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
When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.
Let's say for instance people say, "He's a really totalitarian, strict guy, he's hard to work with or whatever." I don't think it's true, but people's perception of me leads that direction, like I'm a fundamentalist person. I end up having to spend extra time saying, "I'm not a fundamentalist." I have other stuff to do.
With Napster and the sharing of music, of course, there are going to be people who exploit it. Greed has no end. But there's a lot of good that could happen. We shouldn't let the economic concerns of the major labels infringe on our freedom to share music.
I think it's my nature to engage in things that are more difficult.
I do feel like I have always, in my life, been inclined to be on the outside, walk a different path or something. Because of that, and increasingly over the years, my sense of distance from mainstream society or from the way culture works, I have a different kind of perception of it.
When someone writes a really nasty piece about me. I think they're generally untrue because I think I'm a nice person.
I'm always happy when I hear about people selling records or selling books or selling movies. It makes me proud of them.
Yeah, if someone's selling downloads and collecting money for our songs I would be unhappy about that but if they're trading it I don't mind, obviously if I make a thousand records or CDs or whatever, I like to sell a thousand.
I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.
It doesn't hurt me on a personal level, but it hurts me on a larger level of like, why are people so stupid? Why do we have to go through these unnecessary exercises. Fight crime, don't fight me. If you really want to make a difference don't fight me or Fugazi.
When people who are songwriters say 'That's my property and if you give it away for free then I'll lose my incentive,' then, well, good riddance.
I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but... I have a reputation of - people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow.
The only thing that drives music is the people who are making it.
People will say "You must miss playing to a thousand people." But I don't. I might miss playing. That's what I would miss, but I don't miss it, because I am playing.