February 5, 2024 • 9 mins
Founding member of the legendary RUN-DMC Joseph 'Rev Run' Simmons talks new documentary and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Real Fun with Mario Lopezebel.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Mario Lopez jording me now on Zoom.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Founding member of Run DMC, Member of the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, Joseph Simmons aka Reverend Run.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the show, sir, How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
What's up?
Speaker 4 (00:14):
Man?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Chilling, chilling, chilling.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh, so good to see.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I gotta tell you before we start. I just want
you to know that my very first concert ever was
Run DMC along with the Beastie Boys Together Forever Forever too.
We're back in nineteen eighty seven. I saw at the Santego
Sports Arena and I was like, Wow, Wow, that blew
me away when y'all came you remember that show?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Do you remember that show?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
My god?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
And when you all came out in my oh, I
was like, and I'm like this fourteen thirteen, fourteen year
old kid.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And it just oh man, And I just turned me
into the biggest fan.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So it's crazy how music can just take you, just
transport you back to a certain time. Remember when I
was wearing I remember when I went with my uncle.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It was just so cool.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Man.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I love that you you remember it, which may makes
me really excited to see the new Peacock documentary Kings
from Queen's.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Are you happy with the way it turned out?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yes, it's good. I love it awesome. It's cool. It
gives you the history of run DMC.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
It shows you where it came from, how I started
DJing in Daryl's basement and I moved on to holding
my craft in my attic. So going back to Hollis
Queen's was a really cool moment for me. I was
like when I went to my old house, I was like, wow,
so up there is where I learned how to DJ,
(01:34):
because you know, I like DJ and more than I
like wrapping.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, I loved by heart I used to have. I
had the turntails back in the day.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And you know what's funny is that you mentioned Hollis
So I like to do. My kids gave me to
do these old TikTok videos and stuff. And for Christmas
we did Christmas in Hollis, my son and.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I time and Hollis Queen. Hey. Then Colin Green, I
think it would be on my show today.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I'll show you the dance.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'll show you that said I did with my son
on the on the video right there.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I wanted to see that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, oh that's great, man. It correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean, I know there was other rap groups prior
to you, but y'all were the first really rap group
to sort of.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Transcend outside of the hip hop scene and go mainstream.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And you know what I mean, even like little Mexican
kid like me, like you know what I'm saying it
just because you just y'all transit, right, there were the
very first ones.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well here's the deal.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
There was things going on before us, Like you know,
there was pretty big hits. They had the sugar Hill
Game of course, and then there was Melly Mel with
Red Master Flesh that had the message.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Right, I think my body I remember Arena Toys, right,
I mean I think Melle Mellon that were doing tours.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But it was like with Rick James or the ball Kas.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
When run DMC came along, we started doing tours in
our own right, So we were playing Madison Square Garden
as the headliners.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, so it was going down, you.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Know, but it wasn't going down like when run DMC
came with our own tour with the beat like you
sort of these people was that was that was like
brand new to see rap groups headlining their own tour.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I was very first concert, which was awesome.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, man, people tell me this was my first CD,
this is my first concert. I'm like, how can everybody
say this is their first CD or their first.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Concrest I'm telling you, but I tell you everybody, I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Telling you because I think because y'all are the first.
Like I said, that kind of transcended outside of the knee,
you know what I mean. And it was cool and
it was edgy.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And it was it was it was great songs and
then they got big, right exactly now, who inspired all
you guys as artists?
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I'll tell you who inspired me was Grandmaster Flash, Mellie Mel,
Furious Five, and.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
The Cold Crush Brothers. The Cold Crush Brothers was.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
From out of the Bronx and they came with a
style that was so organized. Grand Master Cavs was actually
a dude who wrote the rhyme for the Rapper's Delight.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Rapping the Light was the first big hip hop record.
I remember that, and.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
That's why when they go I'm the c a s.
And because he was saying he the Casanova, he wasn't.
Kaz was casting this dude his rhyme book.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Oh god.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
So Grandmaster Caz gave I think Big Bang Tank his
rhyme book. And when he was rhyme and he was
actually saying Kaz his.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Name, Oh wow, that's wild.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Never got Dad, never got the credit. So the Cold
Crush Brothers was who I'm in V. So when people
like Ice Cuba, younger people are like, oh run DMC uh,
they they inspired me. I understand where they're coming from
because I was so inspired by and Will Swift said
the same thing. We were all inspired by Flash on
(04:41):
the turntables.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
He was Grandmaster Flash.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
We had jam Master j h EMC and Grandmaster Caz
was gmc.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Gmc right got it, and Curtis Blow before.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Okay, let's go back to that.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
So Curtis Blow was with my brother Russell, So I
was a kid waking up in the morning when they
would come in from they went to c CNY College,
cooking practice for them, trying to be down. So they
made me the son of Curtis Blow. I was in
DJ for Curtis Blow way before run DMC was put together.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
He was before then.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Yeah, Curtis Blow was early on and he had two
records before run DMC came out in right Christmas Wrapping Red,
and he had the breaks.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
The breaks, give it up, give it up, give it up.
He always had that same kind of kittens, I love
it right.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So I was down with Curtis Blow before I put
together Run DMC.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Oh man, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And was there, Mama, when you realized run DMC was
about to become something bigger than the Queen scene.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Do you remember like a particular moment.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I remember the Fresh Festival. This is before the concert
that you saw. We would play stadiums. We were playing
with the Fat Boys, remember.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The Fat Right, of course.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
So we would do these concerts and we played Madison
Square Garden around that time eighty four eighty five.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I was like, oh, this is big.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, We're playing twelve fifteen, twenty thousand people a night
around the world.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
So when the Fresh Best verse hitting.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Around eighty four eighty five is when I realized, uh, oh,
this is huge.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And I always wanted to know this was the Adida
saying just something that happened by accident. Do y' all
just like Adidas or did they reach out to you?
Because they all should give you some stock.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
And there was a spirit behind us.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
We would go on Jamaica Avenue and Queens and new
things were coming out with pumas and Adidas sneakers and
cool things that you really couldn't afford. But then we
got little hit records, so we could have pulled out
a pair of Adidas shell toes and we were just
wearing it because we wouldn't change our clothes when we
hit the stage. Just what whatever we had on, that's
(07:04):
what you would see. And that's why I says on
Adidas the recond my Adidas. We took the beat from
the street and put it on TV.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
So Adidas came later and said, how can we be
down with what y'all are doing? And then they gave
us an endorsement deal and all this stuff. But we
were gonna do it whether they gave us a deal
or not. We were loving those street clothes.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, oh damn.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
They got lucky.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Then Adidas just got y'all giving them hinds ketchup.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
They would yeah, hines ketchup. Well, my corn flakes.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Right right right right. I'll never get that. That's a
moment I remember when I said, my dude and the
lights went on. I go, oh, and I'm a little
kid going on.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It's so cool.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Now now I know the jam Master J trial is
actually going on. Right now, I believe you confident there's
gonna be a justice enclosure.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
You know the way I look at this because it's
it's so much, you know, so much love I have
for Jay.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
When people ask me about the first thing I.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Want to do is more than talk about what happened
and what's going on.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Is number one, I love him.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Number two, I miss him, and I like to talk
about his legacy. Jay was the nicest guy in the world, right,
really nice, like a gem of a human being.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
But he was nice on those turntables. So when Jay would.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Hit the turntables, it would drive the crowd crazy. So
for me, when I hear about you know, when it happened,
and now.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
What's going on and caught it and all this stuff,
I just go back to the love that I have
for him. And my main quote that I.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Tell everybody that's i've been on this tour talking about
the documentary is I love him dearly and I miss
him dearly.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
That's awesome, man, that's awesome. Well, I got to tell you.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I'm really looking forward to seeing you in person and
looking forward to checking out the doc. Uh you be
sure to check out the doc Kings from Queens is
available right now on Peak Talk. Reverend Ron God bless
my man. I'll see you in a bit. I'm gonna
see you in a bit, looking forward to that video.
I will I will take care of down with Mario
(09:11):
Lopez
Real Fun with Mario Lopezebel.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Mario Lopez jording me now on Zoom.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Founding member of Run DMC, Member of the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, Joseph Simmons aka Reverend Run.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the show, sir, How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
What's up?
Speaker 4 (00:14):
Man?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Chilling, chilling, chilling.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh, so good to see.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I gotta tell you before we start. I just want
you to know that my very first concert ever was
Run DMC along with the Beastie Boys Together Forever Forever too.
We're back in nineteen eighty seven. I saw at the Santego
Sports Arena and I was like, Wow, Wow, that blew
me away when y'all came you remember that show?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Do you remember that show?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
My god?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
And when you all came out in my oh, I
was like, and I'm like this fourteen thirteen, fourteen year
old kid.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And it just oh man, And I just turned me
into the biggest fan.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So it's crazy how music can just take you, just
transport you back to a certain time. Remember when I
was wearing I remember when I went with my uncle.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It was just so cool.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Man.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I love that you you remember it, which may makes
me really excited to see the new Peacock documentary Kings
from Queen's.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Are you happy with the way it turned out?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yes, it's good. I love it awesome. It's cool. It
gives you the history of run DMC.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
It shows you where it came from, how I started
DJing in Daryl's basement and I moved on to holding
my craft in my attic. So going back to Hollis
Queen's was a really cool moment for me. I was
like when I went to my old house, I was like, wow,
so up there is where I learned how to DJ,
(01:34):
because you know, I like DJ and more than I
like wrapping.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, I loved by heart I used to have. I
had the turntails back in the day.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And you know what's funny is that you mentioned Hollis
So I like to do. My kids gave me to
do these old TikTok videos and stuff. And for Christmas
we did Christmas in Hollis, my son and.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I time and Hollis Queen. Hey. Then Colin Green, I
think it would be on my show today.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I'll show you the dance.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'll show you that said I did with my son
on the on the video right there.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I wanted to see that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, oh that's great, man. It correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean, I know there was other rap groups prior
to you, but y'all were the first really rap group
to sort of.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Transcend outside of the hip hop scene and go mainstream.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And you know what I mean, even like little Mexican
kid like me, like you know what I'm saying it
just because you just y'all transit, right, there were the
very first ones.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well here's the deal.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
There was things going on before us, Like you know,
there was pretty big hits. They had the sugar Hill
Game of course, and then there was Melly Mel with
Red Master Flesh that had the message.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Right, I think my body I remember Arena Toys, right,
I mean I think Melle Mellon that were doing tours.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But it was like with Rick James or the ball Kas.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
When run DMC came along, we started doing tours in
our own right, So we were playing Madison Square Garden
as the headliners.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, so it was going down, you.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Know, but it wasn't going down like when run DMC
came with our own tour with the beat like you
sort of these people was that was that was like
brand new to see rap groups headlining their own tour.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I was very first concert, which was awesome.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, man, people tell me this was my first CD,
this is my first concert. I'm like, how can everybody
say this is their first CD or their first.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Concrest I'm telling you, but I tell you everybody, I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Telling you because I think because y'all are the first.
Like I said, that kind of transcended outside of the knee,
you know what I mean. And it was cool and
it was edgy.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And it was it was it was great songs and
then they got big, right exactly now, who inspired all
you guys as artists?
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I'll tell you who inspired me was Grandmaster Flash, Mellie Mel,
Furious Five, and.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
The Cold Crush Brothers. The Cold Crush Brothers was.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
From out of the Bronx and they came with a
style that was so organized. Grand Master Cavs was actually
a dude who wrote the rhyme for the Rapper's Delight.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Rapping the Light was the first big hip hop record.
I remember that, and.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
That's why when they go I'm the c a s.
And because he was saying he the Casanova, he wasn't.
Kaz was casting this dude his rhyme book.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Oh god.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
So Grandmaster Caz gave I think Big Bang Tank his
rhyme book. And when he was rhyme and he was
actually saying Kaz his.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Name, Oh wow, that's wild.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Never got Dad, never got the credit. So the Cold
Crush Brothers was who I'm in V. So when people
like Ice Cuba, younger people are like, oh run DMC uh,
they they inspired me. I understand where they're coming from
because I was so inspired by and Will Swift said
the same thing. We were all inspired by Flash on
(04:41):
the turntables.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
He was Grandmaster Flash.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
We had jam Master j h EMC and Grandmaster Caz
was gmc.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Gmc right got it, and Curtis Blow before.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Okay, let's go back to that.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
So Curtis Blow was with my brother Russell, So I
was a kid waking up in the morning when they
would come in from they went to c CNY College,
cooking practice for them, trying to be down. So they
made me the son of Curtis Blow. I was in
DJ for Curtis Blow way before run DMC was put together.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
He was before then.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Yeah, Curtis Blow was early on and he had two
records before run DMC came out in right Christmas Wrapping Red,
and he had the breaks.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
The breaks, give it up, give it up, give it up.
He always had that same kind of kittens, I love
it right.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So I was down with Curtis Blow before I put
together Run DMC.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Oh man, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And was there, Mama, when you realized run DMC was
about to become something bigger than the Queen scene.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Do you remember like a particular moment.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I remember the Fresh Festival. This is before the concert
that you saw. We would play stadiums. We were playing
with the Fat Boys, remember.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The Fat Right, of course.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
So we would do these concerts and we played Madison
Square Garden around that time eighty four eighty five.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I was like, oh, this is big.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah, We're playing twelve fifteen, twenty thousand people a night
around the world.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
So when the Fresh Best verse hitting.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Around eighty four eighty five is when I realized, uh, oh,
this is huge.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And I always wanted to know this was the Adida
saying just something that happened by accident. Do y' all
just like Adidas or did they reach out to you?
Because they all should give you some stock.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
And there was a spirit behind us.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
We would go on Jamaica Avenue and Queens and new
things were coming out with pumas and Adidas sneakers and
cool things that you really couldn't afford. But then we
got little hit records, so we could have pulled out
a pair of Adidas shell toes and we were just
wearing it because we wouldn't change our clothes when we
hit the stage. Just what whatever we had on, that's
(07:04):
what you would see. And that's why I says on
Adidas the recond my Adidas. We took the beat from
the street and put it on TV.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
So Adidas came later and said, how can we be
down with what y'all are doing? And then they gave
us an endorsement deal and all this stuff. But we
were gonna do it whether they gave us a deal
or not. We were loving those street clothes.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, oh damn.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
They got lucky.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Then Adidas just got y'all giving them hinds ketchup.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
They would yeah, hines ketchup. Well, my corn flakes.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Right right right right. I'll never get that. That's a
moment I remember when I said, my dude and the
lights went on. I go, oh, and I'm a little
kid going on.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It's so cool.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Now now I know the jam Master J trial is
actually going on. Right now, I believe you confident there's
gonna be a justice enclosure.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
You know the way I look at this because it's
it's so much, you know, so much love I have
for Jay.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
When people ask me about the first thing I.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Want to do is more than talk about what happened
and what's going on.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Is number one, I love him.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Number two, I miss him, and I like to talk
about his legacy. Jay was the nicest guy in the world, right,
really nice, like a gem of a human being.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
But he was nice on those turntables. So when Jay would.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Hit the turntables, it would drive the crowd crazy. So
for me, when I hear about you know, when it happened,
and now.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
What's going on and caught it and all this stuff,
I just go back to the love that I have
for him. And my main quote that I.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Tell everybody that's i've been on this tour talking about
the documentary is I love him dearly and I miss
him dearly.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
That's awesome, man, that's awesome. Well, I got to tell you.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I'm really looking forward to seeing you in person and
looking forward to checking out the doc. Uh you be
sure to check out the doc Kings from Queens is
available right now on Peak Talk. Reverend Ron God bless
my man. I'll see you in a bit. I'm gonna
see you in a bit, looking forward to that video.
I will I will take care of down with Mario
(09:11):
Lopez
Host
Mario Lopez
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