The route from firing Schellenbach and recording Girls to Sure Shot is the through line in Beastie Boys Story — edited by Jonze from a stage show by Ad-Rock and Mike D to promote their eponymous 2018 book. "It wasn't supposed to be a documentary," Diamond explains, as Jonze jumps into the chat. "It was supposed to be a document of our show, then Spike decided otherwise." "Yeah, sorry," Jonze says. "What a dick."
The story follows the three scruffy Brooklyn white boys skiving from school to hang out on New York's club scene, forming a band, finding hip-hop, supporting Madonna on tour, worshipping Run-DMC and finally, with Licensed to Ill, becoming hip-hop's most marketable bad boys for white middle-American audiences, their image controlled by the founders of Def Jam: Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons.
Their timing was perfect. Run-DMC's 1983 hit Sucker MC's prompted acts such as the Fat Boys, Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick to mess with off-beat pop-culture samples, sharp wordplay and a playful sense of humour — easing rap on to the radio. The Beastie Boys' impish irony fitted in, but was layered over loose, wild punk sensibilities and effortless vocal interplay. This meant they also raised a middle finger to the shiny conformity of the late 1980s.
Under Russell and Rubin's guidance they drank, trashed hotel rooms, toured with a giant inflatable penis and had tabloid newspapers calling for them to be banned from the UK. (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) — still their biggest hit — defined their white-trash image but, they insist, was a joke that went horribly wrong.
"It was making fun of party bros and frat boys," Horovitz says. "We'd never actually met any but we thought they were hilarious to make fun of. Then it became a hit and gradually that's what we started to become. When we started becoming a self-caricature, Russell wouldn't pay us unless we carried on doing it. So we quit."
At which point the band nearly split. "I think everybody thought it was supposed to be the end of the story, right?" Diamond says with a smile.
Jonze met them around that time — they had moved to LA to record the underrated follow-up, Paul's Boutique, now hailed as a hip-hop landmark and were building a complex music, media and movie empire around them, Grand Royal. Like the documentary, the Grand Royal collective had a slightly ramshackle, handheld feel. It published a short-lived magazine, gave Jonze free rein with daft videos and, most important, signed Luscious Jackson — Schellenbach's new band. Jonze includes a chat with Schellenbach where she mocks the trio for becoming what they hated.
"When I met these guys, they were curious, hungry and loved a huge spectrum of things, from vintage Adidas to obscure musicians like Lee "Scratch" Perry," Jonze recalls. "So this doc was an attempt to capture the friendship at the heart of this. I talked to Mike and Adam and Yauch at different times about the past but never heard the whole story — that there was a fourth member of the band, she was a girl, one of their best friends, who they dumped and reconnected with years later. That seemed the story to me."
All the time, Jonze and the Boys make clear, Yauch was the visionary — yet this documentary goes out on Apple TV+, an unconventional choice for dirtbag former punks. Hip-hop, more than any other genre of music, understands Silicon Valley and its potential. What is it about hip-hop that means it can milk digital in a way no other genre or even industry has?
"Hip-hop is always about reinventing and forward-thinking," Diamond says. "You didn't matter in rap unless you came out with a new style. It's not about tradition. Rock bands always want to be like Led Zeppelin or Black Flag. Rappers want the new next thing and aren't embarrassed to be compensated for what they're doing."
Then a countdown appears in the corner of my screen — showing the remaining minutes before my Zoom time limit runs out. As the screen blinks out, it seems there's another thing they understand about online communication. It's the perfect way to stop a journalist asking pesky questions.
Beastie Boys Story is available on Apple TV+
Written by: Stephen Armstrong
© The Times of London