Mike D has lamented the death of hair metal, saying grunge made it uncool to wear spandex.
The Beastie Boys hero – aka Michael Diamond – has been reflecting on the 1990s and his memories of the decade that spawned grunge and Britpop, and saw hip-hop reach new heights.
He tells Vanity Fair: “Grunge was a death sentence to the rock that preceded it, which was hair metal. All of a sudden, grunge came in. It wasn’t cool any more, if you were a guy at the gas station, to be into Warrant.
“You couldn’t have big, fluffy long hair – you had to have fucked-up shorter hair and a plaid shirt. You couldn’t be walking around the gas station in spandex any more.”
He says of the genre he’s best known for: “The early 90s in terms of hip-hop was an apex moment. You had an evolution through the 80s up to then. All of a sudden you had hip-hop groups on Arsenio Hall.”
The Beastie Boys lost Adam Yauch – aka MCA – to cancer in 2012 and said earlier this year they’d never consider recording or touring as a duo.
