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The Beastie Boys explain why they're different from Brett Kavanaugh

Beastie Boys Mike D and Ad-Rock talk about Russell Simmons, Brett Kavanaugh, and owning up to teenage mistakes

For almost 30 years, the Beastie Boys fought for their right to party. Now, almost a decade after their last record, they've decided to tell the complete story.

When the Beastie Boys burst onto the scene in 1986, the three nasally, white, boy rappers from New York City had only recently abandoned a sputtering career in punk rock.

"Our goal, basically, the high end of dreams, would be to get like three free drink tickets for a night. I don't think we ever thought about where our record would be on the charts," said Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz.

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Their debut hip-hop album, “License to Ill,” sold 10 million copies worldwide, celebrated by drunken frat boys convinced their partying rights were being infringed. And they played to stereotype.

"We bought into it, and it was super fun for a while. We had ambition, but not, like, commercial ambition. We didn't see ourselves being this huge rap group on MTV," said band member Michael "Mike D" Diamond.

But the Beastie Boys would change with the times (and apologize for the past) while becoming one of the most successful rap groups of all time — a monumental run that stretched through founding member Adam Yauch's 2012 death, and far beyond, as new fans continue to embrace their back catalogue.

"It's this weird thing, when you're looking out at the audience and it's like, 'Oh my God, wait, we were making fun of this thing, and now we are this thing, and now, not only that, we're expected to be this thing, and if we're not that thing, then who are we?'" Diamond said.

Their new book hopes to answer all questions of growing up and ownership of past mistakes — including those of new Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh and Russell Simmons, the band's former manager. Horovitz and Diamond both say they had no idea what Simmons was doing and haven't been in contact with him in some time. Still, they freely admit that they've both behaved in ways they now regret.

"There's some Kavanaugh influence," Diamond said, looking back at the band's early years. "A lot of people go through that life arc, and hopefully own up to their own shit, and hopefully can move through it and be reflective of it."

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The band, who were rapping about treating women with respect by the mid-90s, later drew criticism for speaking out about sexual assault at the '99 Woodstock revival. Horovitz says it was "like someone had farted up the room. People were not in the mood for it," but says it was important for him to take a stand.

"You can say that, you know, you were a kid when you did it, but you have to own that," Horovitz. "You’re allowed mistakes, only if you own up to it and learn from it."

And that's something Horovitz said separates the band's early indiscretions from those of people like Kavanaugh.

"Especially with that fucking Brett Kavanaugh, not making any comments about what it was like to be a high school boy in that privileged thing for him, and to just give a middle finger to the whole thing, it's just fucking wrong," Horovitz said.

This segment originally aired November 12, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.