The Dust Brothers are the Los Angeles-based producers "E.Z. Mike" (Michael Simpson) and "King Gizmo" (John King), famous for their sample-based music in the 1980s, and specifically for their work on the groundbreaking albums Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys and Odelay by Beck.
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1980s
The Dust Brothers started out working together on a California college radio station hosting a weekly show called "King Gizmo & E.Z. Mike's Big Beat Showcase", which featured hip-hop music. They eventually teamed to DJ at parties, and by the end of the decade scored a production deal with the Delicious Vinyl record label. In 1989, they produced and sequenced Tone Loc's very successful album Loc'ed after Dark featuring the rap single Wild Thing, which reached number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. They also produced two tracks on Young MC's debut album Stone Cold Rhymin. Through a mutual friend, Matt Dike, the Dust Brothers were introduced to Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys. Matt played some instrumental music created by the Dust Brothers for Adam, and he was so impressed that he recruited the Dust Brothers to make the music for the second Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique which was considered one of the best albums of all-time by Time Magazine in 2006 [1].
1990s
In the mid-90s, Beck took an interest in shedding the reputation of being destined to be a one-hit wonder (after the success of his single "Loser") and had the Dust Brothers produce his very successful album entitled Odelay, released in 1996. The album spawned the hit songs "Where It's At" (reached #64 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100), "Devil's Haircut" (reached #94 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100), "The New Pollution" (reached #74 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100) and "Jackass" (reached #73 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100). In 1997, the Dust Brothers produced a track with Korn called "Kick the P.A." for the Spawn soundtrack, produced the hit "MMMBop" for Hanson's first major label album Middle of Nowhere and created a song on the soundtrack to the Howard Stern film Private Parts named "The Ben Stern Megamix", featuring audio clips recorded several decades earlier of Ben (Howard's father). They also took part in the production of the Rolling Stones album Bridges to Babylon. In 1998, the duo were approached by director David Fincher to assemble the score for the film Fight Club, most notably "This is Your Life", a song featuring lines from the film, including dialogue by the character Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). This remains their only original release to date. In 1999, they produced a poorly-received album by rap group 10 Cents named Buggin Out, featuring the single "Bubble Bath".
2000s
In the 2000s, the Dust Brothers have had continued success, again collaborating with Beck on the album Guero, Tenacious D on their self-titled debut, Linkin Park with a track called "With You" on their 10 million+ selling debut album Hybrid Theory, remixing the Styles Of Beyond track "Winnetka Exit" which made its way onto a Styles Of Beyond promotional CD Spies Like Us / Winnetka Exit, producing the They Might Be Giants album The Else that was digitally released on May 15th, 2007 through the iTunes Music Store as well as working with several other artists, producing and/or remixing individual songs or entire albums.
Note
- The Dust Brothers was also the original name used by The Chemical Brothers as a homage to the American duo, but changed their name when they were threatened with a lawsuit by the producer duo. [2]
