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The recording of the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique album over a 16-month period in '87-'88 has become legendary. One of the most underrated and best hip hop albums of all time, Miles Davis used to say he never tired of listening to it. There were stories of smoking mushrooms and reading the Bible, of sampling one break at a time with a primitive Emax, some basic texture sequencing equipment and a 286 IBM computer. And of course there were the obscure breaks from Black Oak Arkansas, Alice Cooper, The Crash Crew and the movie Jaws.

Before Portishead used movie soundtracks, there were the Dust Brothers. Before Cypress Hill exhaled clouds of smoke over blues breaks, there were the Dust Brothers. Who else has even attempted to sample Isaac Hayes, BDP, Pato Banton, James Brown and seven different Beatles breaks in one tune?

Mike Simpson and John King, aka The Dust Brothers, have their own "debut" album slated for release in 1996. Arriving at their L.A. home and studio after an all night drive, we shook hands and proceeded to talk about production methods, sounds of things that aren't really there, their love of Ramsey Lewis, why weed makes you hear better, and Mike's latest acquisition - a 15,000 piece vintage record collection . . .

"People are made of nothing so much as dust..."
- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

CK: What is the mode of operation for the Dust Brothers when you go into the studio with someone like Beck or the Beastie Boys?

DB: It's all so random. In the case of the Beastie Boys that was just being in the right place at the right time. They came over, asked to rhyme over these beats we had been tweaking with, for what should have been the first Dust Brothers album in 1987, and within a week they said: "Book some studio time, let's do it."
With Beck it's different. Usually we just play records and get inspired. Sometimes we just bring out these beats we've done and he'll play guitar over 'em, but lately it's been more like we just put on some wack record, laugh about it and go from there.

CK: As producers what are you trying to accomplish?

DB: It's all about developing this musical language to communicate effectively with the artist. I could say 'heavy' or 'fat' but that means different thing to different people. So it's our job to identify the vision of the artist and record it for them. With the technology today, you could swim around in the studio forever just fucking around trying to get different sounds, so we try to keep the artist focused. And if they come in and don't know what they want to do, but they want to just try some out-there shit, that's cool too.

CK: What does technology allow you to do that before was impossible or too cumbersome?

DB: The coolest thing is like how we work with Mark Nishita (Money Mark). He'll come in and play keyboards for about ten minutes over a track we've done and then we'll start throwing away everything that isn't absolutely great. So from that ten minutes, we can get a song-length track of really incredible music. Invariably, it's the accidents that are the coolest stuff and the technology just helps us to capture that. Something that you could never play again, even if you wanted to. That sounds so funky...

CK: Did that happen a lot on the Beastie's record?

DB: Oh yeah. It seemed like it to me. It seemed like a lot of my scratching was fucked up, but we'd listen back to the mistakes and say, "hey, that was pretty good." But still the album sounds really polished. To us we know what went on, but if you weren't there, you wouldn't know about all the mistakes. We really worked a long time on that record so that it sounded exactly how we wanted it. And just because something is a mistake doesn't mean it's not totally incredible.

CK: How do you get along having two minds in the studio?

DB: We take care of business. It's a combination where we switch off. I'll be on the computer arranging, and Mike will be chilling, talking to the artist or he'll be finding some breaks and I'll be going to the bank making a deposit. It's completely random. However it works out. It's about random collaboration.

CK: What led you to sample the shower scene in Psycho for the "Egg Man"?

DB: A lot of our ideas are just made up in our heads. We just hear sounds, all kinds of sounds. It comes from being aware of sounds all around us. John might be in working with Beck and I'm on the phone and then I'll hear something they're doing, indirectly and later I'll make the connection and go get the record it jarred in my memory. A lot of times, I'll just hear things that aren't there. I just hear things, notes or horns, things being suggested by the overtones in the music I'm hearing. Maybe other people hear it too.

CK: Everything seems "dusted" nowadays, including a James Lavelle gig in London. Where did you get the name originally?

DB: We wanted a name that was kinda fucked up, ill. Crack Brothers was one of the first names that came to mind. At the time, in like '87, crack was all over the news, but we decided against it. Our music to us just seemed dusted. Plus no one could really believe all the pot we smoked at the time.

CK: That's not a big secret I suppose. How does it affect your music?

DB: I can't work without it because I can't focus. My mind will be concentrating on appointments or bills due. Plus it helps you to ignore time, relax, enjoy what you're doing at that moment. It also keeps you from getting too motivated to stop and go do something else. It effects the blood flow to your ears because it increases your heart rate and thus the sensitivity in your ears. My theory is you just have to smoke enough to get past the thresh hold, and once you do that all the bad side effects go away, like forgetfulness.