Beastie Boys' Mike D discusses his first solo album, Thank You

Mike D, born Michael Diamond, has released his debut solo album, Thank You, out August 28, and spoke about building it without the cover of the Beastie Boys behind him for the first time.

"There was the insecurity and fear that I think comes up when you're putting something creative out. You're sharing it with the world," the 60-year-old musician said. He built the record with a group of younger musicians, including his own sons, Skyler and Davis Diamond, working together under the name Mike D 5D. The result leans into a psychedelic rock sound that echoes his hip-hop and rock roots with the Beastie Boys, paired with his familiar rap delivery on tracks like "What We Got," "That's Right" and "It's Time."

The album also carries the weight of a loss Diamond has lived with for over a decade. The Beastie Boys ended when bandmate Adam "MCA" Yauch died of cancer in 2012. "Yauch was like an older brother to me, and his presence meant a lot to us when we were in the band," Diamond said, adding that he needed time to process the loss and used part of it to focus on becoming a father.

Diamond, who was 20 when Licensed to Ill came out in 1986, said he does not go back and listen to that record now, though he still thinks fondly about the joy of recording those early demos with Yauch and bandmate Adam Horovitz. Working through his own psychology around leadership was part of making the new album, too; he called himself uncomfortable even describing himself as a leader, a word he said carries too much baggage in a world dominated by "the worst examples of selfish leadership."

Now a father raising his own children in a different New York than the one he grew up in, Diamond said he wanted Thank You to hold an emotional honesty that his own parents' generation avoided, treating his kids as people he can talk to about real things rather than shielding them from difficulty.