On May 4, 2012, the music world mourned the death of Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys “He was a pioneer of pop music and more than that: an innovator of the techniques and strategies of pop art in general.This is what ROLLING STONE editor Arne Willander wrote in his obituary.
In 2009, Yauch was diagnosed with parotid and lymph node cancer. Operations and chemotherapy followed. In fact, it seemed like he was feeling better at first. In a statement he – now married and the father of a daughter – said the disease was treatable. The long-announced album “Hot Sauce Committe Part Two” was postponed several times and was only released in 2011 with almost no promotion: The Beastie Boys sent an online stream of the record to Madison Square Garden – the penultimate ironic volte.
How did Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys die?
Then, three years later, a piece of news shocked Beastie Boys fans: “It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch… passed away this morning in his hometown of New York City after a nearly three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.”
Shortly afterwards, Yauch’s bandmates Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz and Michael ‘Mike D.’ also got in touch. Diamond speaks out via social media. Mike D. wrote: “I know we should have tweeted and Instagrammed every sad, happy and inspired thought, smile or tear by now. But honestly, the last few days have just been a blur of deep emotions because of our closest friend, bandmate and real brother. I miss Adam so much. He was truly a great role model for myself and for so much of what determination, faith, focus and humility coupled with a sense of humor can accomplish. The world needs many more like him. We love you, Adam.”
ROLLING STONE interview with Adam Horovitz on the death of Adam Yauch
A few weeks after Adam Yauch’s death, Adam Horovitz spoke in a rare interview with David Fricke from US ROLLING STONE. In it he spoke openly about his feelings and his memories of Yauch:
Adam Yauch was the oldest of the Beastie Boys. Was he the leader of the band in the early years?
Yes. He was smarter than us, more organized. Even if you’re friends, there are always annoying things that need to be done. And you never do it. Things were different with Adam. He had a special need to keep an eye on these things. We all had our roles, one of his being the maker. I was more like, I said: “Hey, we should take these photos dressed like undercover cops.But Adam was a film fan, so we made a whole film out of it (“Sabotage”) and not just a nice photo.
Adam Yauch as “Techno Wiz” of the Beastie Boys
What was Adam Yauch’s musical role in the Beastie Boys?
He was a very good bass player. He loved Daryl (Jennifer) from the Bad Brains. And he could make his bass sound the same. When we (producer and musician) met Mark Nishita, the two of them would immediately start talking musically, while I was more the type to say: “Show me where to put my fingers and I’ll play it for four minutes.“
Adam was also our “Techno Wiz” – that’s what me, Mike and Rick Rubin called him. I once visited him in his apartment in Brooklyn. Adam had a reel-to-reel tape recorder and had the tape spread all over the apartment, hanging over chairs and running through the kitchen. He was just playing around on that Led Zeppelin beat. I said to him: “How did you do that?” And he said: “I heard Sly Stone worked that way too.”
How did you react when you found out Adam had cancer?
He said: “I will survive it.” He was always right about all kinds of crap, so I believed him this time too. His enthusiasm and optimism always carried you along. We recorded together a few weeks ago. It was the same as always: We spent more time making fart jokes and ordering food – that’s why our records always took so long.
The formation of the Beastie Boys
Yauch, born in Brooklyn in 1964, founded the Beastie Boys with his friend Michael Diamond in 1979. He himself played the electric bass, Diamond sat on the drums, and John Berry played the guitar. They were fascinated by the hardcore of the moment, by the Bad Brains and Black Flag. Yauch’s early peudonym Nathaniel Hörnblowér already refers to the youth’s strong literary mind, eclecticism and wit. In late 1982, the trio performed at Bard College, and Philip Pucci made the film Beastie by equipping some of the audience with 16mm cameras, positioning a central camera on the balcony, and later editing the footage.
After the performance, John Berry left the band and Adam Horvitz joined as guitarist. The song “Cooky Puss” combined punk rock noise with rap and was played in New York clubs. From now on, the Beastie Boys employed a DJ on stage and called themselves MCA (Yauch), Mike D (Diamond) and Ad-Rock (Horvitz). And they met student Rick Rubin, an obsessed freak and tinkerer, with whom they produced the EP “Rock Hard” in 1985. Rubin founded the Def Jam label.
From “Licensed To Ill” to “Paul’s Boutique”
A year later, “Licensed To Ill” was released, an album full of nerd humor, crude sayings, shouting and nonsense. “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)” became a party hit for pubescents everywhere; The irony of the piece was overlooked: the brackets already indicate that it is a response to the hippie and civil rights movements, i.e. the parents’ generation. The Beastie Boys were not only the first successful white hip-hop band, they brought the decade with a mocking hedonistic to crazy slogan: The right to party and drink was also impressively staged in the video clip.
Soon after, the pubescent pleasure ended. With the Dust Brothers as producers, the Beastie Boys worked on “Paul’s Boutique,” a Taj Mahal of sound shards, unabashed samples, and avalanches of text and noise from all sides. When the truly postmodern collage appeared in 1989, it did not find a warm reception everywhere. Although more than 100 songs had been put through the chopping machines, the Beasties weren’t interested in songs in the actual sense. Rather, they had set a street corner in Brooklyn and their favorite store for records and knickknacks to music – in that sense it was also a sentimental work of memory.
Explosives about the American view of things
It wasn’t until 1992 that the band came back on the scene: “Check Your Head”, a rude, largely traditionally recorded record, was made in California of all places; It wasn’t just the hit “Sabotage” that exploded the American view of things. At concerts, the Beasties played their own instruments and sampling was reduced. The Beastie Boys were now the favorite group of (white) intellectuals and pop critics and on “Ill Communication” (1994) they further explored the flow of information and opinion – with disastrous results. In the rubble of pop culture, depicted in the chopped and torn sound dumps, an uncontrollable juggernaut is rising.
The band was now playing at festivals alongside the Smashing Pumpkins, one of the biggest rock bands of the time. Adam Yauch retreated into private life, turned to Buddhism, founded the Milarepa Fund to support Tibet and organized the Tibetan Freedom Festival in San Francisco in 1996. “Hello Nasty” (1998) did not bring any new impulses – Eminem’s debut soon appeared, who used the techniques provided for his egocentric production and became a superstar.
Adam Yauch’s last speech
It wasn’t until 2004 that the Beastie Boys released “To The 5 Boroughs”. A tribute to the five boroughs of their hometown after the attacks of September 2001. On the drawn cover, the Twin Towers are still intact, and in the “Open Letter To NYC” the artists encourage themselves. In addition to his political commitment, Adam Yauch increasingly occupied himself with film work and the restoration and expansion of the early albums.
In December 2011, the Fathers of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that the Beastie Boys would be inducted into the gallery. Adam Yauch was no longer able to attend the ceremony in April 2012. Mike Diamond and Adam Horvitz read out his acceptance speech, probably the last text of the great word artist and alchemist.