1981–1983: Formation and early years Prior to forming the Beastie Boys,
Michael Diamond was part of a number of bands such as the
Walden Jazz Band, and BAN. The Young Aborigines formed in 1979. In 1981, when Young Aborigines bassist Jeremy Shatan left New York City for the summer, the remaining members Diamond,
John Berry and
Kate Schellenbach began to perform as the Beastie Boys with
Adam Yauch. In a 2007 interview with
Charlie Rose, Yauch recalled that it was Berry who suggested the name the Beastie Boys. Although the band stated that "Beastie" is an acronym standing for "Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence", in the Charlie Rose interview, both Yauch and Diamond acknowledged that the acronym was an "
afterthought" conceived after the name was chosen. the
Misfits and
Reagan Youth at venues such as
CBGB, A7,
Trude Heller's and
Max's Kansas City, playing at the latter venue on its closing night. In November 1982, the Beastie Boys recorded the
7-inch EP
Polly Wog Stew at 171A studios, an early recorded example of
New York hardcore. On November 13, 1982, the Beastie Boys played Philip Pucci's birthday for the purposes of his short concert film,
Beastie. Pucci held the concert in
Bard College's Preston Drama Dance Department Theatre. This performance marked the Beastie Boys' first on-screen appearance in a published motion picture. Pucci's concept for
Beastie was to distribute a mixture of both a half dozen 16 mm
Bell & Howell Filmo cameras, and 16 mm
Bolex cameras to audience members and ask that they capture the Beastie Boys performance from the audience's own point of view while a master sync sound camera filmed from the balcony of the abandoned theater where the performance was held. It was a part of the new lineup's first EP, also called
Cooky Puss, which was the first piece of work that showed their incorporation of the underground
rap phenomenon and the use of samples. It quickly became a hit in New York underground dance clubs and night clubs. After "Beastie Revolution" was later sampled in a
British Airways commercial, the Beastie Boys threatened to sue them over the use of the song, and the airline immediately paid them $40,000 in royalties.
1984–1987: Def Jam years and Licensed to Ill Following the success of "Cooky Puss", the band began to incorporate rap into their sets. They hired a DJ for their live shows,
New York University student
Rick Rubin, who began producing records soon thereafter. "I met Mike first," Rubin recalled. "I thought he was an arrogant asshole. Through spending time with the Beasties I grew to see that they had this great sense of humor. It wasn't that they were assholes, and even if it was, they were funny with it." Rubin formed
Def Jam Recordings with
Russell Simmons, and approached the band about producing them for his new label. As the band was transitioning to hip-hop, Schellenbach was fired in 1984, with Diamond taking over on drums. In their 2018 memoir, Ad-Rock expressed regret for firing Schellenbach, which he attributed to her not fitting with the "new tough-rapper-guy identity". The band's 12-inch single "
Rock Hard" (1984) was the second Def Jam record crediting Rubin as producer (the first was "It's Yours" by
T La Rock and
Jazzy Jay). During 1985, the group was the supporting act of
the Virgin Tour,
Madonna's first concert series. On July 22, 1986, the Beastie Boys opened for
John Lydon's post-
Sex Pistols band
Public Image Ltd., They headlined with
Fishbone and
Murphy's Law with
DJ Hurricane, and later in the year the group was on the
Raising Hell tour with
Run-DMC,
Whodini,
LL Cool J, and the
Timex Social Club. Thanks to this exposure, "Hold It Now, Hit It" charted on
Billboards US R&B and dance charts. "
She's on It" from the
Krush Groove soundtrack continued in a rap/metal vein while a double A-side 12", "
Paul Revere/The New Style", was released at the end of the year. The band recorded
Licensed to Ill in 1986 and released it on November 15, 1986. The album was favorably reviewed by
Rolling Stone magazine.
Licensed to Ill became one of the best-selling rap albums of the 1980s and the first rap album to go number 1 on the
Billboard 200 chart, where it stayed for five weeks. It also reached number 2 on the Top R&B album chart. It was Def Jam's fastest selling debut record to date and sold over nine-million copies. The fourth single, "
(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)", reached number 7 on the US
Billboard Hot 100. Although the group has sold over 26-million records in the US, this is their only single to peak in the US top ten or top twenty. The accompanying video (directed by
Ric Menello and
Adam Dubin) became an MTV staple. Another song from the album, "
No Sleep till Brooklyn", peaked at number 14 on the
UK Singles Chart. The band took the
Licensed to Ill tour around the world the following year. The tour was troubled by lawsuits and arrests, with the band accused of provoking the crowd. This culminated in a notorious gig at the
Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, England, on May 30, 1987, that erupted into a riot approximately 10 minutes after the group hit the stage and the arrest of Adam Horovitz by
Merseyside Police. He was charged with assault causing grievous bodily harm.
1988–1989: Move to Capitol Records and ''Paul's Boutique'' In 1988, the Beastie Boys appeared in
Tougher Than Leather, a film directed by Rubin as a
star vehicle for
Run-D.M.C. and Def Jam Recordings. After Def Jam stopped paying them for work they had already done and were owed money for, the Beastie Boys left Def Jam and signed with
Capitol Records. The second Beastie Boys album, ''
Paul's Boutique, was released on July 25, 1989. Produced by the Dust Brothers, it blends eclectic samples and has been described as an early work of experimental hip-hop. It failed to match the sales of Licensed to Ill,
but later attracted acclaim; Rolling Stone'' ranked it number 156 on its list of the
500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It also made it onto the
Apple Music 100 Best Albums list at number 48.
1990–1997: Check Your Head and Ill Communication Check Your Head was recorded in the band's
G-Son studio in
Atwater Village, California, and released on its
Grand Royal record label. The band was influenced to play instruments on this album by Dutch group
Urban Dance Squad; with Mike D on drums, Yauch on bass, Horovitz on guitar and Mark Ramos Nishita ("
Keyboard Money Mark") on keyboards.
Mario Caldato, Jr., who had helped in the production of ''Paul's Boutique
, engineered the record and became a longtime collaborator. Check Your Head
was released in 1992 and was certified double Platinum in the US and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard'' 200. and charted on both the Rap and
Modern Rock Chart, while the album's first single, "
Pass the Mic", peaked at number 38 on the Hot Dance Music chart. The Beastie Boys signed an eclectic roster of artists to their
Grand Royal label, including
Luscious Jackson,
Sean Lennon, and Australian artist
Ben Lee. The group owned Grand Royal Records until 2001. Grand Royal's first independent release was Luscious Jackson's album
In Search of Manny in 1993. Also in 1993, the band contributed the track "It's the New Style" (with
DJ Hurricane) to the AIDS benefit album
No Alternative, produced by the
Red Hot Organization. The Beastie Boys also published
Grand Royal Magazine, which ran for six issues between 1993 and 1997, the first issue featuring a cover story on
Bruce Lee, artwork by
George Clinton, and interviews with
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and
A Tribe Called Quest's MC
Q-Tip. The 1995 issue of the magazine contained a piece on the
mullet. The
Oxford English Dictionary cites this as the first published use of the term, along with the lyrics from the band's 1994 song, "Mullet Head". That term was not heard in the 1980s, even though that decade has retroactively been hailed as the mullet's peak in popularity. The
OED says that the term was "apparently coined, and certainly popularized, by US hip-hop group Beastie Boys".
Ill Communication, released in 1994, saw the Beastie Boys' return to the top of the charts when the album debuted at number 1 on the
Billboard 200 Also in 1994, the band released
Some Old Bullshit, featuring the band's early independent material, which made it to number 46 on the
Billboard Independent Albums chart. The Beastie Boys headlined at
Lollapalooza—an American travelling music festival—in 1994, together with
the Smashing Pumpkins. In addition, the band performed three concerts (in Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, D.C.) to raise money for the
Milarepa Fund and dedicated the
royalties from "
Shambala" and "Bodhisattva Vow" from
Ill Communication to the cause. The Milarepa Fund aims to raise awareness of
Tibetan human rights issues and the exile of the
Dalai Lama. In 1996, Yauch organized the largest rock benefit show since 1985's
Live Aid – the
Tibetan Freedom Concert, a two-day festival at
Golden Gate Park in San Francisco that attracted over 100,000 attendees. In 1995, the popularity of the Beastie Boys was underlined when tickets for an arena tour went on sale in the US and
Madison Square Garden and Chicago's
Rosemont Horizon sold out within 30 minutes. One dollar from each ticket sold went through Milarepa to local charities in each city on the tour. The Beastie Boys toured South America and Southeast Asia for the first time. The band also released
Aglio e Olio (Italian for "Garlic and Oil"), a collection of eight songs lasting just 11 minutes harking back to their punk roots, in 1995.
The In Sound from Way Out!, a collection of previously released
jazz/
funk instrumentals, was released on Grand Royal in 1996 with the title and artwork a homage to
an album by electronic pop music pioneers
Perrey and Kingsley. In 1992, the Beastie Boys decided to sample portions of the sound recording of "Choir" by
James Newton in various renditions of their song "Pass the Mic". The band did not obtain a license from Newton to use the composition. Pursuant to their license from ECM Records, the Beastie Boys digitally sampled the opening six seconds of Newton's sound recording of "Choir", and repeated this six-second sample as a background element throughout their song. Newton brought suit, claiming that the band infringed his copyright in the underlying composition of "Choir". The district court granted the Beastie Boys summary judgment. The album displayed a substantial shift in musical feel, with the addition of
Mix Master Mike. The album featured bombastic beats, rap samples, and experimental sounds. Released on July 14, 1998,
Hello Nasty earned first week sales of 681,000 in the US and went straight to number 1 in the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Sweden. The album achieved number 2 rank on the charts in Canada and Japan, and reached top-ten chart positions in Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, France and Israel. The Beastie Boys won two
Grammy Awards in 1999, receiving the
Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album for
Hello Nasty as well as the
Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "
Intergalactic". This was the first time that a band had won awards in both rap and alternative categories. The following year at the
1999 MTV Video Music Awards, they also won the award for Best Hip Hop Video for their hit song "Intergalactic". The Beastie Boys used both appearances at the Video Music Awards to make politically charged speeches of considerable length to the sizable MTV audiences. At the 1998 ceremony, Yauch addressed the issue of Muslim people being stereotyped as terrorists and that most people of the Muslim faith are not terrorists. These comments were made in the wake of the
US Embassy bombings that had occurred in both
Kenya and
Tanzania only a month earlier. At the 1999 ceremony in the wake of the horror stories that were coming out of
Woodstock 99, Adam Horovitz addressed the fact that there had been many cases of sexual assaults and rapes at the festival, suggesting the need for bands and festivals to pay much more attention to the security details at their concerts. the band made live downloads of their performances available for their fans, but were temporarily thwarted when Capitol Records removed them from its website. The Beastie Boys was one of the first bands to make MP3 downloads available on their website. The group got a high level of response and public awareness as a result including a published article in
The Wall Street Journal on the band's efforts. The Beastie Boys released
The Sounds of Science, a two-CD anthology of their works in 1999. This album reached number 19 on the
Billboard 200, In 2000, the Beastie Boys had planned to co-headline the Rhyme and Reason Tour with
Rage Against the Machine and
Busta Rhymes, but the tour was canceled when drummer Mike D sustained a serious injury due to a bicycle accident. The official diagnosis was fifth-degree
acromioclavicular joint dislocation; he needed surgery and extensive rehabilitation. By the time he recovered, Rage Against the Machine had disbanded, although they would reunite seven years later. Under the name Country Mike, Mike D recorded an album, ''
Country Mike's Greatest Hits'', and gave it to friends and family for Christmas in 2000. Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz's side project
BS 2000 released
Simply Mortified in 2001. In October 2001, after the
September 11, 2001 attacks, the Beastie Boys organized and headlined the New Yorkers Against Violence Concert at the
Hammerstein Ballroom.
2002–2008: To the 5 Boroughs and The Mix-Up In 2002, Adam Yauch started building a new studio facility,
Oscilloscope Laboratories, in downtown
Manhattan, New York and the band started work on a new album there. The band released a
protest song, "
In a World Gone Mad", against the
2003 Iraq war as a free download on several websites, including the Milarepa website, the MTV website,
MoveOn.org, and
Win Without War. The 19th and 20th Tibetan Freedom Concerts were held in Tokyo and Taipei, the Beastie Boys' first Taiwan appearance. The Beastie Boys also headlined the
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Their single, "Ch-Check It Out", debuted on
The O.C. in the season 1 episode "The Vegas", which aired April 28, 2004.
To the 5 Boroughs was released worldwide on June 15, 2004. It was the first album the band produced themselves and reached number 1 on the
Billboard albums chart, The album was the cause of some controversy with allegations that it installed
spyware when inserted into the CD drive of a computer. The band denied this allegation, defending that there is no copy protection software on the albums sold in the US and UK. While there is
Macrovision CDS-200 copy protection software installed on European copies of the album, this is standard practice for all European releases on
EMI/Capitol Records released in Europe, and it does not install spyware or any form of permanent software. The band stated in mid-2006 that they were writing material for their next album and would be producing it themselves. in September 2007 Speaking to British music weekly
NME (April 26, 2007), Diamond revealed that a new album was to be called
The Mix-Up. Despite initial confusion regarding whether the album would have lyrics as opposed to being purely instrumental, the Mic-To-Mic blog reported that
Capitol Records had confirmed it would be strictly instrumental and erroneously reported a release date scheduled for July 10, 2007. (The album was eventually released June 26, as originally reported.) On May 1, 2007, this was further cemented by an e-mail sent to those on the band's mailing list – explicitly stating that the album would be all instrumental: The band subsequently confirmed the new album and announced a short tour that focused on festivals as opposed to a traditional tour, including the likes of
Sónar (Spain),
Roskilde (Denmark),
Hurricane/
Southside (Germany),
Bestival (
Isle of Wight),
Electric Picnic (Ireland) and
Open'er Festival (Poland). The Beastie Boys performed at the
UK leg of
Live Earth July 7, 2007 at
Wembley Stadium, London with "
Sabotage", "
So What'cha Want", "
Intergalactic", and "
Sure Shot". They worked with
Reverb, a non-profit environmental organization, on their 2007 summer tour, and headlined the Langerado Music Festival in South Florida on Friday, March 7, 2008. The band won a Grammy for
The Mix-Up in the "
Best Pop Instrumental Album" category at the
50th Annual Grammy Awards in 2008. The tentative title for the record was ''Tadlock's Glasses'', of which Yauch explained the inspiration behind the title: On May 25, 2009, it was announced during an interview on
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon that the name of their new album would be
Hot Sauce Committee and was set for release on September 15 (with the track listing of the album announced through their mailing list on June 23). The album included a collaboration with
Santigold who co-wrote and sang with the band on the track "
Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win". In June, the group appeared at
Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and performed the new single from the album titled "Too Many Rappers" alongside rapper
Nas who appears on the track. It was the last live performance by the Beastie Boys as a trio. The group would have toured the UK later in the year in support of the new record. Speaking to
Drowned in Sound, the Beastie Boys revealed that Part 2 was done. Mike D also hinted it may be released via unusual means: On July 20, Yauch announced on the band's official YouTube channel and through the fan mailing list, the cancellation of several tour dates and the postponement of the new album due to the discovery of a cancerous tumor in his
parotid gland and a lymph node. The group also had to cancel their co-headlining gig at the
Osheaga Festival in
Montreal and another headlining spot for the first night of the
All Points West Festival in
Jersey City, New Jersey. In late October 2010, the Beastie Boys sent out two emails regarding the status of
Hot Sauce Committee Pts. 1 and 2 to their online mailing list. An email dated October 18 read: "Although we regret to inform you that
Hot Sauce Committee Part 1 will continue to be delayed indefinitely,
Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 will be released on time as originally planned in spring of 2011." One week later, a second email was sent out, reading as follows: The official release dates were April 27, 2011, for Japan; April 29 in the UK and Europe, and May 3, 2011, in the US. The third single for the album "
Make Some Noise" was made available for download on April 11, 2011, as well as a limited edition 7-inch vinyl single for
Record Store Day five days later with a
Passion Pit remix of the track as a b-side. The track was leaked online on April 6 and subsequently made available via their blog. On April 22, the Beastie Boys emailed out the cryptic message
"This Sat, 10:35 am EST – Just listen, listen, listen to the beat box". A day later, they live streamed their album online via beatbox inside
Madison Square Garden. The band was announced as an inductee into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in December 2011. They were inducted by
Chuck D and
LL Cool J on April 14, 2012. Yauch was too sick to attend the ceremony, having been admitted to
NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital the same day, therefore the group didn't perform; instead
Black Thought,
Travie from
Gym Class Heroes and
Kid Rock performed a medley of their songs. Diamond and Horovitz accepted and read a letter that Yauch had written.
2012–present: Deaths of Yauch and Berry, and disbandment On May 4, 2012, Yauch died from cancer at the age of 47. Mike D told
Rolling Stone that the Beastie Boys had recorded new music in late 2011, but did not say if these recordings would be released. He also said that the Beastie Boys would likely disband due to the death of MCA, though he was open to making new music with Ad-Rock and that "Yauch would genuinely want us to try whatever crazy thing we wanted but never got around to". In June 2014, Mike D confirmed that he and Ad-Rock would not make music under the Beastie Boys name again. The founding Beastie Boys guitarist John Berry died on May 19, 2016, aged 52, as a result of
frontotemporal dementia, following several years of ill health. He was credited with naming the band and played guitar on the first EP. The first Beastie Boys show took place at Berry's loft. They were awarded $1.7 million in damages and $668,000 for legal fees. In October 2018, Mike D and Ad-Rock released a memoir,
Beastie Boys Book, recounting events throughout the group's history. The book was adapted into a documentary in April 2020,
Beastie Boys Story, directed by
Spike Jonze and premiered on
Apple TV+. The book and documentary were also complemented by the compilation album
Beastie Boys Music, released in October 2020. == Activism ==