetan Freedom concert.

KURT: How hard is it to schedule a concert like this in Washington, D.C. Was there any opposition?

YAUCH: We haven't had that much trouble putting this concert together out of the other Tibetan Freedom concerts. The other two were much more of an uphill struggle. But I think people are starting to see that the people who are organizing it have their hearts in the right place. The people at Milarepa really care about what they're doing over there. And now at this point we're getting artists calling is and saying they'd like to be a part of it. And I know just being an artist that when someone calls up and asks you to do a benefit concert you're always kinda like "Whoa." You don't know where the money's gonna wind up goin' or how the things gonna be put together. But I think at this point it's been easy to put the things together.

MIKE D: It's actually really neat, because at this point artists are calling up. And now there is this sort of awareness of both the cause and the event as well. And it's interesting 'cause its grown out of, like when we were at Lolapalooza and the monks were there then all of a sudden there were all these bands at Lollapalooza that were either eating everyday with the monks or seeing the monks play basketball or y'know just being around that and all of a sudden becoming aware of the monk's culture and situation. That was a really amazing thing to see. It sort of progressed from there.

KURT: The monks play basketball?

AD-ROCK: They play video games. They drink beer.

YAUCH: I think that in their normal environment at home in their monestary they have a much stricter way of rules that they have to abide by, but out of, I guess, its like one month a year, they have time thats much looser and they can kinda go out on picnics and play games and play soccer, and so they decided as long as they were going to be on Lollapalooza for however long it was then they were going to treat that like it was picnic time.

AD-ROCK: It wasn't like they were trying to dunk on each other.

YAUCH: Working on their outside shots.

MIKE D: You shoulda seen the monks dunk on Billy Corgan! Lemme tell you, woo! MTV NEWS PRODUCER: Adam, I just want to get back to one thing, which is the construction of the beat. How you go about that. I'm still a little unclear, if you could, in your own voice, kind of explain when calendar-wise you kinda went in and started putting stuff together.

AD-ROCK: That's what I do. That's my hobby and my profession. So, that's what I do. You just take... I have this plastic mechanical box called a sampler that's a SP1200 thing, and the record player's there. And then you put the record on and it records into the thing and then you can chop off a little bit in front and a little bit in the end. So you get exactly the part that you want. Then you take your little kick drum part or snare drum part. or base line or whatever.

KURT: Do you ever find yourself totally obsessed with this, and you have to step back from it for a minute?

AD-ROCK: Completely obsessed. It's like playing Tetris or video games. It goes over and over in your head while you sleep and stuff. But I like it.

MIKE D: I know its happened to Adam. Its definately happened to me, is when you spend like a bunch of hours, like sample stuff from a turntable or DAT and chopped up your beat and got everything going, and somehow you actually manage to erase everything that you've been doing for hours. Like you save it to a disk and the disk is bad, or like, someone comes on and your thing gets turned off and you haven't saved anything and that's always a very special time for us.

KURT: Do you ever get to the point where you've got a beat set up and its just not working and you can't figure out why?

AD-ROCK: Oh yea. No. Yea. Yea, yea. I guess so.

MD: I guess more or less sometimes you'll hear something...

KURT: It's the mystery of the beat, y'know.

AD-ROCK: It's a strange thing, like anything.

MIKE D: But sometimes you'll hear something and it'll sound really good, whether its a DAT of us playing or something you want to chop up. And it sounds good, and you start doing it and, its like, hey that just doesn't quite work that well, and that does it and you move on to the next thing, with dignity.

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: Do you guys have plans for down the road? You said you had a bunch of extra tracks. Is there gonna be an album and then more?

YAUCH: There'll be little things on the 12 inches.

MIKE D: We definitely got enough B sides, that's for sure. I don't know yea, we gotta figure out how we're getting this album out and what's going to be on it. And then we'll figure out how we're going to get out the remainder of the actually more finished and actually listenable or semi-listenable part of the music.

KURT: But its definitely coming out?

AD-ROCK: On time.

MIKE D: On time. No delays guaranteed.

KURT: All right.

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: Actually, one thing about the sound, when you were in here recording live, were you then also processing that a lot, through electronic means, computer means. If you are playing a song that is more of a live style than a rap style, are you also going in and sampling yourselves playing?

AD-ROCK: Yea, a lot of times we do that too, yea.

MIKE D: Some of the stuff you hear on the album is really just us playing in this room or stuff we did earlier. And others playing live, and then other stuff is where we chopped up like little bits of stuff where we all played together where maybe we were playing on the tape for like 15-20 minutes and we just took like 3 seconds. That could be like primo three seconds. The right three seconds.

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: Do you have any video plans for the first single? Have you thought about the concept or anything like that?

AY: Top secret.

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: Anyone you might be working with?

KURT: Spike Jonez, something like that?

MIKE D: No, top secret, top secret.

KURT LODER: You're right. There's not much to see in here.

ADAM YAUCH: (Walking into a chairless room) This is where we have all of our secret meetings whenever we need to decide anything top secret. Here we seal the double top secret doors.

KURT: Were there chairs here once?

MIKE D: No. Mostly on the floor to have a better connection to the earth.

YAUCH: People could hide bugs in the chairs.

MIKE D: We make sure that none of the mics are plugged in.

KURT: Who are you hiding from? Who are you afraid of?

AD-ROCK: Let's not talk about it, OK?

MIKE D: There's a lot of people sending out their spies. Actually, that there is the MPC-60, my sampler of choice, not the SP-1200 -- that's Adam's.

KURT: Is the SP-1200 another kind?

MD: No. It's another company.

KURT: Oh, it's just another brand? Oh, I don't care about that (flicks his hand). Well, is there more to see? (Move to another room with all the instruments) We know all this stuff, the drums and bass.

MIKE D: People are probably well-versed in drums.

KURT: Show us the cool stuff.

MTV NEWS PRODUCER: Can we look at the lyric sheets? (pointing)

YAUCH: No!! No, no. (Yanks it from its music stand, folds it and stuffs it into his pocket).

MIKE D: Hide the lyric sheets! This is the vocal area, though.

KURT: And it's professionally printed, too!

MIKE D: Yeah, we got into typing our lyrics for this album. Actually, I really take a liberty with that. Adam did a lot of typing on this album (motions to Ad-Rock and he bows to the camera). And then Yauch in the very last stages.

KURT: So this is where it all happens, as they say?

MIKE D: This is where the magic goes down, baby.

KURT: The lyrics to "Body Movement" are here. You'd better grab it before Adam does (points to a lyric sheet on the stand. Mike D snatches it away). What is this device here?

MIKE D: That's so you can say your own mix. So that way, Adam wants to hear all bass, but I want to hear all guitar.

KURT: A different strokes kind of thing.

MIKE D: Different strokes so we can have our different strokes as different folks and all peacably exist.

KURT: That's important.

MIKE D: Yeah, it's important 'cause we can see Mario (their producer) through there, and then we can see each other.

KURT: Now why did you record in this studio instead of in the giant Sony studio where you could be spending $100,000 a day?

MIKE D: 'Cause this is a lot closer to where we live.

KURT: I think I know what you're saying.

MIKE D: Location, location, location.

KURT: Location. OK. Where should we go next?

YAUCH: Should we go through this secret room? (Points to a door) This is like in the game "Clue" when you go down under the little tunnel that brings you under the thing...

KURT: Uh, OK.

MIKE D: This is the route the gnomes take, actually. This gets skinny in here.

AD-ROCK: Watch out for these wires.

MD: Yeah, don't trip now. (They end up in a control room)

KURT: Do you play with the faders -- do you actually manipulate the board at all?

YAUCH: If any one of us even reaches for the faders, Mario has a fly swatter. It's right over there, in front of that computer. And he's like whukiiuw! (Makes a swatting motion)

MIKE D: Aw, Yauch. Actually, Yauch is known as "The Leveler." "L."

YAUCH: I still have scars on my fingers from when Mario hit me with the riding crop.

MIKE D: But there is a point in the mix when the vocal levels between the three of us have to be closely and scientifically monitored. And that job falls upon Adam's shoulders.

KURT: Was there a lot of vintage equipment used on this record? I saw some old synthesizers lying around here.

MIKE D: Yeah, we mixed the best of the old with the finest of the new, if you will.

KURT: Now, if you're thirsty, where do you go?

ALL: To the fridge! Let's go. (They enter a lounge, where some people are lounging).

YAUCH: See, there's our basketball technician (points to a man holding a basketball).

MIKE D: He's our former dessert consultant, since retired.

YAUCH: And this is super producer Mario C.

KURT: How are they to work with?

MARIO: Wonderful. Great bunch of guys.

ALL: Tell the truth, Mario.

MARIO: Well, it's an experience. It's always an experience.

KURT: I'm sure it was. Of course it was an experience. So here's the fridge... so you're living on... what's that wrapped up in paper there?

AD-ROCK: Nothing.

YAUCH: That's half of Mike's sandwich.

MIKE D: That's half of my tofu sandwich.

KURT: Tofu?! A tofu sandwich -- that's so sad(They close the fridge).