The ice cream shop that launched the Beastie Boys’ career
Before I was a music journalist, I used to scoop ice cream. Two years sweating over a plethora of milky goodness, injected with a dangerous amount of E-numbers to make the colours sing. I thought this made me unique, but turns out I’m not the only one in the music world with a background in the dairy industry; the Beastie Boys‘ very first single was inspired by a specific ice cream shop.
Alas, the gaggle of teenage virtuosos weren’t spurred into their enduring creative collaboration by a scoop of bubblegum ice cream served on my rural English ice cream farm; rather, it was the US ice cream chain store, Carvel, that lies central to the story of their beginnings.
The American franchise, still operating to this day after 97 long, decadent years, is best known for its cheap, cheerful soft serve ice cream. But, in 1983, another culinary creation threatened the soft-serve crown; Cookie Puss, which had cookies for eyes and an ice cream cone for a nose. New York City was awash with low-budget TV commercials advertising the sugary fiend; through its insistence, the group saw the laughable nature of the character.
The group of teenagers called their local Carvel’s and asked for Cookie Pusses number, a humorous, if slightly wince-worthy sonic experience which they’d later sample atop a steady, scratchy beat. Listen to it, and it’s quite hard to believe that, only three years later, the group would release Licensed to Ill, the first ever rap album to hit the top spot on the American charts.
“There’s definitely a line between funny prank call and being mean,” Adam Horovitz has since looked back on his 17-year-old self, finding the crackly single cringe-worthy and an unfortunate first foray into the waters of hip-hop experimentation. “Just randomly calling and cursing a woman out on the phone is not cool,” Horovitz stressed.
At least it happily represents an important lesson for the group that they learned at the very start of their career; sometimes, creativity doesn’t come to you, you go to it. Often, artists are silenced into creative stagnation with the overwhelming need to comment on everything happening at once: sociopolitical affairs, global tragedy, and personal afflictions. Instead, the merry friends saw the goofy image of a cookie monster on the subway and rode with that.
It’s a lesson that rears its head with consistent aptitude across their impressive discography. For example, on their album Paul’s Boutique, an off-putting sample of George Clinton can be heard, while on the 2006 song ‘Check It Out’, the comedian David Cross is sampled, making the infamous “where now uh-huh-OK” sound important for the mood and playful texture of the track.
Eventually, the ice cream extravaganza would find its way onto a college radio station, which piqued the interest of music guru Rick Rubin. We all know that this would lead to the boys being signed to Def Jam Records.
Unfortunately, as is noted in their ineptitude in the recording of the prank call, they would leave drummer Kate Schellenbach behind at the sign of the fortuitous opportunity. Boys will be boys.
