Interview with MixMaster Mike

Dave: Alright. I’m gonna kick it off here. I’m Dave Corey, and you’re listening to Joe’s Blue Plate Special. Today I’m talking to Invisibl Skratch Pikle, Invisibl Skratch Pikle and Beastie Boy MixMaster Mike.

Mike: What’s up?

Dave: Thanks for coming on the show, Mike.

Mike: No problem.

Dave: Let’s see, first of all, how’d you get your start back in the day as a DJ?

Mike: Being in my bedroom. Cutting school. Going home. Putting two records together and just trying to manipulate ‘em as best as I can. Actually, I started out with two tape decks and I used to mix two tape decks together. That’s where I got my name, MixMaster Mike.

Dave: Really? ‘Cause you were mixin’ with tapes?

Mike: Mixing the two tapes.

Dave: That’s crazy.

Mike: ___________ putting ‘em on beat, and using another one to record.

Dave: Do you remember what the first thing you mixed was? Maybe the first record you scratched.

Mike: Probably Slinger South of Heaven with Isaac Hayes’ Black Moses.

Dave: That’s quite a combination.

Mike: When I was 15.

Dave: I notice that you tend to mix some really crazy stuff. A lot of people are just mixing with hip hop records, but you tend to throw in all kinds of stuff. What’s your favorite kind of music other than hip hop to throw in there?
Mike: I really don’t have a favorite kind of music, but I listen to a lot of Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. I’m a blues man. A blues fanatic.

Olga: Cool. So are we.

Dave: Yeah, definitely.

Mike: Yeah. I love the blues. That’s where I get my soulful vibe from. Listening to the blues and trying to incorporate that type of style into my music. Yeah, it’s universal. You can go along for days and days.

Dave: Did you start out listening to the blues? I mean, was that a big influence when you were younger?

Mike: I was around a lot of music. My uncles used to listen to a lot of music while I was home playing and whatnot, and it just stuck to me, you know, all this music just like generated in my brain, you know. Musical historian. __________ a lot of music. Johnny Cash.

Dave: Really? Yeah, I’m all about Johnny Cash, man.

Mike: Could be anything, you know, it’s not just hip hop.

Olga: What did you just buy? You just bought a bunch, right?

Dave: Yeah, what are you buying over at....

Mike: Yeah, I bought another copy of the Rush record just to have. Tom Sawyer.

Dave: I heard you spinning that last time at the Beastie Boys. That was awesome.

Mike: A lot of people requested it. I don’t do it in my live shows, but people were like, “Where’s it at?” So I just went and bought it just in case, you know.

Dave: You gonna bust it out tonight?

Mike: I don’t think so. Who knows? I’m experimenting now. I’m at the experimental stage where I’m like on tour and I’m like, hmmm, let’s see what I can do. I did that the other night. I’m gonna do some different stuff, you know. I like to always flip it. ____________ people are recording, you know, ______________.

Dave: How often do you come up with like a new thing? Is it once a night? Is it something you come up with and then you use it a few times?

Mike: I don’t know. There’s times where like I’m on a dry spell for like a week or so, you know. There’s times where I’m on a roll for a week just creating either if it’s a song or a trick on a turntable, it’s ________________, I don’t know where. It just comes to me. Okay, cool, ___________ together and make it sound like that.

Dave: That’s great. Do you kind of see it before you do it, you know what you’re going for?

Mike: Yeah. Sometimes I hear it in my sleep I hear it. Oh, I gotta get that record and this record and I gotta go home and lock the door. Yeah.

Dave: Where do you hear most of your music?

Mike: Before I go out on the road, I try to throw a whole bunch of music on mini disks and I take it with me on the road and while I’m in my bunk, I’m just like zoning out and ________ all different types of music. John Coltraine, Myles Davis...

Dave: Real cool. Real cool. How did the Invisibl Skratch Piklz get started?

Mike: Wow. Well, first of all, me and DJ Apollo were the first ones to create an actual DJ band, a ______-man team. It was me and Apollo and then brought QBert along with us and then we formed a three-man team and then we were called FM2-0. From FM2-0 we were called ______________ with _________ crew and we were known as the __________________ DJ’s, and from there, we started out _______________ and then ________________ and we started ______________. Introduced us and formed a band, Invisibl Skratch Piklz.

Dave: And how’d you get involved with the Beastie Boys?

Mike: I met Adam Yauch ______________ in ‘95 and we exchanged phone numbers and I’d call him here and now just to check in to see what he was doing. We were supposed to hook up a long, long time ago, way before _________________ , it was just too hectic, so they called me up, I left like four different scratch messages on his answering machine...

Dave: As we hear on the album.

Mike: ...so he actually used one of the actual messages I left, and flew me over to the studio, RPM Studios, and just hung out with the Boys for like two weeks and just like helped them to produce their Hello Nasty record, and after the session, they brought me into this room and asked me to come and DJ, and I was like, hmmm, okay, I’ll do it.

Dave: What was it like going out on tour with maybe one of the biggest hip hop bands of all time?

Mike: Like being with the Beatles of hip hop, that’s what it is.

Dave: That’s crazy. Did you see some crazy stuff?

Mike: Yeah. I see crazy stuff every day.

Olga: Like what?

Dave: What kind of stories you have from those days?

Mike: Beam ships.

Dave: Beam ships?

Mike: Yeah.

Olga: Seriously? Where?

Mike: All over the place.

Dave: You mean they’d like come down?

Mike: I mean, they were in the air.

Dave: Really?

Mike: Yeah. It’s a trip.

Dave: That’s crazy alright.

Mike: I see ‘em.

Dave: Did they see ‘em too? I mean, is this verifiable?

Mike: They hear me. And that’s what I’m trying to incorporate in my ___________ is to try and communicate to ____________.
Dave: Really?

Mike: Yes.

Dave: That’s the ultimate purpose of your scratching?

Mike: That’s one.

Olga: Communication.

Mike: Communication. That’s what it is.

Olga: Are you into science fiction?

Mike: Heavily.

Olga: Like what?

Dave: Yeah, what kind of sci fi do you get into?

Olga: Do you watch Star Trek Voyager?

Mike: No.

Olga: It’s good, let me tell you.

Mike: I watched the older ones.

Olga: James Kirk.

Mike: No, Johnny ___________ and ________________.

Dave: Yeah, sure.

Mike: Yeah, the older science fiction. That’s what I grew up on when I was a kid, Ultraman.

Olga: Yeah, Ultraman.

Dave: Ultraman, definitely.

Mike: He’s kind of like my hero.

Dave: Really cool. I think Olga is a big sci fi buff here.

Mike: Yeah, I love science fiction stuff. Especially the older stuff.

Dave: Yeah, I like to old stuff. Lost in Space.

Mike: The more cheesy the better.

Olga: Definitely.

Mike: I love the cheesiness.

Dave: Yeah, I like the cheesy. I don’t know if I like the new stuff as much. What about you? Do you watch any of that stuff?

Mike: _______________. I like the Matrix.

Dave: Yeah, the Matrix kicked ass. What did you think of Mars Attacks? They’re kind of trying to recapture the old school cheese.

Mike: Yeah, it’s funny.

Dave: I thought it was pretty cool too.

Mike: It’s funny. I mean, it’s not like the best story line ever, but it’s funny.

Olga: Did you ever watch V?

Mike: Yeah.

Olga: Remember V?

Mike: Yeah, I remember V.

Olga: I just went to Blockbuster, and you can rent all four movies at the same time and have like a marathon.

Mike: He’s good. He’s good at _____________________.

Dave: Miniseries. That was great.

Olga: So you write any songs about it, or kind of make any...

Mike: No, actually, it’s just like I really (don’t?) base my music on concepts or, well, my last album was based upon like a dream I had, anti-theft device, mayhem broke and the revolution started and beam ships are landing and an octopus is trying to take over the world, ______________ octopus, but now I’m trying to set it into a more positive realm of just music, whatever you vision, close your eyes and listen to it.

Dave: That’s pretty conceptual right there, coming out with that whole thing. And you’re kind of not as much into that anymore?

Mike: No. ________________ trying to find happiness.

Dave: That’s great, man. Are you a pretty spiritual person at all?

Mike: Yeah, you could say somewhat, yeah.

Dave: In what way?

Mike: I believe in my beliefs, and I don’t know, everybody has their own points of view and their beliefs, and I can get into like all kinds of things, government conspiracies, I mean, that’s not spiritual, but I’m spiritual within myself to know what’s going on and consciousness, I’m very conscious about my whereabouts, what’s going on in this world. _________________.

Dave: And music has a lot to do with that.

Mike: Oh, yeah. It’s my way to reach out and touch people in a different way. Yeah. _____________ to inspire kids to go out and get turntables instead of going out and doing drugs, or, you know...

Dave: Shootin’ each other.

Mike: Yeah. Get into that whole music _______________. It’s the right medicine.

Dave: Absolutely.

Mike: _______________ the medicine.

Dave: That’s another thing. I know the Invisibl Skratch Piklz have had some stuff that they’ve done for like community outreach kind of things. Have you been involved in that at all? Have you done a lot of community outreach kind of stuff?

Mike: Yeah. I just finished doing an AIDS benefit up in Syracuse, and I did a show for the firemen that were killed in, I forgot what city that was, but these firefighters were fighting a blaze and ten of them were killed, and so I did a benefit for these firefighters. I’m sorry I don’t remember where, but, yeah.

Olga: Do people come to you and ask you to do a benefit?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave: They’re like, man, I know this great DJ. Gotta get him.

Mike: It’s good for my karma, you know. I’m trying to give back as much as I can. It just comes full circle, comes back around.

Dave: What kind of advice do you have for kids that are out there...

Mike: _________ study of music, listen to other music instead of like hip hop, ‘cause you can’t really learn off of hip hop. You can learn, but it’s only one form of the whole thing....get into many forms...

Dave: Listen to Slayer.

Mike: Yeah, listen to Slayer. Bang your head against _______________, jump out a window...

Dave: Whatever you got.

Mike: Whatever, man, you know.

Dave: One other question I got for you, the Joe’s Blue Plate Special is what it’s called, and what we do is we feature a bunch of independent, unsigned bands, bands that pretty much nobody’s ever heard of, and then a bigger band like yourself that we do an interview with, and one of the things we always ask is, how do you see the difference between major labels and independent labels and people that are going on their own? Do you see that there’s a big advantage to go with a larger label or with a smaller label?
Mike: First of all, touring and getting out there is the first thing, get out there and do shows so people start to recognize who you are first. Then, you know, some people try to put out records and just try to put it out and people are looking through the bins at record stores and going, “Who’s this,” you know? They’re not gonna buy if they don’t know what it is. So, just to get out there, you know, that’s the most important thing, go out there. Even if you have to make posters or stickers, paste it on the wall. Like Monster _________, who’s that, you know? Who’s that? Who are these people, you know?

Dave: Bob Marley.

Mike: Yeah.

Dave: Oh, wait, I think I’ve heard of him.

Olga: Once or twice.

Mike: Yeah. But I’d definitely go independent, you know, independent is the way, I think. Your own creative control, it’s the best way.

Olga: Have you ever felt like in the early days when you were starting out, like you were just running up against a brick wall and just that things were just really tough and...

Mike: Oh yeah.

Olga: ...and how did you get through that?

Mike: Just stay in my room and just like, I would make my music for myself, you know, like I’m doing this for myself ‘cause it satisfies me, so that’s how I’ve always been, and all of a sudden it just happened out of nowhere, I got a break winning these DJ’s competitions with DMC’s, you know, that’s where it started, winning the competitions, and then from there on, it just kept building up, building up and everybody knew who we were, and so...

Dave: How did you feel about getting kicked out of the DMC competitions? They wouldn’t let you do it anymore? Did that bum you out, or were you like...

Mike: It was kind of a calling for us to move into another direction, to really like make music out of it, you know, _____________ on records and formulate different types of scratch music on vinyl and CD’s, putting it out. __________ music has its own form, and what I want to do is like to be one day you go into record stores you can go look under scratch music, you know.

Dave: Do you play any other instruments?

Mike: Drums a little bit.

Dave: Do you think it’s pretty close to playing the turntables, playing drums...

Mike: Yeah, coordination.

Olga: Isn’t all instruments like that?

Mike: Oh yeah, yeah. Every instrument’s like that.

Olga: _________ a lot of coordination, left, right hand.

Mike: Especially the violin. The violin’s no joke.

Olga: I play the violin.

Mike: You do?

Olga: Yeah.

Mike: It’s very tricky to play.

Olga: It’s a very picky instrument. It’ll let you know if you touch it wrong.

Mike: _________________.

Olga: Have you ever tried playing violin?

Mike: Yeah, I tried and I just put it down ___________________. ...kill everybody.

Olga: Or they’d kill you.

Mike: Yeah, or kill me, yeah.

Olga: With all the scratching that you do on the records, doesn’t it damage the records?

Mike: No.

Olga: Really?

Dave: Hurts the needles, though.

Mike: ___________ my type of DJ, I’m always switching records. I’m never using the same record all the time, so, if you use the same record, the same sound, it’s definitely going to wear out. But I’m always switching records, I’m buying doubles, threes, fours of the same copy, just in case, but with my style, no. My records don’t get damaged, unless they’re dropped.

Dave: How fast do you go through a pair of needles?

Mike: I don’t know. Well, I’m doing a tour, I’ve been doing like, I’m like on my third week of touring, and my needles are holding up.
They’re doing good.

Dave: You guys use Sure needles, is that right?

Mike: Sure, and 44-7's.

Dave: Put the plug in there.

Mike: Yeah. Sponsor.

Olga: Speaking of _____________, we Doctor Martin shoes for you, sponsor our show.

Dave: And a shirt.

Mike: Oh, cool.

Dave: You get something out of it. Shoes and a shirt. You’re halfway to having full clothing.

Olga: We want to make sure they fit.

Mike: Okay. Cool. What size are they?

Olga: I think they’re your size. I think.

Dave: What size are you?

Mike: I’m a 9.

Olga: Are those 9's?

Mike: Oooh, these are big.

Dave: Yeah, those do look big.

Olga: You should try ‘em on.

Mike: These look really, really big.

Olga: ‘Cause those came especially for you.

Mike: No, they’re big.

Dave: They’re 13.

Olga: They’re 13's?

Mike: They’re really, really big. You can get me another pair and just send them to me.

Olga: I’ll do that.

Mike: Thank you very much.