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Mike D Quotes

Powerful Mike D for Daily Growth

When you start rhyming, it's hard to find things that rhyme with Yauch, Horovitz and Diamond.

- Mike D

Start, Diamond, Find, Rhyming

We have rocked the ozone radically, man. They could probably fix the ozone if everybody stopped what they were doing and they put some cement up there.

- Mike D

Some, Everybody, Stopped, Ozone

Food was always a focus for us, lyrically.

- Mike D

Food, Focus, Always, Lyrically

When I was growing up in New York, we were the anomaly. Our family stayed, but back then families didn't stay. Once you had a second kid, you immediately left, so the kids could run around outside.

- Mike D

Kid, Back, Had, Anomaly

When you get to a point where you're not beholden to a record company, then it's up to you to say, 'OK, enough knob-turning. We're done.'

- Mike D

Enough, Say, Then, Beholden

I wanted to create this dialogue between music and visual art and vice versa. No matter what part of the spectrum they fill, whether it's visual, music, or whatever, artists are interested in other art forms. Your brain is already kind of firing in that way.

- Mike D

Other, Part, Your, Art Forms

Hopefully everybody in the audience thinks, 'That's cool. I could do that.' I don't like the thought that they say, 'I saw the Beastie Boys last night, and they're mega-stars.' I'm a lot happier when the kids who come backstage or to the hotel try to give us tapes of what they've done instead of just getting an autograph.

- Mike D

Thought, Everybody, Tapes, Autograph

Wine is similar to music in that it's a purely experiential realm, and it's a purely subjective practice. That's sort of the funny thing about wine criticism or, for that matter, music criticism. At times, those are useful guides, but ultimately it's all about how you react to that music or wine.

- Mike D

Practice, About, Purely, Guides

We make all the decisions on our records... We have complete veto power.

- Mike D

Power, Records, Complete, Decisions

I don't know - the idea of a specific wine paired with a specific piece of music seems a little far-fetched to me. But maybe I just need to be opened to it.

- Mike D

Need, Idea, Maybe, Far-Fetched

For a dude, I think I do cook. I'm a stay-at-home parent a lot of the time.

- Mike D

Parent, Think, Lot, Dude

I was showing up at the studio all the time with no bag, being like, 'I don't want to have a backpack. I've had backpacks my whole life, and I'm a grown man now. I should have something better.'

- Mike D

Bag, Studio, Had, Showing Up

To me, the whole thing with the roots of rap music was when the DJ had to supply all the music for the group with two turntables. And the whole criteria of what that DJ would use had nothing to do with what type of band made a record.

- Mike D

DJ, Rap, Criteria, Group

The bottom line with a lot of bands that funk is being applied to is that they don't really listen to funk and aren't versed in funk. Like, you know, Gordon Lightfoot.

- Mike D

Like, Bottom, Applied, Gordon

That's the thing with all of us music geeks - music is the soundtrack to the things that happen in our lives, and there's music that's unique to that movie.

- Mike D

Happen, Soundtrack, Lives, Geeks

Having to wake up at seven and go take the subway every morning, having to get over there with all these commuters and see every possible face of humanity and realizing that you're just the same as these other people is actually an amazingly positive thing.

- Mike D

Wake Up, Seven, Other, Positive Thing

I don't think about Yauch in the form of his death. I think about him in the form of his life. He was like my closest older brother. There's just so much that we lived through together.

- Mike D

Death, Through, I Think, Closest

Obviously, there are moments that you look back at and cringe - things in the past involving violence or disrespect to women or disrespect to other people that are so far away from what I want to put out there now. But it's actually a privilege to be able to change and be making records that reflect that change.

- Mike D

Other, Away, Records, Cringe

At the time, I was living pretty close to Ground Zero. I had to grab some necessary equipment, put it in my backpack, and flee the immediate proximity on my bike.

- Mike D

Living, Some, Pretty, Backpack

Dub has been a big influence in terms of production. It's inspired so many people and so much music - in terms of music where mixing desk was the instrument. Central to that is the echo chamber, and I think there's a little bit of a romantic thing there.

- Mike D

Big, Been, I Think, Big Influence

We're banned from a whole lot of hotels, and we're running out of hotels we can stay in.

- Mike D

Running, Hotels, Lot, Banned

Each time you present a tour, you're faced with these questions of, 'How do you want to present visual information? How do you want to take the music that we're making on stage and visualize that?'

- Mike D

Questions, Want, Making, Faced

On 'Check Your Head' and 'Ill Communication,' most of the lyrics are much more, 'OK, you take that, and I'll say that' - they're split up.

- Mike D

Say, More, Ill, OK

For me, growing up in New York, it started with Elvis Costello and the Clash and then got into louder things like Bad Brains and Stimulators, because those were, like, the local bands. Then I started getting into bands from England like the Slits. I remember seeing Gang of Four at Irving Plaza; that was a really big show for me.

- Mike D

Big, I Remember, Costello, Plaza

Leaving Def Jam was kind of a blessing in disguise because we can make whatever record we want.

- Mike D

Kind, Jam, Record, Blessing

I do really enjoy Jay McInerney's wine writing. He's a good writer. He brings his fiction-writing skillset. He's not afraid to put wine in kind of a racy context and speak very candidly about it.

- Mike D

Very, Good Writer, Jay, Wine

Wine needs to have a context in a social gathering to fulfill its historical place in this world.

- Mike D

World, Needs, Fulfill, Wine

I kind of idolized older punk-rock and hip-hop bands, and I was, like, 15 when I started the Beastie Boys. And what business did we having doing that at that age?

- Mike D

Business, Doing, Having, Idolized

With '5 Boroughs,' we were each working on beats, sitting in front of our laptops and samplers.

- Mike D

Working, Were, Beats, Sitting

We're downtown New Yorkers and had very close proximity to the events of September 11th. Like everybody on the island of Manhattan, we were impacted by it in so many ways in terms of what we saw, what we felt, what our daily experience became in the wake of it.

- Mike D

Everybody, Very, Became, Proximity

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