I was feeling great as Brent, Joey, Davey, Mike and arrived at the Food not Bombs 20th Anniversary in San Francisco. I had this fear that after driving all the way up something bad would happen and we wouldn't get to this point. I always worry too much about that kind of stuff, but just being there was a real relief. I had only found out about the show a little over a week earlier and the details were really sketchy, but we were there and we had the whole day to kick back, eat free vegan food and just wait for Fugazi to play. Then I turn around and see Guy Picciotto, who a couple monthes earlier I had interviewed on the phone. So I talked to him a little and took a picture of him, after that we just hung out and waited for one of the best sets I've ever seen. Fugazi is one of my favorite bands and it seems like a lot of people are only concerned with hearing what Ian says because of his Minor Threat fame. In interviews (with Fugazi) that I've read, they have said that has always been a problem. I was really excited to interview Guy because not only because he is such a huge part of Fugazi but Rites of Spring is also another one of my favorite bands (if you haven't heard them you should check them out). When I did the interview in April I had hopes of putting out a fanzine, after working on the zine a while I gave up. I did the interview first so that I would have a reason to put out the zine, but I still gave up. So I decided that Brent could use it, more people will see it this way and I don't have to worry about trying to sell zines. Brent said he would post it for me. It was my first real interview and I got nervous and forgot to ask some good questions, but remembered to ask some stupid ones. All in all I think it is a pretty good interview and I hope you like it.
Q: Are you guys going to record a new album soon?
Guy: Right now were about half way through writing a record we got about six new songs, actually we might even have more than that were writing a ton of songs. But we need to write some more lyrics and kind of finesse stuff so right now were mostly practicing and getting together and rearranging songs. We get together like 3 or 4 times a week and practice like 4 or 5 hours a day. We have kind of a small studio set up in our practice space so were recording lots and lots of reels of tapes just trying to figure out where the songs are at. I think some time in the next few months we'll figure out some kind of recording schedule. We taking it kind of relaxed mainly because our drummer just had a second kid a few weeks ago, so he's got a lot of family stuff going on.
Q: Oh really, is that why the last (East Coast) tour was postponed?
Guy: No, that was actually because we had family members who were sick. There was nothing we could do it was kind of a family emergency so we had to come home and deal with that, and when that straightened itself out we went back and did all the dates that we postponed. But right now we're not touring pretty much because of the baby we just want to take some time and kind of work on the new music and give Brendan a chance to deal with his family stuff. Then later sometime this year were going to go out again and do some shows. I don't think we'll do any major touring, definitely not for the next few months.
Q: Was it pretty tough to reschedule the tour after the emergency?
Guy: You know we were really nervous because it happened so quickly, but actually all the dates lined up pretty easily. We actually just got in touch with the promoters and everyone seemed to have slots opened in January. So we really only postponed it for like 2 or 3 weeks and we were really psyched.
Q: That's cool, I was wondering if you guys spend a lot time together outside of the band?
Guy: Yeah we all live pretty close to each other. We see each other pretty much all the time.
Q: I got the new All Scars record, and you produced some of the songs on that right?
Guy: Yeah.
Q: Have you done any other bands?
Guy: Yeah I've done the Make Up and there is this band from New York called Blonde Redhead who record for touch and go and I've done their last few records. In fact that's what I was doing right after that last southern tour, I spent a month on the west Coast recording an album with that band Blonde Redhead and that should be out in June. They're an amazing band. I've done a band called Quixotic from DC. I mainly work with friends and people I know I don't consider myself a professional producer/engineer but when there is bands that I like or bands that I know who want to work with me I'm always happy to do some of that stuff.
Q: The drummer for the All Scars (Jerry Busher) played a few songs with you on the last West Coast tour, is he going to be on the new record or is that just a live thing?
Guy: I think he'll probably play with us on the next record, we haven't really worked it out yet. He's been our roady for like 5 or 6 years now and he's always been in bands, he's an incredible drummer and trumpet player. So after a while he was traveling with us so much it kind of seemed silly not to be using him. And on our last record End Hits Brendan had recorded a lot of parts with double drums where we over dubbed him. Since we had Jerry with us, we were like "Why don't you play these extra drum parts?" and it kind of just grew from that. There were more and more songs were we felt we could work him in, even older songs from earlier records, we were like "man it would be cool to have two drums on this". So we started working him into more and more songs and also having him play trumpet. All of the new stuff does have parts for double drums so I imagine he'll be playing quite a bit on the new record.
Q: About how many songs out of the live set does he play now?
Guy: God I don't know, including the new stuff he must play on over 10 songs, somewhere between 10 and 12. We never use a set list so it's always hard to know what songs to play live. But we got all these hand signals and gestures so he knows when to play with us.
Q: Oh yeah I didn't even think of that. Were you also in another band during the beginning of Fugazi?
Guy: No, Brendan and I were in a band called Happy Go Licky when Fugazi was starting. Fugazi really started as Ian and Joe and they had been practicing for a really long time with other drummers. At some point Brendan started sitting in with him around the time the band that he and I were in was breaking up. Brendan went on to play the first Fugazi show, at that show I was just kind of watching them. Soon after that I started signing a few songs and doing back ups, eventually I became full time member. When the band started it was really open, a lot of people used to get on stage and play with the band, you know people would come up and play organ or trumpet or percussion, it was really open. So when I first started playing with them it was kind of in the spirit of that I would just get up and fool around with them. At a certain point when they were going to go on their first tour they asked me more officially to become a member of the band and that's when I did it. After the first two twelve inches I started playing guitar with them when we did the Repeater album. I had always been a guitar player but when I initially joined Fugazi I just sang and did back ups.
Q: It sounds like the band was started kind of as a project, like egg hunt or pailhead. Was it approached like that?
Guy: I think for Ian and Joe it was a serious band I don't think in their minds it was a project, but there was at the beginning of the band kind of a looseness. They wrote songs and they were really serious, and the band was going to exist one way or the other. But they had a much more open idea of just having people come up and be featured with the band. I think as the band progressed and started to tour that's when it became more solidified in terms of having one constant line up. Which was the four of us. But again its taken a long time but the thing is mutating in that we're adding Jerry Busher in to the picture on second drums. It's like were getting back to that original concept of having it be a little more open. But I don't think it really ever was a project, Ian hadn't been in a band in a really long time and he had written a bunch of stuff and I think he was really ready to be in a serious band again.
Q: Do you have anything to do with Dischord besides being a in a band that's on them, do you work with them at all?
Guy: No, the only person in the band who officially works with Discord is Ian, him and his partner Jeff (the drummer of Minor Threat). they kind of run the label and the have 6 more or less full time employee's who work there. The other 3 of us in the band we don't work for Dischord we all do other stuff, Joe the bass player he's got a record label called Tolotta records and he works on that whenever were not doing stuff. Brendan on the side does a lot of sound track work for things like the Discovery Channel. Actually he has done a bunch of stuff, like weird cable TV soundtracks. I have got a label called Peterbilt and I do Production and Engineering.
Q: Didn't the One Last Wish Record originally come out on your label?
Guy: Yes.
Q: How come you stopped pressing it?
Guy: It's actually in press now. That was a tape that we recorded 13 years ago and when that band broke up there was a lot of bad communication so we never released the record. It took until now to get everyone to talk about it and agree to putting it out. It really just came out this year, my label Peterbilt did it in conjunction with Dischord and we put it out as a CD.
Q: Oh, I thought it was out on vinyl before.
Guy: No, only one song ever came out before that and it was on a comp called State of the Union.
Q: On the instrument video do remember where that huge Billboard that said Fugazi was.
Guy: Yeah, that was in Brazil.
Q: Because I saw something on VH1 and it was talking about how some band was like the first rock band to play in this country or whatever and I think it showed the same sign (with another band's name). I don't remember what country it was but the whole town came out and was just like a huge thing. I was wondering if that show was like that?
Guy: I'm not sure about that, but we definitely played a few towns in Brazil where no one had ever been before. We played in a little town called Itaborai outside of Centavo and it was a really small town and I think we were definitely one of the first bands to play there. We have been lucky, we have been able to tour and play some really of the beaten path kind of places. Like we played in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chile and Brazil and Argentina. So we've been really lucky in terms of that. I think that billboard you were talking about was in Mondrian Brazil but I'm not positive.
Q: Are they any places you haven't played yet that you want to?
Guy: We really want to play Africa and Mexico, there is a lot of places. It's weird we're starting to get a lot more mail like from people in Iran and all kinds of strange places. It's kind of too bad because we're never going to be able to tour as much as we would like to, because of family obligations and stuff. I don't know if we'll actually make it everywhere we've been getting offers from but we still try to get out and play as many places as possible. When we first started we were getting out and playing like 6 or 7 monthes a year, and at this point we can't really do that anymore (laughing).
Q: I guess that's about it, thanks a lot.
Guy: Sure man.