By their own admission, Beastie Boys were not terribly nice people to be around while touring their hugely-successful debut album Licensed to Ill. Having initially adopted the personas of obnoxious, entitled, bratty, arrogant, misogynist dickheads as a joke, Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA - or Michael Diamond, Adam Horovitz and Adam Yauch as they were better known to their well-to-do, respectable Jewish families - found themselves unable to step out of character for the longest time.
In the trio's wonderfully entertaining memoir Beastie Boys Book, Adam Horovitz provides a memorable, if somewhat gross, metaphor for the group's metamorphosis.
"The three years leading up to the end of the Licensed to Ill tours in 1987 were like watching a pimple on your face grow into a huge and amazing spectacle," he writes. "As though you really wanted it there. You want people to see it. Want people to admire how big and ghastly it is. But when you're alone, looking in the mirror, you know it's gross. You have to pop it, but you can't. It's your calling card. It's what gets you attention and fulfilment... You wake up one day to realize you are that fucking pimple, and oh jeez..."
