Henry Rollins recalls Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch’s newfound passion for Tibetan liberation
Henry Rollins has enough stories for several lifetimes, including one that places him right in the middle of a pivotal moment in the Beastie Boys timeline.
Ever since retiring from music, the punk icon has travelled the world and shared his adventures with others through text and microphone, such that he has always had a whole lot to say about a wide range of subjects, yet it never gets dull because he backs it all up with firsthand experiences. From smuggling Black Sabbath and the Ramones’ music into Iran to befriending his tour guide in North Korea, he truly has been to all the places and in all the situations he talks about.
Unsurprisingly, Rollins even claims to have been present when Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch of the Beastie Boys returned from his first trip to Tibet, which was the beginning of the hip-hop pioneer’s lifelong advocacy for the region’s liberation from Chinese administration.
In 2018, the former Black Flag vocalist embarked on the Henry Rollins Travel Slideshow to talk about his foreign encounters all over the world, and during a stop at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle, he took a moment to expand on how taken aback he was by the beauty of Tibet, and what led him to even visit in the first place.
After bragging about having had the pleasure of watching the Beastie Boys perform 53 times and stressing that they simply never missed on stage, he recalled being asked to do a New Year’s show with them toward the end of 1992, going into 1993. Rollins remembers being backstage with two of the three members of the trio in Detroit, with Yauch noticeably absent since he was flying back to the United States from Tibet at the time.
“Adam Yauch gets there like two hours before showtime, and he comes bursting into the dressing room, bouncing off the walls,” he remembered, “Adam was a very low-key guy, really nice guy, but just kinda quiet, but on this evening, he’s like high on Tibet.”
Elaborating further on how that trip profoundly impacted the New York native, he continued, “It changed his life, and as you know, from the ’90s till when he sadly passed away, he advocated for the well-being of the Tibetan people. And it wasn’t some hobby; it was every damn day. He was dead serious about it.”
This inspired Rollins to see for himself what the big deal with Tibet was, prompting him to visit the region years later, and what he saw and experienced went on to become a part of his travel roadshow, the purpose of which was to encourage people to explore the world and meet people outside their comfort zones.
The same year as these talks, the two surviving members of the Beastie Boys wrote about Yauch’s activism in the Beastie Boys Book, in the introduction of which, Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz wrote: “Yauch wanted to see the world. So he did. He went to India and looked around. Saw things, met people. While on one of his trips there, he got in touch with the plight of the people of Tibet. He was so moved by their culture and what they had endured, and continue to endure, he came back home and wanted—needed—to let people who didn’t know know”.
He added, “So he put together a big concert. Not just a show, but a fucking massive benefit concert in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. And that was just the start. He ended up having a bunch of these shows all over the world. Huge concerts in baseball stadiums. With huge bands like U2. Yeah, he could get in the door and on the snowboard helicopter in Alaska because he was famous, but not many people can rally so many others to work for free. Especially for some ‘weirdo’ cause like nonviolence. Passion and compassion. Yauch had ’em.”
