Mike D interview about making music and Eminem

What brings you the UK?
Well there's a band called At The Drive In from Texas. There's five of them, they jump around a lot when theyplay. And I came over with them because I have a DJ gig with them in Paris

Are the Beastie Boys still going or is that very much a side line?
Well we took a hiatus because Adam made this record with Amery Smith 'AWOL', who also plays with ourband, called BS2000. So he's doing that and when he comes back we'll all meet up back in New York. I have abunch of music in my computer, and he's got all his stuff on floppy discs and different samplers, so we have tocombine it together.

Do you argue when it gets to that point?
No, that part is fun because he'll play a bunch of stuff and I'll be like 'I've got this', and then we'll battle. I'llplay a little thing and then he'll play something that's really good, then I have to play something. So it's a very very friendly competition kind of thing. And then we'll hear what the other one has and go 'I have somethingthat really works with that'. Then start combining.

What music do you like, apart from what you've signed?
I like Outkast a lot, I really like Stankonia and the singles. But I'm obsessed with this song that The Neptunesproduced called 'Danger' by The Mysticals.

We are going to be doing an interview with Eminem, have you ever met or worked with him?
No, never actually. He's obviously an incredibly talented rapper, but at the same time there's statementswhich he's making, which I know his defence is he's making them joking around or he's making them to beprovocative on certain topics. But he's definitely making statements that I wouldn't make, because there'slyrics on our songs where we've been joking around about something, but then people have interpreted themon a serious level and that has therefore inspired actions that we never intended to do. That kind of made uslike 'woe', we need to think about this for a second - people have to go through that themselves or evolvethrough that.

So you are aware there is a responsibility?
Yeah, that's just something that we, ourselves, have become aware of. That's us, that's not him at all.