Ian MacKaye

How do you divide your time creatively? Is Evens, Dischord, and the spoken word stuff all you're doing right now?

Well, it's more than enough for me actually. I'm always super busy so it's not like I'm twiddling around like "Oh I know, I'll write a song for the Evens." Actually I'm always working really hard trying to find time to actually play guitar because there's so much work to do for Dischord.

I mean everything that I've ever done, I'm still basically involved with, which is an aspect of the so called do it yourself culture. You take a responsibility for something and you kinda have to look after it. So I'm still dealing with Teen Idles, I'm still dealing with Minor Threat actively. I talk to the Minor Threat guys regularly. Fugazi, obviously, is an enormous amount of work still. Like looking after the catalogue and looking after the archives. Right now as you're calling I'm going up the stairs to get these computers turned on because I'm converting all these live tapes to digital files. We're trying to make a website. We have 1000 live shows recorded and we're gonna try to make them available to people. Always that kind of work. Dischord is a lot of work.

I don't really do spoken word in the sense that most people think of spoken word. I do question and answer stuff, which I think is a really amazing way for me to get to spend time with people. I just like doing it. I like talking to people. It gives me an idea of what people are thinking about. I don't do as much of that as regularly as I'd like to, but I am always open to going out.

Right now I'm standing in the archive room at Dischord house. For the last year I've been involved with getting all my various collections into some kind of order. So I have all the master tapes, all the history of Dischord master tapes. I have all these Fugazi live tapes. I have all the Fugazi practice tapes. I have 500 live Fugazi videos. I have probably 1000 photos of the last 30 years of DC punk rock. It's really quite a bit of work. Since I've been home for the last couple of years - Amy and I have a kid, I have a year and a half old son - so because we're not travelling at the moment I've had an opportunity to really dig into this stuff and try to get this stuff into some kind of relative order.

So to answer your question, yeah, I'm fucking busy.


Do you think it's fair to say that it's important to you to keep your projects distinctly separated? Like you'd never play a Minor Threat song as Fugazi.

Yeah, because Minor Threat and Fugazi were different bands. They're not my bands. I'm a member of those bands. It wouldn't be fair to the members of Minor Threat if Fugazi did a Minor Threat song, and it wouldn't be fair to the members of Fugazi if they're doing a Minor Threat song. It's like this. I think of bands as relationships. So let's say you're going out with somebody and you have something you like to do with that person all the time that's sorta like the thing that you do together. Then if you break up and you're going out with a new person you wouldn't just do the same thing. It just doesn't work that way. That's really the way I feel about bands. The music that's created in bands is not the product, in my case at least, of me saying like "Here's what you have to play. I'm writing all the songs and you're just my backing musicians." What the band is doing is a relationship. The chemistry between the members of the band, the creative contribution, the ideas, the energy that comes out of the relationship is responsible for the unique sound. So doing a Minor Threat song with Fugazi or a Fugazi song with Evens just wouldn't make any sense. It's not the right thing to do.

Frankly, I don't have any regrets. I love all the bands I've been in. I don't feel like I wouldn't want to do those songs, but the truth is that I try to live in the moment. I think Minor Threat was an amazing band, but I'm not gonna play Minor Threat songs. I'm not gonna do it.


What do you think of the ATP Don't Look Back shows where they get bands to play one of their old albums?

It's an interesting idea, but the way I look at it it's like, when the band was writing that music they wanted to make music together. It's a product of a kind of creative energy. But if a band's broken up, not playing, doesn't really wanna work together, and then are somehow lured out of that to do this really specific kind of presentation then it's almost like they're not doing a show, they're doing a recital. Furthermore, being somebody who's made records and played concerts, when you do a show there's a kind of pacing where things kind of culminate. You play and at the end of the show hopefully you're really in tune with the audience and you're in the heart of the music, so the songs you play at the end are usually the best songs because you're all working together at the point. But on a record quite often the songs at the end are like, "Oh yeah, here's a couple other songs."

I saw Devo play here. They played at the 930 Club and really it was interesting to see them. They were playing their first album back to back. The first thing that occurred to me was that the show was $45. The record is 40 minutes long. So people are roughly paying a dollar a minute to see the show. That's the first thing that occurred to me. The second thing is that when they're playing some of the songs are amazing, they're great and there wasn't like a bad energy on the stage, you didn't feel like they didn't wanna be there, but you did feel like the show kinda hit its crescendo then at the very end they came back for an encore of two songs, the last two songs on the album. Really they're not that exciting songs. They're good songs, but they're not the best songs. So there's just something odd about it. I'm not particularly judgemental about it. I just wouldn't do it. It's not the way I think about music. Music is living and present.

People say to me like, "What do you think of todays music scene? How do the bands today compare to the bands of yesterday?" I mean, I cut my teeth on those early bands and that's where I get a lot of my inspiration, but I actually believe that a band today is much more important than any band from the past, because bands from the past cannot change things, but bands today can. They may not be kicking my ass at the moment, but that doesn't mean they're not the most important thing. They are the most important thing. Now is where things can change.

With a band like the Evens for instance, I love that band but a lot of people are like, "Ah I don't get it. It's just not that interesting to us." I understand that, but my from my point of view it's as punk or more punk than anything I've ever done. I'm comfortable with going to a place where people are scratching their heads. I like that because something is occurring. Most shows that are called punk shows today, or especially with the ones where they play the record, it's not that something unexpected might happen, you know exactly what's going to happen. You know what you're supposed to do, you know what songs are gonna be played. It's just so antithetical to the way I think about music. To me, a great show is when the band and the audience work together to create a real moment. You don't know what might happen. Sometimes it can be a little scary. It doesn't have to be dangerous, but you're just not sure. It's disorientating, because something is occurring that nobody can control. I like that. That's what I like.

I have seen thousands and thousands of bands. In the last few weeks I've seen 5 or 6. They're good bands. They play great. Their songs are perfectly fine. But really there's no surprise for me. I mean come on, take a fucking chance. We know you've got it wired, but once you've got one thing wired you've got to take a chance. Look at Fugazi for instance. If you look at our records, we always were pushing ourselves to take chances. We kept trying to make music that we felt was interesting. And we felt really deeply appreciative of the fact that the audiences were willing to go with us. Like, "Yeah, let's fucking mix it up." People say, "Why do you call it an indefinite hiatus? Why hasn't that band broken up?" The reason we feel it's more of an indefinite hiatus is that after being in a band for so long and essentially becoming a family it just seemed absurd to say like, OK the store's closed, because we're not a fucking store. The truth is, I talked to Brendan and Guy yesterday. We talk all the time. We see each other regularly. You asked me about my creative work, at the moment I'm working with Brendan. He's working on a soundtrack for a documentary and I'm working with him on that. We're really tight. So in my mind with Fugazi, whether or not we actually play a show or make a record together we will continue to be creative and continue to try to fuck with the form and do things that we think are unexpected.


What do you think of bands who play in the modern context basing their sound on early 80s bands?

I think that they have their place, but you have to remember that in 1980 or 79 when I first got into punk there were plenty of bands who were doing rockabilly and like Buddy Holly music. Those people fill a certain kind of void. As an 18 year old kid or 17 year old kid at that time I appreciated those bands, but it's not the kind of music I was gonna make. I wanted to make my music. I wanted to create the now. I had friends who were in like garage bands or they dressed like that. I like that music and in its own right it was kinda rebellious and punky, but ultimately it's a bit of a straitjacket because it's almost like you've created an environment that you can't really escape. So bands that are taking a sound and saying, "this is where we're coming from," it will give them a leg up, but then it will be a handicap, because it will be hard for them to escape. Everyone's just gonna be like, "well they're just that kind of band." If I was a kid I would take everything that's been given to me, I would be inspired by it, and then I'd try to return the favour. And actually, as a 47 year old, it's exactly what I'm doing. I take what's come before me, I'm inspired by it, and I try to return the favour by creating something new. I'm just a fucking punk rock motherfucker.


What do you think of the idea that for some people DIY is a safety net? Like it's easy and fun, but it's not realistic.

I actually think it's fine. I mean, people live their lives any number of ways for any number of reasons. With those people I don't think like, "You're not paying your dues." That's not my style. Everybody has to navigate their lives and their music, and their situations on their own. I can't be judgemental about it. When you say like they use it as a safety net, it's like sure, maybe for the time being that's what's gonna happen, but at some point they might break out of that. Like for instance, when I first got involved with punk it was sorta like, wow I can just be a part of this thing. I didn't really know, I was just learning. I was like, "OK I guess I'll get a leather jacket or something." Like anyone coming at something new you come at it from a rudimentary point of view. Hopefully you end up, by getting involved in that, understanding what the possibilities are. So I'm sure there's some people who get involved with DIY and are like what's in it for me? Then they don't wanna do the work and at some point they bail. That's OK. Who cares? That's not an issue. Whether they call it DIY or not, people who are really jumping in to their work or their creativity, there's always those people too. It doesn't really bother me, I guess that's the point. It's not like I wish these people would get out of my world. They're welcome. Everyone's welcome to the world, I don't care. I mean it's tricky. I understand your question. If we had a pot of tea between us we could really get into it, but it's a tricky thing to deal with in a one question one answer way. It's an interesting idea but it's difficult to talk about in a brief time.


Like doing this interview right now, it's not really going to be of any benefit to you. Is it still important for you to do things like that for the little guy?

Of course. If people are curious, if they want to ask me some questions, I like to make myself available. It's more interesting for me. I don't know why on earth somebody would want to be in a position where they have a press person doing all this stuff. Put it this way, let's say I come to Glasgow and I can't find anywhere to play, I'm gonna fucking write you like, "Yo, remember we talked? Got any suggestions for me?" It's just how I get to know people. The same way you're asking me questions now, Thurston Moore was interviewing me in 1983 or 82 for his fanzine. Just some kid. And the same way that you might be a fan of one of my bands, Rick Rubin was in a band called Hose in the early 80s and he was a big fan of Minor Threat. They're just people and I'm open to talking to anybody. It's not like I'm thinking, "I hope he pays off and becomes famous." Really I just like talking to anybody. I like people.


It seems like that's something you, Mike Watt, and Henry Rollins all have in common.

I think for all 3 of us the idea of access was really important. The fundamental of punk rock was breaking down the barrier between the barrier and the audience, so I kinda feel like this is part and parcel of that. I think Mike, and Henry, and I all share that. Like the idea of breaking down the barrier. Then as we've gotten older and got varying degrees of popularity or ways people perceive us, I think it's still important to make ourselves available to people. We're interested in humans.


Big thanks to Ian.