-Look at how much fun he's having already.
Oh, my gosh. He's having the most fun.
Look at this. I've never seen him like this.
He's having so much fun.
-Why did you say Mike's name first?
-It's alphabetical, like, you know, as authors.
-Yeah. -No, but you said, "Mickey..."
-Mickey. I didn't say "Mickey."
-You said "Mickey."
Why is he calling him "Mickey"? His name is Mike.
-'Cause -- Guys, hi! -Hey!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-We have a lot to talk about.
I want to say, before I start this off that I know --
I'm sad that Yauch is not with us anymore.
And I loved him so much. I know you loved him so much.
And I wish I had a chance to tell him
how much I loved him when he was around.
So I just want to tell you guys I love you and I love you.
-Thank you very much, Jimmy. Love you, too.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Did you have any idea? I love this book.
I'm checking out. I didn't want to it end. It was so good.
Did you have any idea
that you guys were gonna have this much chemistry?
Did you know that you were gonna be --
know each other for 40 years, almost?
-When you're --
I think when you're a teenager, you're barely --
Like, weeks ahead of you is -- -You're not thinking tomorrow.
-That's not -- You can't even see that.
-Yeah. Could you have done it with anyone else, you think?
-Oh, definitely.
[ Laughter ]
-No, you got to think about that.
That was a -- I didn't want a answer really that fast.
Yeah. You definitely could have done it with someone else.
-Yeah, might have even been more successful, actually.
-I think, after reading the book,
one of the things that we all like as fans
is that, I think it's his sense of humor
that kind of motivated this group.
And you guys always make each other laugh.
Can you tell everyone the ring story?
The story about the ring? -Oh, okay.
So, well, it's in this book.
There's a story called "The Ring."
-I know. -Available in the marketplace.
-Yeah, yeah. But tell the story. -All right.
I got to do it real quick, 'cause we got --
-No, we got time. We got a cocktail party after this.
-We still got an after after -- -It's packed. It's packed.
There's people there already.
-So, in 1992, we played a regular show.
We were in San Francisco. It was just a regular show.
And we're in the dressing room afterwards, backstage.
We're hanging out. And then this guy kind of cornered me.
But he was like -- He just looked odd. I don't know.
He had, like, big, huge teeth that looked like --
And he had really long arms. And I don't know.
-You said that his arms were longer than -- It went past his kneecap.
-He was -- Yeah. -That's impossible.
-It's no big deal, but it was just kind of really startling.
-Okay, okay. Startling when you first meet him.
-And he cornered me, and he was like,
"I really want you to have my ring."
And I was like, "No, I don't really wear jewelry,
but thanks anyway," but he was like, "No, no, no.
I really want you to have it," and so he'd like --
So I was like, "Okay, man. Whatever."
And then I went home, you know, whenever that was,
and I put the ring on my shelf, and I was like, "Forget it."
And then we were on a train to a show in D.C.,
and then I looked in my bag, and there was the ring again.
And I didn't understand because I thought I put it in the --
At any rate... -It's back.
-Cut to -- That was in '92. And then cut to 2007.
I'm on tour. We're on tour.
And I go to my backpack. And the ring's in there.
And so -- Okay, so, I was freaking out.
Then I told everybody. I was like, "I got the ring."
Everybody's like -- -Really freaking out.
We were all like, "What's wrong with that?"
-I was like -- Well, I was going to curse but not on television.
-Thank you.
-I was like, "What the [bleep] is up with this?"
-You were "going to" curse. Gonna edit there.
-And -- And -- And, so, anyway, I was freaking out.
And then, like, about a week later,
Yauch pulled me aside on tour
and was like, "Hey, man. I put that ring in your bag."
[ Laughter ]
But it was 15 years later.
[ Laughter ]
-Who does that?! -Who does that?
-Who does that? -Yeah.
-So, if you read the book, you saw that you guys
started out in the punk scene.
You're New Yorkers.
Going to clubs when you were like 14, 13?
-Yeah. We were young -- We were children.
-Yeah. -Yeah. Young teens.
-New York was different.
You could do that sort of thing as a child.
-No one would check your ID or anything?
-Well, actually, no. That was the weird thing. The drinking age was 18 --
When the drinking age in New York was 18, it was like --
-No one cared.
-And, like, fake IDs was -- You know what I mean.
Like, nobody checked that it was a real or fake ID.
"Oh, you have this card."
-"That seems about right."
-"It must be real. He had a card."
-I think if it was laminated, that was good enough.
-That works. -Yeah.
-You formed the group Beastie Boys, right?
-Well, yeah, myself and Yauch
and John Berry and Kate Schellenbach.
-And Beastie -- It was called Beastie Boys
because it stood -- It was --
Yeah. What did it stand for?
-I've only recently learned to say this properly,
'cause we had to do these shows.
It's an acronym. -That's correct. Wow.
-'Cause I used to say "anacronym," and then I was corrected.
Like, that's not actually a word.
-"Anacronym" could be a new -- But it is an acronym.
-It's -- Yeah. It is a...acronym.
-An acronym. -An acronym.
-Yes, that too. [ Laughter ]
-Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence.
And, yes, it was a stupid name.
[ Laughter ]
-No, what's funny, here we are....
-We're supposed to be grown-ass men,
and it's still the name of the band.
-Yeah, Beastie -- yeah.
So, Beastie Boys.
And then, so, you're in the punk scene.
Then you started liking hip-hop. -Yeah.
-And what song triggered you,
like, "Oh, I want to be like that"?
Is there one...?
-I feel like each of us individually have, like,
the song that was, like, the song.
For you, if you don't mind me outing you, Ad-Rock?
-Go ahead. I'm sorry.
-You're gonna out -- You're gonna out him?
-Go ahead. -My moment --
-Big, big, politically charged moment.
-My first big rap song for me was a rap song
called "The Adventures of Super Rhymes," by Jimmy Spicer.
That was my first one of those. I knew all the words.
My brother played it for me, and I just -- I don't know.
We just loved that song. -Yeah.
And I want to say shout-out, Yauch was definitely, like,
a master of memorizing every word, cadence,
and style of the rapper Spoonie Gee.
-Yeah. -So he had Spoonie Gee.
For me, I was a little more Treacherous Three, "Body Rock."
But then Treacherous Three and Spoonie Gee
had a song together called "Super Rappin'."
So we could all meet -- -But how did "Cooky Puss" --
What was that based off of?
[ Laughter ]
Sorry, they had a first song that was called "Cooky Puss."
-Yeah, so that -- -I thought we were gonna --
-We doing a lot of jumping over.
-I thought you were gonna talk about "Buffalo Gals."
-Yeah, I'll get to that. -Okay, cool.
-A couple years later, there was a song called "Buffalo Gals"
that Malcolm McLaren did.
And it was a big song, and since we were, like, city kids,
like, you know, we kind of --
You know, we just make fun of everything.
That's just like a stupid thing.
Like, 'cause kids in New York or big cities,
you can't really like anything.
You got to sort of be cool about everything.
You can't really get fully into something.
-You can't like something if you're a New York City kid?
-You're not allowed to like something, yeah.
-Like, you can't say, "Oh, I love that."
You got to be like, "Oh, yeah. That's cool."
-You'll be like, "Ice cream's cool. Whatever."
[ Laughter ]
-"Whatever." -"Cake tastes good."
-Yeah, "I guess cake tastes good."
Yeah. -Yeah.
-And so, Adam Yauch parents had a friend that
had a recording studio, and he let us record one night.
And so we made all this crazy stuff,
and we made a song called "Cooky Puss,"
and then we put it out.
-But "Cooky Puss" is based on --
if you're from New York, I think it's an East coast thing, right?
-Yeah, I always wondered that,
but I feel like it's definitely --
-It's Carvel.
And I got a story about it, too.
Exclusive. Not in here.
-What? -It's not that exciting.
-What are you talking about? This is not --
I got to call TMZ and "The Daily Mail."
-We used to go to this club called --
-Hello? Sorry.
Hello?
Oh, why would you call me? I told you I was gonna call you.
-Do you need a phone? [ Laughter ]
-So, we used to go to this --
-You can sell this on Groupon, you know.
The stellar story on Groupon. -Exclusive story?
-Oh, it can be on the bonus audiobook.
-Forget it, then. -No, no! We want to hear it!
[ Laughter ] -Oh.
No, no. We used to go to this club called Danceteria
all the time, and it was when "Cooky Puss" came out.
And there was this kid that was kind of hanging around.
And he came up to us one night and he was like,
"Hey, man, you know, I'm gonna talk to my uncle.
And everything is gonna be cool about 'Cooky Puss.'"
And I was like, "Okay, cool. What are you talking about?"
And he was like, "Well, my uncle's Tom Carvel."
And we were like, "Wait. What?"
And he's like, "Yeah. I'm gonna talk to him,
make sure there's no, like, legal problems with,
you know, your guys' song about, you know, his cake."
[ Laughter ]
And we're like, "Oh, man, that'd be cool.
Great." And then we kept singing.
He's like, "Yeah, I talked to my uncle.
Everything's fine." We're like, "I didn't --
One, I don't think it's true at all."
-Yeah. -"And I don't think --
I think you can just call --
You can sing a song about a cake, right?
I don't know if it's legal --" -I don't know.
But he didn't sue you, though.
-Can you make a quick call on that and find out?
[ Laughter ]
-Sorry about that. -Yep.
-I'm sorry. I got, like, no bars right now.
[ Laughter ]
-We're doing bits.
-I got to tell you -- Speaking of doing bits...
That story is in the book, by the way.
-No, it's not. -Yeah, it is.
-Is it? -Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
It's not an exclusive at all.
You didn't give us an exclusive at all.
-You got to read your damn book!
[ Cheers and applause ]
That story is in the book.
And how nice Carvel was to you.
Yeah, anyway. I'm like --
-I can't be expected to remember --
-It's a lot of pages.
-Don't start reading now! What are you doing?
-I don't -- I don't see it in here.
-Oh, my God!