Mike D and Ad Rock will tell the oral history of the band in a memoir unlike any others to celebrate their 30-year career in music.
- Apr 30, 2013
AceShowbiz - The two surviving members of the Beastie Boys have signed a deal with Random House's imprint Spiegel & Grau, the publisher of Jay-Z's "Decoded", to release a memoir. Instead of going with a standard book, they choose to push the envelope by writing a "multidimensional" tome.
Julie Grau said as quoted by New York Times that Michael Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) were "interested in challenging the form and making the book a multidimensional experience." She added, "There is a kaleidoscopic frame of reference, and it asks a reader to keep up."
According to the band's agent, Luke Janklow, talks about the memoir plan actually began several years ago but they put them aside when the trio's third member, Adam "MCA" Yauch, suffered cancer of the salivary gland leading to his passing in 2012 at the age of 47.
When the plan was first hatched, "the first words out of Mike's mouth were, 'I don't want to do a straight memoir.' " "After Yauch died, I didn't push them," the agent dished on, "but I think that Adam and Mike ended up realizing that it was the right time for them."
The book will be structured as a unique oral history of the band with the use of a "strong visual component" and contributions from other writers to chronicle the trio's 30-year career from their rise to stardom to their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.
Grau and Janklow liken the tell-all book edited by hip-hop journalist Sacha Jenkins to the band's widely-celebrated but short-lived magazine, Grand Royal in 1990s. It explored "wide-ranging pop-culture interests with curiosity and snark" with one of the most memorable articles being "Mulling over the mullet", a satire of the mullet hairstyle.
The memoir hasn't got a title but has been planned to be released in fall 2015. An official announcement is expected to be made soon.
