After a few years of well earned rest, a cancer scare and a slew of confusing album switch-ups New York legends Beastie Boys are back with their eighth full length LP Hot Sauce Committee Part 2.

Possibly to do with the events of their extended absence and the fact that they are the GD Beastie Boys, the trio of Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA skipped the usual promotional route for the album, offering up only one interview to all media. This is it. We’ve edited it slightly to get rid of some shitty bits – the questions are still not great – but it’s an interesting insight into the Beastie Boys of 2011 and the genesis of their new record.

What does the title of your new album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two mean?

Ad-Rock: The title, we can’t actually tell you what it means. It is code for several different operative manoeuvres that we’re encountering at this particular time. All we can say at this particular time is that it’s hot and it is covering in terms of all encompassing. And we’re in charge of that.

Did you record two albums with the same title or why does the new record have the add-on Part Two?

Ad-Rock: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two or rather I’m gonna back that up, Hot Sauce Committee Part One, when recording it, we recorded a lot of songs, and I mean when I say a lot of songs I mean a lot of songs. And so when we started putting the arrangements together of how the songs would go on Hot Sauce Committee Part One there was a few too many songs and so we decided what we would do is to put out two records and we’ll take the weirdest of the songs and move them to the right side and make more weird songs and that will be Part Two to our Part One…the weird stuff.

What’s the new record about?

MCA: This album – what is it all about. I would say this album is sort of an adventure and it’s an excursion. Earlier we were talking about that in some ways it’s like a rollercoaster ride. And it’s like when you go up on the rollercoaster, Adam was pointing this out, and you just get to the top and you about to drop off and just boom when you go down that first big hill that gives you all your speed then the person in the front row throws up, the throw up flies back into the people in the back. This…we’re sort of like guys in the front that are throwing up and the people who are listening to us are like the people riding in the back of the rollercoaster and I apologize for that right out of the gate. But that’s part of it and I think also that’s just kind of a visit to one of those amusement parks where you can see all the animal hanging out also, then you’ll be there with the headphones on listening and you’ll be like “Oh shit – that’s a lion over there“, then I see an elephant. Something like that maybe, I don’t know.

What parameters did you have when recording the album?

MCA: There were parameters in making this record and the basic parameters we came in with were to keep the songs short, keep it moving and not let’s get barked down in any like 5 minute jams. Which for the most part we did although some songs are a little longer than others. We wanted to keep it raw (I’m not sure if we talked about this already – there’s no interrupting, hold on, Michael) We wanted to keep it raw, we did our best to do by using shitty microphones (you can beep that out, can’t you?) And just generally tried not to let it be too clean which is a bit of work these days because a lot of the machinery that’s around, lot of the microphones and what not and my priests tend to be too clean so you have sometimes go out of your way to keep it raw. And the last parameter, I would say, was to try to mix some different styles in a way that we hadn’t, to really layer different types of music over each other.

What ambitions did you have when writing the album?

Mike D: It’s certain rules like in kind of making it, show some kind of more aspiration like keeping the songs short, keeping things raw which meant kinda keeping the performances more spontaneous. But that doesn’t mean that, I guess to clarify, that doesn’t mean that the idea by being more spontaneous that doesn’t mean that we have a lower ambition for it or settling for less. It’s more like we had a big ambition in terms of really being inclusive of any different styles or any different idea and really trying to also, another thing we went after was to layer sonically, make things as dense as possible. Almost a little bit like we did on Paul’s Boutique, but probably with a lot more different instrumental elements. Some samples but a lot more played stuff than obviously is on Paul’s Boutique. And then also using our vocals instead of having our vocals up on top and kind of more of a common pop way of having those a little more in the mix as like another musical element. I guess that was our ambition or what we wanted trying to do and within that we worked a song by song basis. Like this is one experiment and this is another one. Each idea has its own life.