Mike D blames death of spandex on grunge

Mike D has lamented the death of hair metal, saying grunge made it uncool to wear spandex.

The Beastie Boys hero – aka Michael Diamond – has been reflecting on the 1990s and his memories of the decade that spawned grunge and Britpop, and saw hip-hop reach new heights.

He tells Vanity Fair: “Grunge was a death sentence to the rock that preceded it, which was hair metal. All of a sudden, grunge came in. It wasn’t cool any more, if you were a guy at the gas station, to be into Warrant.

“You couldn’t have big, fluffy long hair – you had to have fucked-up shorter hair and a plaid shirt. You couldn’t be walking around the gas station in spandex any more.”

He says of the genre he’s best known for: “The early 90s in terms of hip-hop was an apex moment. You had an evolution through the 80s up to then. All of a sudden you had hip-hop groups on Arsenio Hall.”

The Beastie Boys lost Adam Yauch – aka MCA – to cancer in 2012 and said earlier this year they’d never consider recording or touring as a duo.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.