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 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.
I just have work to do; I just do it.
People ask me: ‘What is punk? How do you define punk?' Here's how I define punk: It's a free space. It could be called jazz. It could be called hip-hop. It could be called blues, or rock, or beat. It could be called techno. It's just a new idea. For me, it was punk rock. That was my entrance to this idea of the new ideas being able to be presented in an environment that wasn't being dictated by a profit motive.
Major labels didn't start showing up really until they smelled money, and that's all they're ever going to be attracted to is money-that's the business they're in- making money.
I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated and riots broke out in the city. We celebrated Palm Sunday on 14th Street. I have a memory of walking down the street with buildings smoldering, and soldiers and cops everywhere. Anyways, it was a church that really taught me the things I needed to learn to not go to church. But I think it is a church that does great work, I went to a wedding there three days ago.
I stand behind all the lyrics I've ever written; I don't have a problem with that.
It's just hard to have a nuanced discussion with like a thousand people, 30 of which are white-power skinheads.
I have thousands of tapes, and photos and fliers, letters, posters, artwork - basically everything that ever happened, I kept. I'm not a hoarder, though. I'm sort of a librarian.
I'm really anti-option, so computers have been my nightmare with recording. I don't want endless tracks; I want less tracks. I want decisions to be made.
When someone writes a really nasty piece about me. I think they're generally untrue because I think I'm a nice person.
I obviously use computers. My car is wondrous. My phone is amazing. I've already talked about the music I'm digitizing. Technology is fantastic, of course.
The archiving industry, much like the funeral industry and the wedding industry, these industries can be very exploitative.
The American underground punk scene, though, is a story worth remembering.
You had bands like D.O.A., or Black Flag, and a whole network opened up to trailblazer a counter culture movement. I'm more interested in the less sensational type of stories.