EMMIE: So yeah, interview with Ian MacKaye...
Ian: Gotta make sure it's working, now.
EMMIE: I did, actually, went blah blah blah and played it back for myself
Ian: Okay. Cool.
EMMIE: Do you remember originally thinking of straight edge? Because even if they don't know about Minor Threat or Fugazi, they know about straight edge and they know that you started it, whether intentionally or not. How did that come about and what did it mean to you? Why did you start it and what did it mean, I guess, is the question...
Ian: Well first off, when you ask a question like that, you're presupposing a definition for straight edge. So I'm not sure what you mean when you say why did I start it...
EMMIE: Not so much why as how.
Ian: Okay. It? What is it? The movement thing or the idea of it?
EMMIE: The idea of it. Why did you choose not to do drugs?
Ian: First of all, I mean, it's sort of obvious, sobriety obviously predates alcohol. Sobriety's just the way we were born. We're born sober, generally speaking, obviously. Now there are problems with people being born with addictions, just due to their parents, mothers, behaviors, but generally speaking, life starts at a point of sobriety. Um, for my point of view, y'know, I grew up, I lived here in Washington, I grew up during the Seventies, which was a time when virtually everybody was getting high. I mean, everybody. And, uh, for some reason, when I was twelve, um, and my friends started getting high, I just was not interested. Now I actually was out of town, for a few months, my father had I lived in California for a few months, and, uh, my father had a fellowship out there at Stanford University, and when I came back, my friends had really gotten more into partying. I missed the transition I don't know if I had been here whether I would have I don't think I would have gone with them anyway, but it was as though I was just not interested. It just seemed I guess my feeling was at the time, that, that's what you do when you're an adult, and that people spend the rest of their lives, just, inebriating themselves. So I didn't understand why I would wanna start now cuz I'm a kid, y'know? And kids shouldn't spend their time just medicating and inebriating themselves. They should be out blowing up, y'know? Like, that's what I was thinking. It just seemed really as if, as if I would be cheating myself out of my youth. As it turns out, I actually think of it now as it's cheating oneself out of life. It's not just youth, because it's throughout life, in my opinion. So I didn't make the transition with them, and I probably wouldn't have. I mean, I was always with them while they were getting high, I was around them, I was involved, I saw I saw their focus, I saw, basically, the whole rhythm of their life alter, because really what they were thinking about was how to get high all the time. I'm thinking, y'know, how to build a skateboard ramp, or whatever, let's go do this or that or that other thing, they're thinking about well let's get high. Um, so I think it gave me a bit of a juxtaposition, um, early on. The other thing that happened was that I started to become ridiculed, uh, because I wasn't getting high. I was considered the straight guy, which I was.
The next phase um, I became a skateboarder. I skated from 74, '75, right through...till now, really. But um, that whole scene was really parties, y'know, a big party scene, so I was again but at that point, me and Henry who ended up being Henry Rollins and some other skateboarders came together and all of us, we were all basically drug free. All we wanted to do was skate. We'd go to parties there'd be a high school party and we'd go, and, it'd be a drag. We'd be like, we're outta here, we're gonna go skating. This was not what we wanted to do. In high school, it was even more reinforced, like all our friends were getting drunk, and everything was about that, the party, and they called me the group conscience, there, everyone was like cuz I was just so not into it.
When I first got into punk rock, I think one of the things that really attracted me to it was that I felt like it was a collection of deviants, and I felt like a deviant. Because I deviated from what everybody else was doing. I was not partying, I was honest, I had, like, political ideas that were not in line with everyone else, I wasn't going to go to college, I deviated. So I was a deviant, and, even though the other deviants that were there were like, junkies, and maybe they had, y'know, deviant sexual practices or deviant political theory or deviant musical ideas, whatever it was, I felt like I belonged in this crew of deviants, that that's the world I wanted be a part of, the counter cultural world. Not I don't want to be a part of mainstream culture. So, I came at it as well, this is who I am, and the first band that I was in, the Slinkees, we wrote this song called Milk and Coke, which was really this song that was just about y'know, I drink milk, I drink milk, I drink milk, I drink Coke, I drink Coke, I drink Coke. Which is ironic, as I don't drink either anymore, but the point was that every rock band in the world was singing about drinking beer, and we're like, we don't. It was a joke, it was kinda lighthearted but the response it got was pretty too weird, like people kinda took offense to it. Then the Teen Idles started to do it, the second band that I was in. We did the same song, and it was clear that people were responding they were getting kinda the response to this idea was one of aggression.
So by the time Minor Threat it wasn't so much about the sobriety, just punk rock in general, we were just pretty light hearted kids, but people were trying to fight us all the time. So it just developed into this well, we must be on to something good, because we're upsetting people so much, but it also made us circle the wagons a little bit. We became a little more angry, so in Minor Threat of course, I decided I would write like a really direct song about my point of view in terms of the way I choose to live my life, and, more importantly, a direct point of view, a statement, about the right that I feel like I'm entitled to to choose the way I live. It's about an individual's choice in terms of his or her own life. What they wanna do with themselves. So I wrote a song called Straight Edge, which was just the idea of singing about, it was an anti-obsession song, which was really just this is how I choose to live my life, and if you don't like it, fuck you. It doesn't make it that's not important to me. It just the reaction I got from it was really intense, like, people a lot of them were really into it, cuz there were a lot of kids who were like, yeah, I'm with you, and there were other people who were like you're idiots, y'know, you're fascists, you're Nazis, you're Christian Nazi fascists. I think to some degree what happens is that it reminds them of their own sense of they're self-conscious of their own decisions, they're not happy about it. So its reminding them of, like, --it's the only thing I can think of as to why I get such a personal reaction. So then there was a song called Out of Step, which is just kinda like trying to spell out in really simple terms that I don't do this, I don't do this, I don't do this, but I can think, y'know, I can think, that I can do. I'm not an idiot. Um, and I just said sure, I'm out of step with the world. Again, this kinda goes back to the idea of being a deviant, or whatever. And then there was the song called In My Eyes, which was an attempt on my part to be more articulate about what exactly my points were, my relationships with these various types of things. I think early on I really did like the idea of being a part of a community that was sober, because we were, and there were pragmatic aspects as well, because we were able to get the clubs to let us in to the gigs because we weren't going to drink. Really the issue, in a lot of these all-ages underage shows, or the shows that were not all ages, they didn't wanna risk getting caught having minors drink, because they didn't wanna lose their license, but my point of view is that music is for all people, and I don't think the alcohol industry should be making a decision about who gets to see a band or not. I mean, how old are you now?
EMMIE: I'm eighteen.
EMMIE: Teenagers.
Ian: Exactly. Teenagers. Because music is the soundtrack for the transition it's an important transition in life. And the idea that they're cut out because the alcohol industry that's disgusting to me. So my point of view was always like, I think it's so loathsome, the whole thing is so loathsome, that I've never had any second thoughts about it. What I didn't take into account, however, was this that it would become a series of directives that could be then honed into something that would become basically a uniform. Um, my sense was I was singing about my right as an individual. The way that it was received by some people was that it was basically a blueprint for a movement, or a cult, or something, and instead of a declaration of personal value it was a series of orders for other people, a this-is-what-you're-supposed-to-do. And then of course they some people brought their own sense of fundamentalism into that. So as soon as this inkling of a movement came up, early on, I mean you can hear, even as early as, I think, the Out of Step record, I say its not a set of rules, like I'm not saying I don't do these things, I'm not ordering people not to do them. But the idea of a movement in 1982, probably, is already started to form and I'm already resisting that idea because for me movements my experience with movements is that they take precedence over humans, and I've always been clear in my mind that while I hate habit I don't hate humans. I actually love humans. I'm not interested in hating them for what they do we're all fucked up people, that's our lives. Um, and a lot of the people I love the most in my life my friends I have so many friends who struggled and continue to struggle. I don't hate them. The movement thing, it just took off on its own. It's an incredible phenomenon, in a way, but I don't take any credit for it. All I did was put a name on something that was already existing.
Now there's an aspect of the movement which I am really unhappy about being related connected to, which obviously is the more fundamentalist violent aspect of it. That's a bummer. The problem with those people is that their issue is not connected to sobriety, their issue is connected to violence and they're looking for reasons to fight. They have a bellyful of violence and they're trying to find some way to get it out of their system. So they're using In effect, the song provided them a very clear set of parameters in which to choose whether somebody is going to have violence done on them or not. Am I answering too long here?
EMMIE: Eventually you might be, but keep going.
Ian: Okay. On the other hand, there is so many for every on kid like that, there's, like, a hundred kids who are just trying to do the right thing in their lives, trying to like live a good life, look out for the world they live in, they're just trying to do the right thing. And they're good people, they're not and I actually feel like they get the bad rap, because ultimately I like to use this analogy. If you go to a party, with like, fifty people in it, and forty-eight of them are having incredibly insightful, amazing conversations where they're really exchanging ideas and something really constructive is happening and two of them get in a fistfight. The next day, people will only talk about the fistfight. That is the nature of violence. Its very provocative act, it's a very insane form of communication. Very powerful. So most of the kids I think who connect themselves to straightedge as a movement even are not at all the way they're being represented. So to the degree that some people have used it for violence I'm sad about it. It's not my decision, but I'm sad that something I'm connected to has been used to hurt other people.
To the degree that my songs, my words, or whatever have influenced in some way people over the years, I'm happy because I feel like at least the idea all I suggested was, live your own life, live your life the way you want to live your life, and I'm so glad that I didn't advocate, say the use of crank. My feeling is really that the transition from, say, thirteen to twenty five, that is a really intense thing, because you're actually going through a process of weaning. You're leaving your blood family and you're entering into another community, like, your own family, or whatever, but there's a weaning going on. And music's important that's why music is so important for kids, because they need something to stabilize, just something to be there for you, and I feel that if at twenty five, some kid's been really into straightedge and they've been involved with that, and they realize at twenty five that that's just dumb and I should just be real and go to a cocktail party, whatever they wanna do that's fine. Because at least they will have been in a place to make that decision.
On the other hand, let's say there's a kid who between fourteen and twenty four developed a very serious heroin addiction or something like that. He is not in the same kinda place. So I always feel like my suggestion was trust yourself. Trust yourself as you were created. Alright, that's the end of my answer.
EMMIE: That's fantastic. Um, hardcore is usually considered an expression of white teenaged male angst. Just white teenaged males play hardcore. Do you find that it's almost not that it was exclusive, but that there were inordinate amounts of white teenaged males playing hardcore? I know that you've been asked that question before...
Ian: I tell you what I think. If you ask this is something to think about, because we're starting to work on the twentieth anniversary, first twenty years of Dischord. We're doing a boxed set and we're taking one song from every band, and yeah, it's a great exercise. The fact of the matter is we have fifty songs, fifty bands and of those fifty bands, there's 150, maybe 200 people. And of those 200 people, there are like five women. Five or six people of color, or y'know, Asian or black or whatever. So by far it is white dudes, white kids, that's the way it is. However, when I have asked about the punk scene, which I think is just a different word for hardcore, by the way, I don't think of it as hardcore, I think of it as punk, um, my relationship with that is not that it's all white dudes, because when I think about the community in the punk scene I don't think about the bands and gigs. Music is a currency that a community trades. The punk scene or the hardcore scene, I think is not all white boys. It's all kinds of people and when I think about the hangs, which is really what's happening, it's sitting on the curb outside of the gig or being at a restaurant with a bunch of people, or going or sitting or talking somewhere the fanzines all the other stuff that's going on around it, that, in fact, is the scene. The music is just a different is just sort of like, um, it's a fire to gather around. I think that initially the initial kind of punk explosion, the beginning of it, the revolution, it was definitely, musically the charge was led by white boys. My experience here in DC in fact, the first bands I saw were not all white boys. The new wave scene was a lot of women who played, and there was also the Bad Brains. And they were not white boys. In DC, I never had the sense that there was this sort of oh, girls shouldn't play music. I never felt that. In fact, and I think even in my early interviews, you'll hear me say that I can't understand why there aren't more girls in punk bands, because they have a lot more to be fuckin pissed off about. It's a societal thing at the time, I think women felt a lot less or girls, high school girls, whatever they just it was out of their immediate scope of understating, of how to be in a band. It was barely in the scope of ours! I mean, I didn't know how to I'd never been in a band before. I was like, well I wanna play music. There is something that we are socialized into thinking.
Like, my sister Susanna taught a class in model mugging I dunno if you're familiar with that or not. It's a form of self-defense for women, um, that involves somebody dressed up in these huge pads and you actually fight the person. The theory behind this one of the theories behind model mugging is that violence is considered the basic line on violence is that it's considered wrong. Boys and girls have very different relationships with violence. If a boy fights, it's like well, boys will be boys. Violence is bad, but boys will be boys. But with girls, it's just not apparently in their DNA. There's just not, they just don't fight. And my sister's the point of the class was that they would give women girls or women the opportunity to tap into the same thing this intense adrenalin and anger, whatever it is, that the boys are, with a wink and a nod, allowed to tap into, because basically its present in all of this, but with boys, well, boys'll do that, but girls don't ever do it. So her point of view is that, if you have to defend yourself, you should be able to draw on whatever you have. In the same way, with bands, I feel like, at the time, boys were kinda like, even if they didn't know how to play, it was kinda like well, y'know, we're gonna give it a try, like skateboarders or whatever. It's the vanguard, and for whatever reason, when it's decided to work, it's the boys that did it.
And in terms of the race, I just think that it has more to do with I mean you gotta think about where people are coming from. There is a parallel scene in Washington, the Go-Go scene, which is all black guys. There's a few women playing and virtually no white people. It's a different cultural thing but a very similar kind of thing. However, instead of people looking back on the early days of hardcore and thinking it's so, like, monochromatic and just all boys, and they're so sexist, I look back on really different way. I mean, I don't mean to be a revisionist, but my position is that is was the first salvos or the beginning salvos of a revolution that now, when I go see a band, I never think twice about, if I see a woman drumming or playing guitar, I don't go wow, oh look this band has a woman drummer, it never occurs to me at all. Its completely whoever's playing, whoever's playing is totally fine whereas I guarantee you, in the early eighties, there was that kind of sense of tokenism, where you'd say like oh, this band has a woman bass player, or there's a chick playing guitar and it was always notable. Whereas it's not notable anymore. So my position is always sort of like the punk thing was part of this the early part of this revolution that has now made it, like, if you told me you were in a band I'd be like cool, I wouldn't even think twice about it. It's just a different way of looking at it. Did I answer your question?
Ian: Don't worry about the time thing. My dad'll show up when he shows up.
EMMIE: I was wondering...
Ian: Just ask a question. My dad shows up, then we'll stop. He'll probably be a few minutes late.
EMMIE: Very cool. Dischord records started it wasn't a huge Òlook we're here!Ó it was well, we're gonna put out this one little band. Why do you think it worked so well? You didn't do, obviously, what everybody else does. Was it what the DC scene needed or did it just happen to work?
Ian: Um, I think timing had something to do with it, because there weren't really there were very few other labels like us and the punk thing at the time was being so if you were in a punk band back then, it was as if you didn't even exist. Nobody cared. Nobody in the music industry knew or cared. At all. In fact, the punk scene in America has been ignored forever. And the only time it's gotten any notice at all was when Nirvana became a hit and then people started talking, like the media went, oh, there's a punk scene. I mean, before that it was only just diatribes about the violence and whatever. Um, and frankly, even if you look now at the history of rock and roll as presented by the major labels, who are virtually the only people who present that sort of thing, you will find that you will find precious little mention of the tens of thousands of people who have been involved with the most vibrant, creative, idealistic, like, constructive, amazing music experience in American history, in my opinion. You will find no mention of them, because they're not sanctioned, they're not part of that machine, and since they like to feel like they are in control of the history of music, then you will not since they think of themselves as music, then we're not included. It's very much like Hollywood, actually. I find that AFI, the American Film Institute, for instance, which is now run by Hollywood, they completely ignore a vast, vast landscape of independent filmmaking as if it didn't exist. As if if they make a list of the greatest movies in American history, I guarantee they're all major studio films, that's it. So they become culture. They've bought the culture right up. It used to bother me, it doesn't bother me anymore, really, because if people were doing these things for legacy, then they might as well go jump in with the rest of the suckers. If they're doing something that they're trying to actually achieve something with their own hearts, they shouldn't worry about legacy, they shouldn't think about it at all. Who cares whether or not America recognizes your work or not? Who gives a fuck? It doesn't make any difference. Look at the people whose work America recognizes. Is that really the company you wanna keep? Like, am I really that psyched to be honored by the same company er, country that is trying to put Ronald Reagan's name on every surface in the country? I don't give a damn about it, y'know? I recognize myself as a part of a population of people who see life in different terms, and that's where I feel comfortable being, existing.
The, um...what was your question? Oh, the label! So the label we just put the record out, and it was just to document the band, and of course some other bands started to form,(pause as the phone starts to ring) and we just started documenting other bands. I will say one thing about DC is that, in my opinion, there are some fuckin' good bands here. The music is good. And people seem to say, how do you make a successful record, or how do you get successful in your band? Write a good song, I dunno, y'know? Take a chance. I mean the bad things that really influence us all to, like, work hard and to really try to make things that are different. So I think to some degree there's some timing involved, just because we were early in. (pause to listen to message being left on answering machine)
So the second thing is that I think there's something to be said for just the, at the time, there was just this network opening up, there was so much excitement around the country, that we had we were just there early on. We're also stubborn and we just keep on going. We never had any kind of business plan. Our business plan has always been today. Just work on today. Just try to, y'know, just go. I'm not an ambitious person. I've never had any kind of ambition, I've never had a goal, and frankly, as much as I love this label, and I do, if it stopped, then I expect it to stop. It's supposed to stop. It' not about expansionism. I don't want a record label. I actually did it only because I hate record labels so much I have to have my own, rather than be at the mercy of them. So, so who knows why?
You know what a friend of mine said to me once? He said god, you always find a parking space. You're like a miracle, you always find a parking space. And I said no, I just don't complain when I don't find one, and that's the difference. Dischord, it just goes on and on, and I don't complain about lack of success so it appears that we're successful. But also, I don't feel lack of success.
EMMIE: Because you don't expect too much.
Ian: Because I'm not expecting anything. I'm expecting, like, today, I was expecting to hear from you. I was expecting to do an interview. I mean, I've got a few things to do. So far, it's gone well my day. I skinned my knee, that's too bad. But it's alright.
EMMIE: There are worse things.
Ian: Totally.
EMMIE: Right. Um, you talked about documentation, and that comes up every time I hear about Dischord. Dischord is documenting DC. Is that still your main goal?
Ian: Yeah. Totally. We're incapable of documenting all DC bands. We document music that we feel some connection to. The idea is not to be exclusive, although many people feel we are. And they're like, well, you won't put my record out. The idea is not to be exclusive, but the idea is to encourage other people to document what's important to them. That's all. It's like if I had a record store, I would sell records that meant something to me. If I heard other people say they couldn't find a record that they wanted in my store, then they should start their own store.
Ian: Of course!
EMMIE: Good. How have they changed? And how do they show how you've changed?
Ian: I think the main difference and I can only speak to my lyrics. In terms of my lyrics, people ask me these questions a lot. They're like, well, it seems you were so direct before and now you're kind of indirect. One of the things I learned from Minor Threat was that in my attempt to be very direct, it kind backfired a little bit. Because yeah, I was doing this, I was creating fully formed uniforms, in a way, ideas that were fully formed and people I'll use an analogy. Imagine if it was like, a jacket. People just scooped them right on and they become the song. They were so simply put that they could put them on. I think with Fugazi I really started to think in terms of instead of just making finished jackets, I made really solid bolts of fabric, out of which people could make their own jackets. Because that did require them to invest a little bit more of themselves for ultimately a far greater reward. That's the way I think about it.
As a matter of fact, I think that Fugazi, at least in my words, and I believe this about Guy's, too, but I know that with my words, that its full of ideas, there's all sorts of things going on. And a lot of it has a lot to do with self-definitions. A lot of the themes are very similar, they're just being stated now. Which is, y'know, I evolve. I'm turning forty this year, so from my point of view, I just grow and grow and grow.
Minor Threat had their first show in December of 1980, and I was eighteen years old. So I played for three years in that band and that was that era. People say, are you gonna re-form? Of course not. Because it belongs in that moment. I would never wanna subvert that. I think that was great band and I'm very, very happy to have been in that band. But the power of that band existed in that age. Its not like, oh the four guys from Minor Threat had some real karma, that time had some karma. By pointing it out, that things belong to eras, its not a mater of nostalgia, it's a matter of trying to remind people now, that this is an era too, so jump in. People say well, do you think music today how does it compare to music from before? Well, the future we don't have any clue what's out there. The past is written and done. The only thing we have any real options with is today. So clearly the music that's being made now is by far the most important. So instead of people looking backwards, they should be looking right down on the ground, right the fuck now. It's the same thing with Minor Threat, like, I'm glad to have been in that band, but that band will never reform. Because it can never be the same. I want it to be what it is. That's why we made the discography. That's why we broke up. It's like, we're done. Bang. Finished. Now, it's like a book. There, read it, check it out, if it means something to you, great. If it doesn't, great. If you're inspired to do something. great. Do it. But its not about the idea is not that the band itself was that the four of us bring something to the table. In fact, if we played it would be horrible. But my work I continue.
So with Fugazi. I was in Embrace I dunno if you've heard of Embrace but you can really see, in my writing I was working on the lyrics yesterday, because we're working on a reissue of that, and I was just checking the lyrics sheet. Reading those lyrics was pretty intense because it made me think about what was going on in my life when I was writing those lyrics. I like those lyrics and that record. but you can see a clear transition from Minor Threat to Embrace to Fugazi you can really see this trajectory because Embrace lyrics, they're still really direct but they're getting into other areas. And there's a little bit more effectiveness.
I mean, Fugazi you have a song, Merchandise, or even the song Five Corporations, they're pretty direct songs, y'know? I mean, Cash Out and Argument they're really direct songs. I think sometimes people look at them too directly because I do always try to weave in I try to fit in a different point of view about things. Not just saying oh, gentrification is bad. That's not really what the song is all about. Its also about the gist of that song, in my mind, was that while its unavoidable that development comes in and people move out and all that stuff its unavoidable. The nature of gentrification is almost like weather patterns. The thing that's important for people to remember is that its physical entities, human beings have to exist somewhere. They don't disappear. So in all this movement, all this moving around, all this stuff that's going on, whether you're a developer or an anti-gentrifier, we're dealing with human beings. They're not like pawns. So I think the idea of the song was to try to sensitive people to remind people to be sensitive to the idea that there are people who have to live. Somewhere. That's all. That was the idea of the song. But I was reading a lot of the reviews and they're like, ooh, Ian goes after gentrification. It's not that simple. Did I answer your question?
EMMIE: Yes. All of them. All at once. Okay. S you're known for refusing to sign to a major label, obviously, do it through Dischord. Um, do you think that makes you different form most bands? Or different from vocal bands
Ian: Local bands?
EMMIE: Vocal, not local. Big bands on the radio don't have a problem with major labels, but a lot of bands, especially from DC, tend to. Do you think that makes you how do you deal with major record companies when they call you?
Ian: They don't call anymore. Ah, early nineties we heard from virtually everybody. They were the kind of people who had incredibly absurd offers. But none of them were ever there was never even consideration. We never had lunch, let's put it that way. We told them, we won't even have lunch with you. The answer's no. There's no point of it. And they'd say, well, at least have a free lunch, and we'd say let's not waste our time. I'd say if you wanna come over and talk about music, come over and talk about music, but this is not even a possibility. Um, I don't know if it makes a difference to other bands or not, I assume it does, because they obviously are extremely concerned with having extreme autonomy. I don't really think about everybody has to make their own decision, every person and every band has to make their own decisions about what's right for them, what's wrong for them, what they need to do and how they wanna get there. there's plenty of people who would probably look at my situation and say, he's insane. Cuz he works all the time.
I was telling this guy yesterday he was talking about the idea of quitting his day job. I always, early on there was an interview with black flag, which was a real important band, and chuck, the bass player, said he would rather work a day job the rest of his life and never be entirely dependent on his music for a living. And I thought, I agree with this sentiment entirely. So when people say to me, well, look at you you're living off your band, but I'm not. Because, I work the label, I work all the time. I book the bands, y'know, I work, I'm working I'm working I'm working. This is not I do all the work so I can play in a band. At least he was telling me well, these people wanna quit their day job so they can go on tour. I told him, write a good song. Don't underestimate the importance of the day job, because sometimes the day job is what compels it creates the situation in which you can be creative because you're so frustrated or whatever.
Furthermore, you can leave a day job like when you leave your day job, you're off work. I'm never off work. I work. I am my work. It's a really different kind of thing. I think some people think I'm crazy. Because I've just taken, like, I have friends who are fabulously wealthy. Most of their work is just, at this point, is just interacting with the people who are managing all their affairs. And there's this sort of lethargy and boredom in their lives that I think is really depressing. And its one of the great pickles of I think of most major label artists, who are being approached by major labels who say, well, you're a genius and we want you to we wanna put your records out. And they're like oh, okay. And the label says, you don't even have to think about taking out your trash. Here's an enormous amount of money, you don't have to think about doing anything, all you have to do is sit there with that guitar and be a genius. Imagine how that feels, when you have nothing all your, like, daily routine is removed and you have one mission, which is to produce genius work. Now, how is that going to make you feel? You can't possibly live up to it. And even if you do, do make something, and people are like, you're a genius, you don't believe it, because everyone who knows themselves anyone who thinks they're a genius is an asshole. Y'know? They just think that they're geniuses, you can bet they're an asshole. So, um, I think that its really unhealthy and I think its been proved to be very unhealthy and at a price that is unreasonable, because there have been so many artists that have just cracked up. And there've been artists who just didn't even make it, didn't make it to the end of the road, because they're being told that they're a genius, don't think about anything, just be a genius. Sometimes it's important to think about other things.
Ian: Right. Um. So its very hard for me to compare myself or this band to other bands or artists. This is the only way I know. People ask me, is Washington DC a good place to live? I guess. I was born in George Washington University Hospital. I've lived in two houses my whole life, my parents' house and this house. I lived in California for a few months. That's it. This is where I'm from. I'm from this town. And they say, well, is it good to not be working with major labels? I suppose. Its all I know. It just never was an option. From the very beginning of punk rock, the labels didn't give a damn about us. When they did finally give a damn it was only because of the smell of money. At that point, it was far too late for me to ever give a damn about them. The only thing I could say this has come up a few times, actually, people say, would you like to try to put an end to the major label system? And I say no, I don't care. The only thing I'm interested in and the one thing that I'm adamant and concerned about is I don't want them to control everything. What I think is important is the maintenance of a space in which people usually young kids, but anybody have an opportunity to present ideas that are radical and different. And then maybe it would only be appealing to one or two people to begin with but in a space in which they could present these ideas that don't have to be dictated by profit.
So if you have a rock club cool, like the Black Cat? It's a great club. Good for them. All ages, they put on shows. But they're not going to have a band on that stage that can't that doesn't appeal to anybody. Just, on a business level, that impractical. Its not a practical thing at all. So its imperative that there is space a kid's basements, coffee shops somewhere that people don't have to think about business, where they can think about ideas. They can think about music, they can think about community, whatever it is. That's basically what I'm interested in. That's what I wanna see continuing to survive. The labels are expansionists and they are now part of larger companies that are even more expansionist, and they have figured out that if you built they have just figured out you can compare it to the driving here. The labels have figured out that if they put a little tollbooth at an intersection, they'll make some money. And then they're like hey, if we put one an every intersection, we'll make more money. That's all they're thinking about, its just about income. They just find ways to maximize dough. So for the people who are in cars, maybe its arguable that they should be paying an extra tax. But what if you're on foot? Why should you have to pay a toll? But it's this dragnet. And the world gets caught up. If you're on a bycicle, why would you have to pay a toll? But you would. And that's what's happening. That's the problem with the major label system, because they are just trying to find ways to lay in tolls at every intersection that they control.
EMMIE: Last question, actually. When you picked up the mic, and you were like alright, I'm gonna sing in Minor Threat. I'm just trying singing out. Did you see yourself doing this? Did you have any inkling that you would be in this house, even? You said you wanted to live here six months. What did you think was going to happen?
Ian: Um, fun's not what I do. A highly overused and basically it has no definition anymore, the word fun. It's been picked up by a country in crisis, a culture in crisis, and I keep hearing about new jobs, internet jobs, they're so fun! Work for Starbucks, have fun! Have fun at your job. You must know the corporate mindfuck thing: don't forget to have fun. Never, um,. what is it? Never ....always answer with a question. Some Starbucks thing. It's amazing. It's basically, like, never give a no answer. You're supposed to always say...anyway. Fun is sometimes highly overrated, that word. When I was in the Teen Idles, playing bass, I was writing quite a few lyrics. And Nathan was singing, and it was great. Nathan's a good singer, good times. But, I loved Janis Joplin. She was one of my biggest heroes. What I loved about her was that I had the sensation that she was she felt her music. It really meant something to her. I love Jimi Hendrix. And I felt like he really felt his music and it meant something to him. So for me, when I was playing bass I felt like I felt my music and it meant something to me. And as a writer I wanted to sing in a way that I could feel it. I just ended up [Ian's dad walks in] hey, we're on the last question right now. For me when I started to sing the idea was to just I wanted to have an opportunity to sing my words and they were my words and yeah, I can I wanted to sing them the way I feel them. So I ended up I remember when I wa sin the teen idles I was talking to Jeff about it, I was at his parents house. He lives on 33rd and Patterson, up in Chevy Chase [Maryland, just north of Washington, DC]. I was telling him I really wanna sing. I wanna sing these songs and I had a tape, a practice tape, and I said lemme show you how I would sing it. So we put the tape on, and I'm just jumping around the room and just throwing myself around and I had done so much of this that I cracked the plaster on the ceiling in the living room and his father came upstairs yelling at his and I was jumping around. So Minor Threat it just totally made sense. And the songs my lyrics came to life. I was never thinking about the future whatsoever. Like I said to you earlier, that's never been a real concern for me. I've always worked on today. So, um, did I think I would be in Minor threat for three years? No. Did I think I'd be in this house for twenty? No. Did I think I'd be sitting with you today? No. You weren't even born, when I was singing in the band, y'know?
[Editor's Note: Thanks for reminding me, Ian.]
So how could I know? How could I think that? I didn't. I didn't think about it at all. On the other hand, um, this is what happened. So I'm completely fine with it. I'm perfectly happy to be sitting here answering your questions. So it worked out well. And do I have any idea what's going to happen five years from now? No. And neither do you. I always tell people, don't worry about what's around the corner. You can't assume it's around the coroner. You should be concerned about making sure you're vehicles in shape to get around the corner. I think that's it.
EMMIE: That's fantastic, thank you so much.