10 Music Bands Who Had An Extra Member You Never Knew About

1. Beastie Boys - Kate Schellenbach (Drums, 1981–84)

When the Beastie Boys were hardcore punks in the early '80s, Kate Schellenbach was one of the founding members. She played drums with the band as they developed their punk sound to hip hop.

The band grimly fired her essentially because she was a woman. In the Beastie Boys 2018 memoir, Mike D and Ad-Rock along with Schellenbach recounted that time, saying Def Jam record execs Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons pressured the band into dropping her as the band wouldn’t be as marketable if she were a part of it. So Schellenbach was out, and the Beastie’s early rap-rock sound was in.

Ad-Rock writes in the book: ‘We kicked Kate out of the band because she didn’t fit into our new tough-rapper-guy identity. Maybe Kate would’ve eventually quit the band because we were starting to act like a bunch of f**kin’ creeps, but it was just s**ty the way it happened. And I am so sorry about it.’

Misogyny ran deep in Beastie’s early career but they rectified it with their later outlook. Sexist lyrics were quickly done away with and they celebrated women in their later musical output. They even had a public spat with The Prodigy over their song ‘Smack My B*tch Up’, as they felt 'the meaning of the song comes across clearly and that it promotes violence against women’.

Schellenbach would later start the dance pop band Luscious Jackson, which the Beastie Boys would release music for on their Grand Royal label.