DES MOINES, Iowa (December 11, 1998 2:21 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) -- Perhaps nowhere in the music industry is staying close to one's roots as important as it is in punk rock. Bands who stray too far from their past -- playing small clubs for passionate fans -- are blistered as "sellouts."
It's the same with bands who leave the independent record labels where their records were first sold to join a major player in the business.
But Fugazi, a four-man punk band from Washington, D.C. culled from the remains of D.C hard-core forefathers Minor Threat and Rites of Spring, never tried reaching for the brass ring of celebrity, despite many lucrative offers over the years. And the adherence to that ethic has made them one of the most famous and successful punk bands in the nation.
"Our only ambition is making music that satisfies us," said drummer Brendan Canty, who makes up the band with guitarists Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto and bassist Joe Lally.
Fugazi doesn't make videos to promote its latest releases of anti-authoritarianism lyrics wrapped in virtuoso rock music. And the band isn't being pushed into record stores across the United States by a huge record label's long distribution arms.
"I've seen a lot of friends who signed with major labels crash and burn, eat humble pie," Canty said. "Maybe that's because in that side of the business, the pressure's turned up on expectations to perform."
Instead, the band runs its own label, Dischord Records. Dischord was founded by MacKaye in 1980 while he was playing in Minor Threat. With no bottom line to meet, the label can keep prices low and the band accessible to everyone. Dischord sold Fugazi's most recent CD, "End Hits," for $10.
The fan-friendliness carries over to their concerts, where tickets are about $5 and the shows are crowded with people of all ages. This is an approach guaranteed not to earn the band the most money possible, considering its popularity. But as the song "Merchandise" notes, "You are not what you own."
Fugazi's fans, in turn, thank the band for its generosity by packing their concerts.
On a recent night in Des Moines, more than 500 people wedged into the darkness of the sold-out Safari Club to mosh, pogo and shimmy. It's a scene that will be repeated during the band's three-week autumn tour of the Midwest and South.
The fans also turn out in droves to buy the band's albums. Fugazi has sold more than 1 million records in its 11-year career.
"For an independent band, that's pretty handsome to show numbers like that," said Jeff Mayfield, director for charts at Billboard Magazine.
Fugazi (the band takes its name from Vietnam War soldiers' slang for "messed up") is popular enough to have been invited to participate in Lollapalooza, the annual traveling rock show.
But the concert refused the band's request to drop ticket prices, so Fugazi stayed true to its principles and rejected the offer, sacrificing exposure.
"The absolute worst thing that could happen to me is being famous," Canty said. "I don't want to exploit myself for that."
Other bands respect Fugazi for its attitude and ethical stands. Jim Ward, a member of At the Drive-In, an El Paso band sharing the bill at the recent show here, said it was hard not to admire them.
"I've been listening to them for a lot of years," Ward said. "It definitely means a lot for us to play with them."
Perhaps what contributes most to Fugazi's success could be seen during the first encore at the Safari Club. The band opened with "Arpeggiator," a sophisticated, driving instrumental based upon an arpeggio, where the notes in the chords are played in succession and not simultaneously.
Closing the four-song encore was the hard-core "Do You Like Me," which rails against the merger of defense contractors Lockheed and Martin Marietta.
Fugazi is very political, with songs like "Dear Justice Letter," addressed to late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, and "5 Corporations," which accuses conglomerates of creating a stifling conformity.
The band has also performed at benefit concerts for issues as diverse as Tibetan freedom and home rule for Washington, D.C.
But the political movement with which the band is most identified is "Straight Edge," one of MacKaye's Minor Threat anthems pushing a no-drug, no-alcohol lifestyle. Punks across the nation took the lead from the lyrics and followed suit.
The movement of mostly young people has proliferated in Utah, with an estimated 3,000 adherents. In September, a follower of the Straight Edge philosophy was sentenced to seven years in prison for bombing a fur-breeding cooperative.
"It was just the title of a song that I wrote," said MacKaye, who doesn't drink, do drugs or eat meat. "I guess I coined the phrase but certainly never intended to start a movement."
Fugazi will soon release a documentary called "Instrument," a collaboration with filmmaker Jem Cohen about the last 11 years of the band. The two-hour film will be released on video by Dischord early next year and will contain footage shot in Super 8, 16mm and video, combining concert, tour, studio and interview material.
The film's soundtrack is made up entirely of unreleased Fugazi music culled from live tapes, demos and basement recording sessions, and is to be released as an album.
By MIKE BRANOM, Associated Press Writer