Partners in Crime: Punk's Trailblazers

Ian MacKaye

Unlike many of the artists who helped form the foundation of the presentday punk scene, Ian MacKaye refuses to become irrelevant. Active for more than twenty years, MacKaye is even more important today than he was when he started his first band, the Teen Idles, back in 1979. While other musicians of his generation have become comfortable resting on their laurels, MacKaye continues to press forward, only pausing to look back when forced to. "I would say any band that's operating today is more important than bands that came before," MacKaye explains. "They're more important because they exist."

Which isn't to say that what "came before" for MacKaye wasn't significant. Ian MacKaye's story reads like the history of the American punk scene. In 1979, MacKaye was in the Teen Idles, one of the first punk bands in Washington, DC. Along with Jeff Nelson, he started one of the first DIY punk labels, Dischord Records, in 1980. After that, MacKaye — for better or for worse — started the straightedge movement with his band Minor Threat. A few years later, his short-lived band Embrace set the ball in motion (along with other DC-area bands like Rites of Spring) for what would eventually be called "emo," by tempering hardcore's aggressiveness with emotionally expressive vocals and dramatic, hard-hitting instrumental arrangements. Then, of course, came Fugazi.

Fugazi didn't start any movements. Rather, the band became a movement unto itself. Started in 1987 by MacKaye, guitarist/singer Guy Picciotto, bassist Joe Lally, and drummer Brendan Canty, Fugazi is the culmination of all that came before it and the embodiment of all that would come afterwards.

Live, the band is always a revelation, sending cascades of sweeping guitar noise crashing down on the heads of their audience like waves pummeling the shore. Fugazi, more capable than any live group I've ever seen, will then stop the punishment on a dime, turn the distortion on its head, and approach a chorus as something entirely new: as a whisper, or a clean, unimpeded scream. A Fugazi concert is an experience that words — especially the few allotted to an introduction to this interview — can't easily describe. I have seen Fugazi many times over the years and each time I have left overwhelmed.

Fugazi's recordings are a testament to their refusal to sit still. Each new album is like Christmas morning: you never quite know what's in store, but you can't wait to find out. Fugazi's seven records have seen the group transform from one that pushed boundaries of a hardcore punk framework to a band that is limited only by the imagination of its members. What started as a simple four-piece punk outfit armed with loads of feedback and tasteful reggae leanings has now turned into a veritable avant-garde idea factory, consistently bringing new instrumentation, production values, and songwriting techniques into its well-stocked coffers. It's all a fancy way of saying that Fugazi today is nothing like Fugazi yesterday. MacKaye admits as much: "Obviously, there are people that have listened to us at one point and now they may listen again and think, 'God, this band is totally different,' but that's because they didn't go along for the ride."

But Fugazi is perhaps most influential because of the manner in which MacKaye and company have chosen to conduct themselves as a band. To put it simply: Fugazi doesn't fuck around. The band has never compromised its egalitarian ideals. Insisting on low door prices, independent venues (wherever possible), and low-priced, independently produced records, Fugazi has shown the world how to conduct business respectfully and honestly. Maybe it's because Fugazi isn't a business. Their same no-bullshit approach is equally applied to every aspect of bandmembers' lives. Whether it's being outspoken about social injustice or about someone's violent dancing at a show, the band takes a stance and sticks to it. As a result, detractors say Fugazi is "preachy." But Fugazi doesn't preach — it leads by example. The same can be said for Ian MacKaye.

Interview by Daniel Sinker

You've just gotten back from playing the West Coast. It's the first time you've been out there in years. What took so long?

We're trying to come up with creative ways to do this. Now that we can't tour for two months, we can only go out for two weeks or three weeks. So we're trying to figure out how it's possible to go to the West Coast in two or three weeks time and have it make sense.

So you flew out there?

We flew to LA, and shipped all the gear. Then we played nineteen shows in twenty-one days — we just banged right through it. It worked out pretty well. You reach a strange point in a band when you get larger. There's a certain moment where some things that once seemed impossibly expensive actually make more economic sense. Like shipping this stuff cost $1,800 round-trip. But we don't own a van so we were renting a van. To have driven the stuff out there, we would have had to have paid for two more weeks of renting, plus mileage, gas, hotels, and food. Plus, we couldn't all drive out there because — and this is the reason we can only tour for short periods of time — one guy was in school and Brendan [Fugazi's drummer] has a kid. People have stuff to do at home. We would have had to pay at least one person a salary to drive out there and drive back.

So the question was, "How do we make this work?" The thing with us and how we do our business is to try and come up with seemingly obvious solutions to problems. I mean why not ship everything instead of renting a backline? Everyone always just goes and rents backlines — it costs twice as much!

What's that?

Oh, I'm sorry — a backline is all the equipment you rent. You'd take your guitars and your drumsticks and stuff, but you would rent everything else. You would rent your drum set and your amplifiers. Renting a backline costs quite a bit of money. This way, we were able to stick it all on a plane and we had all our own gear. That way there's no problem with having to use borrowed equipment or worry about its condition....