Hello, Adam. While We’re Young is about a couple in their 40s trying to feel relevant again by befriending two twentysomething hipsters. You’re 48. Have you ever felt like that?
I guess so. They’re just like any other person our age. Like: “Oh, shit. I’m not 22 years old.” You picture yourself as being 22 always and so it’s very bizarre when you’re not. But I definitely don’t feel relevant and I’m very comfortable with that.
Is there anything wrong with pretending to be a kid when you’re not?
No! Not at all. To a certain degree. Nobody wants to see the old person at the club.
You had an unusual 20s (1). What was special about being that age?
For the most part you don’t really understand responsibility. It’s all in the moment. All this stuff you were looking forward to as a kid is now happening, so it’s all really exciting. But when you get to be our age – well, rent and bills are not exciting.
Do people come up to 48-year-old you and expect you to be 22-year-old you?
I think so. That’s the good and the bad thing about bands. You want them always to be that thing that they are to you. Only the Ramones managed to do that.
In the film, the younger, cooler couple reject Netflix for VHS tapes, and choose to work something out rather than Google the answer. Do you understand that nostalgia?
I’m not saying that kids today have everything, but with the internet it’s like: you have it there so use it! I know a bunch of kids who are into cassette tapes now. Cassette tapes suck! Why not use your iPod? The iPod is the shit!
Isn’t that them trying to recapture some magic?
All generations think the present moment is the greatest, but also have this fascination with before their time. I do the same thing. I see old British movies. I’m like: “Man, I would love to be in London at that time.” But then I wouldn’t be able to watch The Walking Dead, I wouldn’t have cable and my pizza options would be limited.
How are you dealing with not being a Beastie Boy?
It’s definitely weird. For over 25 years, that’s all I did. It was who I was. I’m trying to figure out what that is.
Adam “MCA” Yauch died in 2012 (2). Do you think the band would still be going if he was alive?
What I’d hope would happen was that the band would be on the backburner and Adam would make movies (3). That would have made sense to me. This doesn’t make sense.
How are you dealing with it?
I have no idea. I’m not? I’m in denial? I don’t know. How do you deal with it? It’s fucking depressing. He was one of my best friends. We were 14 and we went through everything in life together.
Do you think a loss like that teaches you something? Or is that just a cliche?
That’s never happened to me when I’ve lost someone close. You know you’re supposed to live every moment like it’s your last and all that stuff, but you also know you’re not supposed to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol …
While We’re Young seems to argue that staying in touch with pop culture is a way of staying alive.
Pop culture is half about enjoyment and half about denial. If I can spend four minutes watching a Kanye West video, that’s four minutes that I’ve wasted in my life, but it’s also four minutes that I haven’t had to think about the shit in my life. It’s a toss-up is what I’m saying. A balance – both awful and wonderful.
How does it make you feel that twentysomethings in the film would think of the Beastie Boys as a vintage band?
We are. We’re a band of the Led Zeppelin ilk. Every generation there are kids that are getting turned on to Led Zeppelin. Every once in a while, a 13-year-old will hear us for the first time and be really psyched.
Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl once said new generations of fans were coming up to him and didn’t know that he was in Nirvana … Is there something freeing about that? That someone might come up and say they love To the Five Boroughs (4), but have never heard Paul’s Boutique (5)?
That’s never happened before. I would be so happy. But 95% of the time if somebody stops me on the street, they don’t know that we’ve put out records other than Licence To Ill. I’m telling you. They’ll talk about when they had it on tape. People are like: “What have you guys been doing since then?”
While We’re Young is released in the UK on 3 April 2015
Footnotes
1) By 22, Adam had met bandmates Adam Yauch and Michael Diamond and joined the Beastie Boys. The rap trio’s debut, Licensed to Ill, had sold more than 4m copies. They went on to become one of the most influential hip-hop groups of all time.
2) Yauch was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2009. The group released one more album – 2011’s Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2 – before disbanding after his death.
3) Yauch directed Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot, about promising high-school basketball players, and co-owned distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Howl, Meek’s Cutoff)
4) The sixth Beasties album, written in response to 9/11.
5) 1989 landmark album that re-invented hip-hop sampling. Miles Davis supposedly “never got tired of listening to it”.
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