{"id":758908,"date":"2026-09-03T19:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/758908\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:48:09","slug":"mike-d-on-telling-beastie-boys-bandmate-ad-rock-he-was-making-a-solo-album-and-why-he-doesnt-feature-on-thank-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/758908\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike D on telling Beastie Boys bandmate Ad-Rock he was making a solo album \u2013 and why he doesn’t feature on ‘Thank You’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike D has explained why his Beastie Boys<\/a> bandmate Ad-Rock doesn\u2019t feature on his new solo album \u2018Thank You<\/a>\u2018.<\/p>\n

The rapper recently dropped his debut solo album on August 28, which notably did not feature his former Beastie Boys bandmate, Ad-Rock.<\/p>\n

Now, Mike D has opened up on why Ad-Rock failed to appear on the album, telling Consequence<\/a> that he called him to break the news.<\/p>\n

He said that he waited until he was \u201creally committed\u201d to making the album until he \u201chad to call Adam and tell him. It\u2019s almost like I was calling [and] telling him I was in a relationship or something. I guess I was \u2014 I was in a relationship with making a record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike D went on to say that Ad-Rock \u201ccouldn\u2019t have been sweeter\u201d about the news, adding: \u201cHe was just very supportive, and then we also joked around and he said, \u2018Oh, yeah, I\u2019m trying to figure out what I\u2019m going to do. I\u2019m playing some drums.\u2019 So it was nice. I\u2019m glad that we had that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also told Consequence that there was never any intention to bring Ad-Rock onto the project, explaining: \u201cI would have felt weird about it and I think he would have felt weird about it, and why go there? Let\u2019s just be clear and be honest, it was very important to me that I make my own record.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We spoke to Mike D around the release of \u2018Thank You\u2019, where the rapper told us about the impetus for making a record post-Beastie Boys.<\/p>\n

The band split following the death of Adam \u201cMCA\u201d Yauch<\/a> in 2012, who died from parotid cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe so much loved all three of us being in a band with each other for Beastie Boys,\u201d Mike D told NME earlier this year. \u201cWhen Yauch died, it was an extremely sad time for me so making music was just not on the table. Then being a dad was something I put myself into and eventually I worked on the [Beastie Boys Book] with Adam [\u201cAd-Rock\u201d Horovitz] and that really helped both of us as we were really able to shine a light on our past together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a minute where I was watching my kids make music for a bit, which was an interesting thing as I was also working on producing records for other artists,\u201d he continued to say. \u201cThat was fun and everything \u2013 and hats off to really good record producers, I\u2019m not knocking it \u2013 but for myself I got to a place where I was feeling the most about what I was producing when bands were more executing my ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018What the fuck am I doing? Bands shouldn\u2019t be doing my ideas, they should be making their own ideas and I should be making my own ideas\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

We reviewed \u2018Thank You\u2019 when it dropped, giving the record a four-star review<\/a>. \u201cHis true solo potential will be revealed when he goes on to push harder on his extremes, but what you have in \u2018Thank You\u2019 is a solid and joyful return to be grateful for. Welcome back,\u201d we wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike D has explained why his Beastie Boys bandmate Ad-Rock doesn\u2019t feature on his new solo album \u2018Thank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-758908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}