In 1992, Beastie Boys toured extensively in support of their third studio album Check Your Head, choosing to curate their hour-long sets with songs that required guitar, bass and drums rather than simply rely on turntables and samplers.
Joined by front-of-house engineer Mario Caldato Jr and unofficial fourth member and keys specialist 'Money Mark' Nishita, the trio – Michael Diamond (drums), Adam Yauch (bass) and Adam Horovitz (guitar) – played 123 shows around the world.
While their tour laundry was still drying on their radiators, the group immediately began work on their fourth album with a two-month stay at New York City's Tin Pan Alley studio early the following year.
"By the end of that cycle of touring, we'd grown comfortable with the musical language we’d developed together," Diamond wrote in the Beastie Boys' book, titled Beastie Boys Book. "Yauch lobbied for us to do the first stretch in New York. He missed his friends and family."
That year of solid touring gave the group and unshakeable confidence in the studio; Caldato would record them as they fleshed out ideas or jammed just for the fun of it. One of Yauch's bass lines caught Diamond's attention; it was so catchy, he assumed it was something his friend had learned from a record.
