With brand new tracks from Mike D, a run of small-venue shows, and the exciting news of an upcoming album, a lot of attention has been put on the fact that he’s the first Beastie Boy to go solo after the 2012 death of Adam “MCA” Yauch. But, as he admitted in a June 2026 interview with NME, that wasn’t even a milestone he was aware of.
“To be honest, there was no race to the finish line on that one!” he said when asked if he felt any pressure. “I’m still thankfully good friends with Ad-Rock and he’s not racing me on this one. It wasn’t until I had to sit down and do the first interview that I realized that was a thing.”
Mike D publicly revealed his solo endeavor around May, after making a surprise appearance on stage with his two sons. Davis and Skyler Diamond make up the lo-fi/indie/hip-hop duo Very Nice Person, and their father often collaborates. But there hadn’t been a Beastie Boy on any track since 2012.
That changed once Mike D released two singles in May, “Switch Up” and “What We Got”. After that, he played two shows in Los Angeles and Brooklyn, then announced his first solo U.K. tour. He spoke of booking small, independent, and often surprising venues across the pond as a way to support the diminished grassroots music scene in the U.K.
Mike D Shares Minimal Details of Upcoming Record, But Says His Sons Gave Him Unbiased Edits
After the Beastie Boys disbanded following the loss of MCA, Mike D busied himself with some producing for other artists. But mostly, he said, being a parent was his main focus. Later, working on The Beastie Boys Book with Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz took priority for a bit.
“We so much loved all three of us being in a band with each other for Beastie Boys,” said Mike D of Yauch and Horovitz. “When Yauch died, it was an extremely sad time for me so making music was just not on the table.”
It was a long time before he got back to making his own music. But there’s nothing like a home studio and two sons in a band to get the creative juices flowing again.
“I 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. That was fun and everything,” he admitted, “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. I was like, ‘What the f—k am I doing? Bands shouldn’t be doing my ideas, they should be making their own ideas and I should be making my own ideas’.”
So Mike D got back into making his own ideas. But the new singles aren’t the last we’ll hear of those ideas, and he revealed that there’s a new album on the way. His sons apparently helped a lot, he explained, calling them “my best editors.” He alluded to their frankness coming from the fact that he’s just Dad, and not Former Beastie Boy Mike D.
“The way I describe the record is that musically it’s still pretty immature, and lyrically it’s a little bit more mature,” he said of the forthcoming album. “I just feel like there’s more of the things I had to tap into. I had to learn how to feel all over again.”
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