Ian MacKaye
Ian MacKaye
Ian Thomas Garner MacKayeis an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, musician, label owner, and producer. Active since 1979, MacKaye is best known for being the co-founder and owner of Dischord Records, a Washington, D.C.-based independent record label and the frontman of the influential hardcore punk bands Minor Threat and the post-hardcore band Fugazi, who have been on hiatus since 2003. MacKaye was also the frontman for the short lived bands The Teen Idles, Embrace and Pailhead, a collaboration with the band...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPunk Singer
Date of Birth16 April 1962
CountryUnited States of America
I consider the guitar a tool for the most part. I do pick up the acoustic now and then, I certainly don't have any routine. Usually the only time I practice is when the band gets together. Hendrix has always been one of my favorite players, but I was a sucker for Nugent in the late 1970's.
I don't dismiss the music that I was involved with, I don't think it was a joke, I don't think it was funny or a phase, I don't think it was just something I was doing back then, to me it was who I am. It connects all the way through. I don't distance myself from any of it.
What I find interesting as a 40-year-old is the idea of trying to be a part of a pronounced, continuing independent culture. The basic tenet of America is that you rebel and then you get real.
And in fact, one of the central reasons why I never got involved with any drugs or anything is that I remember talking to people in maybe 1975 who saw Hendrix but couldn't remember it. I was like, 'How could that be?'
Ultimately, I'm not the most prolific person, but I've been doing this for a long time, and I keep on putting out music. The only thing that drives music is the people who are making it.
I feel completely fortunate to have this outlet for something I don't really feel like I have a choice in, to make music. I've got to make it.
Basically we just created our own label, but again we just did it to document our own music and create our own thing, so the major labels were just always out of our picture, we're not interested.
I think Biscuit and Tim (Kerr) were really visual artists from the get-go, ... The Big Boys had a extreme idea of presentation. It was beyond merely camp, it wasn't ironic, it was really confrontational.
If you grew up in Washington, D.C., you also know that there is no entertainment industry in this town, particularly not any local.
I jump from one thing to the next but try and strike a balance. But it's not nostalgic in the sense of 'those were the good old days and now we're not there'. I don't think like that. Not my way.
There's also a lot of skateboard stuff, because I was a skateboarder. Somewhere around here I have one of my original boards.
I wouldn't characterize it as an 80s nostalgia thing. For me, at least. The Corcoran show was actually almost a reportage. The exhibit was, in many ways, pretty unique. It was one of the first pieces about DC culture that doesn't include some marble building or the Kennedy Center.
The food thing is crazy to me. In this town the beer thing is also crazy to me. Frankly even with Brightest Young Things, it's such a celebration of [beer and food], all this stuff. I don't think it's bad or evil, but there's something out of bounds. It's like, "A bar opened!" Who cares? Think about that.
Totally another bread and circus, when you think about it. That's a Roman concept where the government can do anything, as long as you give the people "bread and circuses." And I'd say this culture right now is similar, as long as people have money, fun, and food, our government can do heinous, heinous things.