Steve's Interview with Joe Lally of Fugazi

Saturday, October 14, 1995 at First Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Q: When I interviewed Ian, I told him I lived in Rockville for a few years while growin' up. My family kind of moved around from suburb to suburb. Then he said, Joe's from Rockville and that I should talk to you. So, that's where I'm going to start off. Which high school in Rockville did you go to? I went to Thomas S. Wooten.

Joe: Wooten. I went to Einstein. Kensington.

Q: I don't even remember. That's so long ago. Is that kind of on the eastern side?

Joe: No, it's over near, like on the way to Silver Spring from Rockville. My neighborhood was bussed to Wheaton, but then there was this art class that you could come from other schools to go to. But, I just decided since a friend of mine in my neighborhood went to school there, I could get a ride with him at Einstein and I just went there for the art class.

Q: So, then for the rest of your classes you had to go back to Wheaton?

Joe: No. I mean I just went to that school so I wouldn't have to go back and forth, cuz I didn't have a car or anything.

Q: Rockville, it seems to me, has really boomed. Last time I drove through there was like crazy.

Joe: It's pretty ill. Yeah. It's the worst place to live. You're surrounded by these huge roads that you just can't drive anywhere without being in traffic jams. It's the worst. I hate having to drive. I don't even have a car anymore, so it's kinda cool, because I just go on the subway. I walk to my parent's house, so I don't have to deal with it. But, it's frustrating to drive anywhere near there.

Q: Yeah. So, how, as a suburban kid, how did you end up, or how did punk rock end up finding you?

Joe: That art class that I went to. There was a guy in that class, who was a drummer, for a band called The Obsessed. And then there was two other people, this girl Patty Masconi and this guy Ivan Martinez, and Ivan listened to all kinds of stuff, like I don't know, he was into Eno and Devo and the Sex Pistols and the Clash, and all this stuff. So, he started taking me to shows or whatever, when I was in 10th grade.

Q: About what year would that have been?

Joe: I think maybe the first thing we went to see was in '79 or '80, we went to see the Clash. And I know before that we went to Madame Zorgan one time to see the Bad Brains. The Bad Brains just didn't show up that night to play there, and some other people just got up and jammed. But as a result, I didn't even know about the local hardcore scene for another maybe two years, until I saw the Dead Kennedy's play somewhere, you know GW or something, with the Faith and OO or something like that. Being in the suburbs, unless I had gone to a show and run into it and then went "What is this?" Oh, we even saw the Cramps with the Teen Idles opening around that time, like .... I saw the Teen Idles and I didn't understand. I figured that that kind of thing already happened and people who looked like that or whatever, happened in England, you know, a couple of years before, and that it was really weird for someone to still be doing it in the United States. That's how out of it I was.

Q: Did you know even where the clubs were, where the local hardcore scene played and bands played or anything like that?

Joe: No, I think I was goin' down to 'em. I just didn't know it existed. Literally, I just didn't know that it was even there.

Q: Oh, that figures, because when I was livin' in Rockville, I moved in '76, but all the kids were into Kiss and Peter Frampton. There was one kid in the neighborhood and he liked George Clinton, and he'd lift weights and listen to Funkadelic, and everybody just thought he was so strange, you know, and we were like "what's he listening to funk for, whatever that is?" you know...

Joe: That would be me in my neighborhood, because I only listened to funk and soul music, and then, sometime in junior high I started to listen to Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, and then going into high school I met Ivan and turned on to punk or whatever. But, my next door neighbors, the first thing I remember listening to was like "Good Foot" James Brown kind of single we used to like pull out, and I don't know whether his parents listened to music like that, or just he had three older brothers and they were just into all that stuff. I grew up listenin' to the Ohio Players and Kool & the Gang, Grand Central Station, Sly & the Family Stone, and all that shit is what I listened to.

Q: Did that play any part into why you ended up playing bass or how did that come about?

Joe: I don't know. I mean, Larry Graham was the bass player from Sly and then even on his records with Grand Central was "Lead Bass, Larry Graham" you know, because it was a lead instrument. But, I think when it just came time to really be wanting to do something, I wanted to sing, and then a friend of mine was gonna sing for the first band. Well actually, I tried to sing in a band that existed for a few months, and then my friend Peter, we talked about doing a band, and he said he would sing, and so it's like, well I'll play bass, because there were four strings and I just figured that I would figure it out easier somehow. And I think at that point, I was listening to Joy Division and it seemed to be music that I could play. I mean, there was about two lines per song, or sometimes just one. So, it was like, you know, I can make this work.

Q: About when was that?

Joe: I guess in '82 or something like that, by '83 I guess we were tryin' to start to do some bands. We did two bands together that played out once or twice at a party or wherever we could get a show. Once was in like a hair salon for someone's mother's art opening or something like that in a hair salon.

Q: What was the name of that band?

Joe: That band was called "Lunch Box."

Q: "Lunch Box?" Yeah, that's not a bad name.

Joe: The next band we did together was called "Pit Bull."

Q: (laughter) Oh, it sounds like there was a change.

Joe: (laughter) I don't know. That was because of a drummer we were trying to find, he had a pit bull.

Q: Oh, yeah.

Joe: We were trying to find a drummer, and this one guy that we had try out, we went over to his house one day, and he had a serious pit bull, he had raised to help defend him against any animal or earthling who should come near him. And he held it up for us one time by its choke chain, by its neck, and the dog was completely unfazed. It just looked straight ahead, like eventually I'll be able to breath again. I'm not pressed.

Q: I've seen pit bulls that are really docile. In fact, I interviewed the Meat Puppets once and they had a puppy pit bull in their mobile home with them, and I don't know if they had tough dog plans for it or not, but ...

Joe: probably not...

Q: ... probabaly not. They seemed to be pretty laid back about it. So, as far as playing bass goes, what things do you really like about playing bass, as opposed to being the singer or even lead guitar or anything like that?

Joe: I guess I've always wanted to be a singer, to be a front person, to sing, probably from seeing Iggy in like 1980 or something like that. Just going like this is amazing, just kind of pouring yourself out in front of people, and taking whatever people give to you from there. You know, they either hate you or like you or whatever, and you're just up there being raw in front of them or whatever. I played drums with some bands, too, in between whatever those two bands and meeting Ian. And just, you know projects, like in the studio or live once with this band the Nike Chicks. And we played in a bar one time, actually this Chinese restaurant that had sort of a disco room, they would have shows in the disco room. The place was called King Kong. It was near the University of Maryland. There was about 15 people there to begin with and they all walked out while we were playing, but I had a great time. I love playing drums. It's really fun, but then I sat in playing bass with people, but I never really played unless I had people to play with. Then, I cut these two fingers to the bone in an accident in a warehouse that I worked in, and then I didn't play anything for a while. And then I went on tour with Beefeater, which brought me to meeting Ian, and then he asked me to jam with him. So, I was really kind of starting over again.

Q: So, when did that happen, when you first met Ian?

Joe: '86 was when I went on tour with Beefeater. But, I don't know, playing bass, I guess there was the urge to do music period, the passion to do it. One other thing was that I couldn't sing worth a shit, and I still don't know what I'm doing, trying to use my voice. So playing bass seemed to make sense, and to play it with those earlier bands. Even though I didn't write that much stuff, my friend Peter would write stuff, and I would play it. I always could just play or whatever, so it always seemed to feel pretty natural or feel pretty good, and I don't know, I don't think I can really describe what it is I enjoy about playing bass, but it is something that I love.

Q: Are there things that you see when other people are playing bass or see that they do or that you like to see that they do or are there things that you see them do that you say I can use that when I'm playing or in a song or maybe?

Joe: Not necessarily. It becomes a completely different thing watching people play. Rose from the Poster Children is a great person to watch play bass. She plays really well, but, for example, watching her play, I don't necessarily think about going home and figuring out something that she's playing or trying to imitate a style necessarily or anything. I mean it's the whole thing of, she just completely stands out in that band even though she's not a lead, or she's singing with it or anything, she's like the most active person on stage ....

Q: It's like Laura in Superchunk, too...

Joe: Yeah. You know, Rose just has this amazing posture and moves around the stage like I just can't even believe it. She's just something to watch, and I don't know, so watching people play, it's always different you know. Who else was I thinking about? I was thinking about another bass player, this guy Sean, who plays with Lungfish who's playing tonight. He's a great bass player. And it's really all in what the rest of the band is doing and how his bass playing fits into the music. You know what I mean, and it doesn't necessarilly have to do with me at all, and what I do or anything it's just appreciating what someone else is doing. It's just like that is good, the way they're working, what they're doing into what the band is doing is just beautiful, you know.

Q: Cool. Well, along those lines, I don't know hardly anything about guitars, but I was wondering what kind of bass you use, and how you ended up deciding on a kind of sound for your bass or the kind of bass? Did you just pick up as you went along, or did you just start to honin' in on a sound that certain basses had?

Joe: Well, it's really weird because I started out with a Music Man, because it fit really well with my size. If you hold a Music Man and you hold a Fender, there's a difference in how your fingers rest on the frets and the sides of the neck and stuff, even though they're both maybe the same scale or whatever. Somehow, Music Man and the body, I think, might be just a little bit tighter and it just is more conducive to the size of me. But, it's really bright and really low, and I hate the brightness of it, but I got one for like $400 just before the band started really playing out. And Ian and I played together for like a year and I think I used someone's Jazz first, and the Music Man is just really loud. You can hear yourself with it so much better on stage. So, I got really used to that because I don't use monitors. There is no bass in any of the monitors really. Ian might have some in his side fill or something sometimes, but very rarely, and I just stand next to the drums, so I can hear the drums and my bass cabinet is my monitor to hear myself and the rest of it's just loud enough to hear everything. So the Music Man was good for that. But, all the time I'd always be going to try other things out, but I just couldn't stand anything, and new basses are just hard to get used to, they're just all new and weird. But, anyway, so I got a brand new Music Man from somebody. They gave me one, and then I realized this is like the greatest bass on earth, and I still don't like the way it sounds. I didn't like the way it sounds in recording. It's too exact. It's just too perfect sounding. Everyone else sounds kind of organic, you know, with whatever their guitar sounds are and stuff and then you have this direct sound from the bass sometimes, even if your mixing it in with your cabinet sound. It's just too fuckin' perfect sounding. So a friend of mine used a Japanese Fender Jazz and they put EMG's in it, but it's completely different even though the pickups are active. This is a bunch of bass technical talk that's pretty fuckin' dull, but, you know, I liked his bass. And the bass I have now, I ordered cuz it was cheaper if you buy it, because I live in Virginia, if they send it from Maryland to Viriginia then you don't pay tax. So, I didn't even see it before, I didn't even know anything about it before it came, and then I went to another store, and they showed me how to put in the pickups and solder 'em on. I just figured this bass, if it gets stolen or something, I can easily replace it and it has a decent neck on it. I don't know, it just has a little more personality to it. I think this came about because we started recording ourselves more on 8-track in our practices and stuff and I just could never stand the way Music Man sounded compared to everything else. [Here Joe had to go do a sound check. We resumed the interview in Fugazi's mini-van, parked on 1st Avenue.]

Q: So, when we left off, we were about to start talking about Red Medicine. Since you mentioned that you'd always wanted to be a lead singer, actually it's kind of funny cuz when I interviewed Ian in '93, we talked quite a bit about songwriting and how that all works, cuz the songs are always stated as written by Fugazi en masse and he kind of said that he and Guy wrote all the lyrics and that you and Brendan were pretty much comfortable with that, and so now Red Medicine is out, and as I understand it "By You" -- the lyrics are written by you, and then you do the singing, right? So, now you've gotten your chance to be the lead singer.

Joe: Yes, I have, and it is exciting.

Q: Have there been other songs that you've written in the past that just haven't made it?

Joe: Nope. That was my first attempt. I mean, I haven't tried to write words, well, I've tried to write words over the years, but I mean, I haven't really tried to make a song that I would sing on or whatever since that first band I ever tried to work on that I was talking about, you know, whatever it was, fifteen however many years ago. So it's interesting. (laughter) It was fun. I guess I sort of incited the song musically, cause I had this bass line and the change or whatever into the chorus and then everyone else added. I mean it became what it is from everybody playing their parts on it and they added the quiet part to it and then it had been played as an instrumental for a while, and neither Ian or Guy had really jumped to do anything about it for awhile with putting words on it. So I started to mention that I'd like to try, even though as a bass line, it's kind of stuttery and not the easiest thing to sing along with. I just kept messin' with it and trying until it finally worked out. So, I learned something, you know, that if you keep trying or whatever, that I can actually sing on it. Cause you get into different rhythms and it's pretty hard to sing along, at least for me. So if I play very straight lines or other songs that other people had written or whatever, I could sort of sing and play if the line was very straight forward, but, you know, that was cool, I managed to make it work. But, I'm still tryin' to work it out. I sing it different every night. It's like, I don't know what I'm doin', you know, I'm still tryin' to find my voice and stuff.

Q: So, is that how it usually works? Somebody comes up with a bass line or ...

Joe: Usually, yeah, the music seems to come around pretty much almost in its entirety before someone starts to put vocals down. It seems to have gone that way with this band.

Q: Well, that's one of the other things that I like about Red Medicine or I found pretty interesting was, and you mentioned that you guys do 8- track recordings of your rehearsals and things, and all the segue pieces or the intro pieces that seem to have come from rehearsal sessions and how you guys decided to put those on the record and where they came from and why they ended up there?

Joe: I guess things like the very first thing you hear on the record is probably five years old, and it's from just a tape box, you know, a portable tape deck that just had a really great condenser mic to it that made that particular room and the volume we were at sound, you know, totally fucked up, which sounded great to us. And actually I think the tape we have is a copy of the original tape that someone made. One person made for the other to take home to listen to and then the original was never found or something, but ... stuff like that was always... well, I guess it was never really quite like that, but tapes of practice have always been made or whatever, but nothing was ever thought about being used. And that thing just sounded, you know, it couldn't be done again with better equipment. It couldn't sound like that, so we always wanted to put that on something or joked about it, putting it on a record just like it was. But it wasn't until we started to record with an 8-track and then a portable 4-track, you know a cassette, we started to find other pieces. See, we go to a house in Connecticut that belongs to Ian's family, his grandmother's house, and there's nothing else to do there. There's nothing else in Connecticut, and you don't even want to go to the shopping center or whatever. So, we started to record ourselves on 8-track there, and that had a lot of bits and pieces that don't get used as songs or whatever. It just sort of came about that there were these pieces that we thought could also be included, as they were, because we did a rough mix of them before we went home, and got playful with the rough mix and just did whatever. Like "Version", you know, is slowed down. It's "Long Distance Runner" or what became "Long Distance Runner" and it was just slowed. The whole tape was slowed down, and Ian was just fucking around mixing it, and decided to slow it down and it sounded really cool. And then there are other mixes of that, that sound totally insane that sound, you know, totally insane with like sounds like bombs dropping or whatever. But, it somehow just kind of came together, and it was like, it would be really neat to spice up what is already there with some bits and pieces.

Q: Yeah. Well, those pieces and that thing with "Version" kind of made me think. There are a lot of interesting things musically happening on the record. I don't know if you listen to much Dub, but it made me think, god, those guys should re-mix the whole thing and just put out a dub version of the record, like Burning Spear did. They have Marcus Garvey and Garvey's Ghost, you guys should do like a Red Ghost. You know, get Lee Perry in there, or well, if Ian was fuckin' around with the tapes, you know, just play around with that.

Joe: Right. Yeah, it'd be really fun to do, especially with those tapes from Connecticut or something. I guess the master from Inner Ear, cause I don't really see most of those songs as Dub, but it'd be interesting to make them, to tear it apart enough so that it did work like that, instrumentally, and that you could work it that way.

Q: Yeah, and it wouldn't have to fit narrowly or strictly within the Dub idea, but just using the ideas in the recording.

Joe: Right, yeah, I see what you mean.

Q: Yeah, like you said, I think it would be fun.

Joe: Yeah, right, it'd be totally fun to do.

Q: But, so, is that how, um, do you guys set aside the block of time to just go up to Connecticut, then to get ready for a record or tour or is it just for the recording process?

Joe: When it happens, yeah, when it can, um, it's nice, it's come for the last, before the last few records were made, it's come to be like a ... this is something we should do because we're isolated enough to concentrate on that, and on music, and alone, not, you know, distracted by our every day lives, and then it usually proves to be fairly, you know, fruitful enough to continue doing it. I think it's generally a great idea I think for any band to be able to do, is to go somewhere else and to record under other conditions. And just, you know, I mean just, you know, to write under, outside your everyday life, to be like sort of tucked away somewhere, where there's nothing distracting you. So, that worked out, and being able to use those tapes is really great, because like, now it seems like, you know, to me anytime we record anything, I mean an entire record could be done that way as far as I'm concerned, you know, I'd be up for it, if good versions of stuff came out, you know, like that, in that situation, then, what the hell. But, at the same time, you know, anything taped anywhere now, it seems like the gates are open, you know, to be any kind of, you know, box recording or 8-track, cause we have a reel-to-reel as our 8-track, whether it's in the recording space or up in Connecticut, what the fuck, you know.

Q: Um, another thing I like about the records in general, all of Fugazi's records but then the last two -- In on the Kill Taker and Red Medicine -- um, like the whole, um, um, design of it. Not just the songs and the sound, but then putting together with the photographs and the music and the layout of the albums and the photography. And um, ..., so, who ..., you mentioned you were in an art class in high school, that, ..., and pointing you towards punk, but who, ... do you have people, you have different people that handle that for you guys, you don't ....

Joe: Well, we usually, we've been working with Jem Cohen on the last couple of them, our friend, who lives in New York now. He went to high school with Ian. And, ah, he does, he also films us alot. And um, we're still trying to figure out something to do with alot of the footage that he's done, but, uh, but he, you know, started out with, he brought us some ideas for In On the Kill Taker and, you know, and then it, ... he just brought all this stuff down from New York that he finds in the streets and shit, and that's how that sort of came about, what's on that cover. And then, this one he was actually taking pictures of us in the studio, and going through photos we've taken on tour over the years, like European tours and everything, you know. For our first European tour we took alot of pictures, so we have alot of photos of that, so that's where some of that, you know, artwork came from, and some of those photos on the fold out, and um, yeah, it's aah, ... I don't know, we ...in the beginning, you know, Kurt Sayenga was doing everything, I mean it's pretty straight up, it's listed on every record that he's doing that stuff, and uh...... You know, he has a particular aesthetic that, um, I guess, we just sort of grew out of, and ready to do something different. So, I mean, I've always wanted to do, to have a big hand in doing a record cover, cause, you know, I guess just like anybody else who's doing artwork or whatever, you know, you'd like to think that you can, you know, provide something for that, and like any, I guess, you know, artist in whatever sense, you want to do something with, you know (laughs), the shit that you do. But, I haven't been able to do, I used to paint, like alot in high school, I painted, and I just don't do it anymore.

Q: Oh, that's what I was gonna ask, so you've pretty much dropped it?

Joe: Yeah, I tried over the years, and I'll do some kind of things, like make, like send people postcards or whatever, I'll fuck with cutting things out or draw or whatever. But, I don't know. I don't do what I used to do. But, I'm trying to learn something. This old trade, it's stucco, but it's Italian, an Italian trade called "stucco" [pronounced "stewco"], but ah, it's just ah, it's really, it's working with, you know, alot of materials like, you know, it's like cement or whatever to the outside of buildings, but inside, you work with something that you can only get from Italy, which is made from limestone, "stucco" there's different kinds of it, but, ah, that's like the last layer on plaster. Basically, you plaster a wall first, and then you put this stuff on, and you use, you know, paint pigment with it. So, ah, it's like a very earth tone, and really um, I don't know ..., you can make it look like marble, you can get gaudy and ridiculous about it but it's .... I like a really subtle thing, and we just met someone in Brazil, who does it, an American, who lives there now, and I'd just really like to get that together for a cover, cause you can make some, ... you know, you can make things look really old, you can just make it look like, you know, stone or something, you know. So, I don't know. So, maybe that will come together someday and maybe not.

Q: Well, if you ever want to send me anything to put it in the zine or soemthing like that'd be cool.

Joe: Alright.

Q: But, um, I think that pretty much is it, um, other than that, I ..., other than, well I guess this is more of a general Fugazi question in terms of where ..., I don't know if you guys think about it much, in terms of your influence on things over time given your control of your music and ah, ah, and we had talked about when you were younger that the hardcore scene, um, and how hard it was to find, and now there are small towns where there are youth clubs where kids are doing punk rock, and you guys, I think, have had a really strong and big role in that because of how you handle yourselves.

Joe: I don't know if that's true, but that would be nice if that's true. I think its always been going on, you know what I mean, I think it's always taken place where ever it could, and I think, you know, even when we were starting as a band, you know, Fugazi was doing its first tour of the States or whatever, you know, we played in alot of weird places, you know what I mean, cause the kids were certainly doing it before we were, you know, even established or whatever. But, it's really, it is, ...I mean it's the nicest thing, you know, it's like at home, it's the greatest to see, you know, local bands and people just makin' shows happen and, you know, watchin' local bands grow, and when you're in a community that's more, you know, rural, you know, it's your only hope, is to find the Elk's lodge or whatever where you can do a show. That kind of stuff, I mean yeah, that's like the greatest shit, because that's, because that's what, you know, music used to be like. You know, people played sock hops or whatever, you know, and then where Chuck Berry played or where, um, even you know, where Led Zeppelin was playing, you know, when they first came to the States, I mean that stuff happened in like where we played in Chicago the other night in a roller rink with Shellac, you know, Zeppelin and supposedly the Who had both played there in the past. So I mean you know, before everything was alcohol based, you know, all around, you know, how, whether it was a bar or not and blah blah blah, that's the way music used to happen and pretty, you know, a pretty good idea, and it just got lost along the way.

Q: Yeah. Yeah, it did. But, um, yeah, so it's nice to see, and with you, yeah, but anyway, I think you guys, you guys have had a big influence, and it's been ahh...

Joe: You know, you know, the only thing especially now that all of what was underground is very easily come above ground, it's still the most interesting stuff to me, you know, is going on by people who, who, you know, really have to make it happen, and don't just get, whatever, stuck in a bus, and pushed out onto the road, you know.

Q: Yeah. And I think it's still mostly, although there's more money in the, in the supposed alternative music, but most of the interesting stuff is still the stuff that people are doing on their own labels or on their, ...um, without the big business money. And then its, ... but its gotten some, uh, other people that have been around for a long time that started out that way doing that, it's gotten them some extra recognition, but, um, way past due probably, (laughs), but, such as it is. Well, thanks a lot Joe.

Joe: Sure.

Q: And I'll send you a copy of the interview, when I transcribe it. I'm lookin' at probably February to have it out and done, cause its just hard for me to get it done any sooner than that, so.

Joe: Understandable, I'm sure...