LISBON, Portugal -- After 17 years together, The Beastie Boys have mastered at least one thing: The art of goofing off.
And they're serious about it.
The New York trio held court in Portugal recently to chat about their new album, Hello Nasty, in stores Tuesday.
Journalists may have been there to do interviews, but The Beastie Boys seemed hell-bent on having a holiday. During a group interview, the three Beasties trade one-liners and offer non sequiturs. They also deftly avoid straight answers.
Out of the scattered conversation emerges a clear picture of Hello Nasty, a mixed-bag of hip-hop and psychedelic studio experiments.
"We chose Lisbon because we needed a long port," says Beastie Michael 'Mike D' Diamond as he and bandmates Adam 'Adrock' Horovitz and Adam 'MCA' Yauch settle into a stately suite in the Ritz Hotel. "And Lisbon was purported to us to be the longest port." "We came here for the port," offers Adrock. "And it's good for us because we needed to bring a lot of vessels into the port," finishes Mike D. "One to store the robot, another for access to the space station, and another for our clothes."
There is more at the heart of The Beastie's latest venture than just the group's weird sense of humor. A quick glance at their history: Mike D, Adrock, and MCA were part of a snot-nosed teenage punk band in the mid-'80s. They transformed into a snot-nosed rap outfit and soon after hit the pop charts with their multi-platinum-selling album Licensed To Ill. Hip-hop experts called them a parody. The Beastie's have since been on a mission to be taken seriously. They've taken lots of time between records -- 1989's excellent but overlooked Paul's Boutique, the 1992 "comeback" Check Your Head and 1994's hit Ill Communication -- spending years woodshedding in the studio. They also started concentrating on their Grand Royal record label, home to acts like Lucious Jackson, Sean Lennon and Ben Lee. MCA found time to set up the Tibetan Freedom Fun and annual concert, which took place in Washington D.C. last month. The Beasties have kept a low profile since Ill Communication. Most in the record industry are waiting to see how Hello Nasty will do when it drops this week.
"We're not really concerned about that," says Adrock.
"What we're interested in is always changing," Mike D adds. "It's not that we feel we have to change because other things are changing, it's just more that we're interested in growing as a band."
Says MCA: "I think that's a real dangerous route for a musician, to try to be accepted or follow the trends. It's like putting the cart before the horse. You can't chase where styles are going, you just gotta make whatever music inspires you or whatever you feel comfortable doing and then see if people like it. You gotta wing it. You can't spend a lot of energy worrying about ..."
"What's hittin' or not hittin'," finishes Adrock.
Hello Nasty compiles outtakes from an on-again, off-again studio odyssey that began three years ago when the Beasties deserted L.A., where they'd moved 10 years ago from their native Manhattan. Appropriately, it's all over the stylistic map. Gritty, old-school hip-hop beats -- most of which were reportedly generated by Adrock -- bump up against genre-bending Latin-funk, drum 'n' bass, a guest spot by Jamaican dub reggae guru Lee "Scratch" Perry, and even a ballad which MCA croons. If the latter doesn't surprise fans enough, The Beasties also left out the usual clutch of punk tunes that have marked their past records.
"It's not like we went through our punk phase and moved on," explains Adrock. "We're still into all that. But we've done it already an it didn't need to be on this one.
"We defintely broke out of the pattern. Yauch played guitar on a couple of songs, I played piano and vibes, just different things that we're not supposed to be doing."
"Things we definitely don't know how to do," adds Mike D. "But we did them anyway."
To detail the "thousands of hours" his band spent recording, Adrock draws a bar graph in the air. "That includes the musical that we did," he says, referring to an as-yet unmentioned project, "and the country record that we did."
That's right. Adrock did say country record. The Beasties reportedly finished a country album last winter.
Shifting back into prankster mode, Mike D says his band wants to add sleighbells to the record before they release it.
"That was actually under Garth Brooks' advisement," he deadpans. "We had a top-secret meeting underneath the stage when he played in Central Park.
"So we had a meeting with him under the stage. Billy Joel, he was a little late and missed it. We compared notes and ..."
Adrock interjects: "And we're hooking up beats for Garth Brooks."
The Beastie Boys bring the party to Molson Park Aug. 15, along with A Tribe Called Quest and Money Mark.
THE BEASTIE BOYS FILE
Mike D on records: "I don't know if the spirit's ever changed that much. But each album definitely represents its particular time."
Adrock on band harmony: "It's all good. That's why it takes us so long to make records. We're so polite to one another. We're so caring for each others' feelings."
MCA on interviews: "We record our own interviews, like Jerry Lewis. So, if anyone misquotes us, we got it covered."