FUGAZI

Few have defined the DIY aesthetic as profoundly as Washington, D.C.'s Fugazi. Initiated by former Minor Threat vocalist Ian MacKaye (a band that essentially launched the term "hardcore", as well as serving as the focal point for the straight-edge movement) and rounded out by the powerhouse rhythm section of Brendan Canty and Joe Lally, the band helped bring a new political / social sense of urgency to the mid-80's D.C. scene. Rites Of Spring member Guy Picciotto was eventually brought into the fold as a co-vocalist and guitarist, a lineup that served Fugazi well for over a decade. Making their home on MacKaye's indie label Dischord since the band's inception, Fugazi have gone on to sell millions of records while maintaining their status as the posterchild of integrity, continuing to book their own tours and never charging more than $6 per ticket. With numerous albums to their credit (the latest The Argument is in stores now), the band has evolved from their punk roots to a sound that is both subtle, aggressive and definitively their own. Ian MacKaye spoke recently to Altercation editor Justin Habersaat about Fugazi's past, present and future.
Photos by Travis Habersaat.

Altercation: There was a few years difference between the release of your last record End Hits and your new one The Argument. Have you been writing that whole time, or did you collectively take a break?
Ian: Well, it's pretty typical of us to take a few years in between records. Most of our albums have two or three year gaps between them. We're obviously well known as a do-it-yourself band. One of the aspects of that is that you actually have to do it yourself. That involves all of the maintenance, the administrationÉ.we do it all. It takes us a while. If we're touring, we're not writing. If we're writing, we're not touring. It depends on where our minds are out. If we go out to play, all we're thinking about is playing. When we practice, we never play things we've already written. When we're really up and running, we'll spend three or four days a week in the basement going over new things. We take our time. One of the luxuries of a band that is autonomous, that maintains control over its self-determination, is that you get to decide when you want to record. There's no pressure, other than our own. In the last three years we've also put out a movie (Instrument), we recorded the movie's soundtrack and we put out this new studio album, so I feel like we've been pretty busy. To answer your question, we don't take time off. Right now we're taking a weird "baby break", since Joe just had a kid in September. (laughs) The timing of it, coupled with the holidays, means we won't be doing any touring until February of 2002. That's a little weird for us. We don't even have a practice space at the moment, which is really frustrating. On the other hand, Guy and I are always doing something in terms of administration for the band, whether it's talking to people or open mail. We're constantly working, it's just a matter of what we're working on.

A: One thing that struck me as unique from watching Instrument was your admission that Fugazi never uses a set list during live performances, basically leaving the entire set improvisational. Do you apply the same tactic while practicing? Do you come in with a set idea of lyrics and musical ideas, or do you just jam until things manifest?
I: Generally speaking, we always write instrumentals. Then somewhere down the line Guy or myself will usually add lyrics. With ever one of the songs on The Argument, they were instrumentals for several months until we stuck words on them. We basically write music together, and eventually one of us will adopt the song and put lyrics on it.

A: I know there were a lot of rumors that End Hits was to be your last record. Were you surprised by the speculation the title started?
I: To me, it's always been so obvious what that record meant. It's tongue in cheek. Of course, we knew some people would take it at face value and assume we were breaking up. But anyone who studied the record knows, the last piece of sound on there is the engineer saying "this is End Hits, take one!" followed by these weird little guitar and drum hitsÉthe story behind it is that on the song "No Surprise", at the very end coda, we were supposed to do a guitar / bass / drum staccato hit. For some reason, we all neglected to play that part. So we were all happy that we had played a version of the song that was good enough for the final record, but unhappy because we had forgotten to play that part of the song! So we decided to just record those end little hits, assuming we would just edit them onto the end of the song. We did about four or five attempts on those notes, but we couldn't tack them on at the end of the song because they sounded too different. They were basically unusable, but we thought it would be pretty funny to put it on the record after spending so much energy on this pointless little bit of music. So End Hits became the appropriate title. There were other reasons as well. There's something to be said for the idea that the world is experiencing its end hits, a certain amount of irreparable destruction.

A: Your new album, being named The Argument, is sure to spark further debate over its exact meaning. Do you prefer to leave the titles subjective, as opposed to saying "it means this"?
I: I prefer them all to be subjective. It's always going to be that way. With music or anything else, I can only be responsible for the transmission, never the reception.

A: True, but a lot of times musicians will get into specifics on their motives for a song when giving interviews. I think it usually ruins the song to a degree when that happens.
I: Well, I'm personally not really concerned with people misinterpreting a title like End Hits. Even when people look at my lyrics and think I mean "red", when in actuality I meant "blue" as long as it meant something to them, then I'm glad. I wouldn't want to put myself in a position to correct them, you know? That's why I try to shy away from giving detailed, on-the-record explanations about what I was writing about. Sometimes, I'm not even sure what I'm writing about. They just make sense as I write them.

Continued