shawn@collegehoops.net

January 31st 2006

Band of the Week: DMC Interview

Band:  DMC

Hometown:  Queens, NY

College:  St John's University

What’s your favorite college team and why?

What’s my favorite college team and why? Hmm, right now I think it’s Duke because that guard, what’s the guard’s name? He scores, the guy, there’s a guy. But I think it’s Duke, because the level that they play in is always consistent and they’re exciting to see and very entertaining and they just, they just play a superior level of basketball every time year by year by year.

Do you watch much college basketball and if not, what other sports are you into?

Well football is my main sport. I don’t really watch college basketball, started watching it recently ‘cause my son, he plays for his boys and girls club. Sixth grade, so his coach told him “Don’t watch NBA, watch college ball to really learn how to play”. So I heard that, ‘cause I gotta brush up on my game so I don’t care if my son don’t watch it, I’m watchin’ it. But football is like, my sport. If I wasn’t rappin’ I wanted to play football but the schools that I went to…I went to a Catholic elementary, a Catholic high school, and a Catholic college—St. John’s—and none of ‘em have football teams. So I said ‘Okay, I can’t play football, let me rap’.

College basketball’s finale is of course the Final Four .  If you had to choose the Final Four of your all-time favorite bands who would that be?

Oh my god, of all-time favorite bands?  The Final Four…oh my…Okay all-time favorite bands, Final Four…It would have to be the Beatles…It would have to be Led Zepplin…It would have to be The Grateful Dead and it would—oh that’s a good one, the four bands of all time…ooooh, that’s a big one. It would probably have to be Creedence—I mean not Creedence, not Creedence—Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. And then, who would take it all?...Oh god, there’s the Beatles and Led Zepplin, that’s hard…”Stairway to Heaven”!, Led Zepplin, would have to take it.

Sorry John. John Lennon is like one of my favorite artists of all time but I have to give it to Led Zepplin ‘cause that record, um, “Stairway to Heaven” is just phenomenal, so it works.

If you can hang out for an evening with any athlete—college or pro—who would it be?

Wow, that’s a funny question but, um, it would have to be Eric Dickerson of well, the Rams and then the Colts and, I used to idolize Eric Dickerson.  

Have you already met him?

I’ve met him like 3 times, he’s really cool, but he was just…just the way he ran, the way he looked, it was like the ultimate running back. And I tell people this all the time; before Eric Dickerson…I gotta say it, I mean it’s so bad to say right now but when I always wanted to play football, my idol was always O.J. Simpson. But you know, I mean, you can’t take him—‘cause he was the man, but then of ‘all-time’, Eric Dickerson. For sure.

Basketball’s often associated with hip-hop music…Which rappers, which groups do you think best, you know, most goes with a sport?

I would think Public Enemy, “Don’t Believe the Hype”, “Bum Rush the Show”…“Welcome The Terrordome”…Public Enemy. For sure.

Have you played at many college venues or in a lot of college towns?

Oh, we (Run DMC) played so many, I mean we played every college in Boston. Colleges are always the best shows. I remember one year, we probably did almost every college, we did junior college, major, we did every college in Boston, UCLA, USC…every college. We play colleges a lot. For sure, the best shows. We even flew one time, I remember one time we had college shows on a college tour, and we flew from New York up to Vermont and we flew on a little propeller plane, not two propellers, one propeller to (makes noise) like this, and it was so crazy. Somewhere up in Vermont we landed, but the landing strip was in people’s backyards, with the houses…And people would always ask us, especially when we’d go to those little college towns, “Why did y’all come here?”, and we felt so sorry for ‘em—“What do you mean why do we come here? We came here ‘cause somebody asked us to”… “And y’all came?”…We couldn’t believe that but yeah, we played every college…at Loyola Marymont, yeah college is the best.

Which school was the best, which school do you think had the best audience?

I don’t know, it’s a toss up for, Boston College was a mother, I would say Boston College…Well I put it like this, all the colleges in Boston ‘cause Boston loved us to death. For sure. So I would say all the colleges in Boston. Because,…what’s funny is, the same people, we did like a week out there touring so same guys from different schools kept coming with their boys so, one kid, one buncha guys, they was at all 7 shows.

All college athletic teams of course have a mascot, like the Devils, Tigers, or Wolverines. If your band could have a mascot, what would it be?

That’s a good question, if we had a mascot what would it be? It would have to be, wow that’s a good question. If we had a mascot…it would have—okay, I wanna say, well if I had a mascot right now it would be the Hulk. But if Run DMC had a mascot, it would have to be probably a robot. An indestructible robot. For sure, ‘cause that’s how we got down.

It would be a robot. Nobody has a robot (laughs). It’s like the Terminator or something.

Learn more about DMC and other great music in CHN's Band of the Week archive.