Ian MacKaye Quotes

“I don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck. At least i can fucking think.”

— Ian MacKaye

We have a six-month-old son. When he was first born and I was walking him, I kept on running into these guys in the neighborhood. They were always like, "Hey dude, welcome to the club!" And I'm like, "Wow, what club did I join?" It confused me and I didn't feel comfortable with it at all. How could something so organic - what is more organic than the birth of a human being? - turn into a "club"? But then suddenly it struck me and I was like, "Wait a minute! I'm a fucking punk!" I've always felt like a freak, it's just that I had never a parent before. And I realized that these were the same dudes who used to say, "What's with your hair? Are you a fag?".

— Ian MacKaye

“American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up. My idea was: Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery going because you're making good food and people are happy.”

— Ian MacKaye

“There are many things that people do happily that I can't imagine why they would do it ... But I have to say that even though I am critical or judgmental of society at large, I'm not critical of people individually. We are who we are.”

— Ian MacKaye

“Part of the way the work world works is not so much creating a separation between your work and your free time, but creating the illusion of a separation between your work and your free time. Every day is the weekend for me, which means I'm always busy.”

— Ian MacKaye

Major labels didn't start showing up really until they smelled money, and that's all they're ever going to be attracted to is money-that's the business they're in- making money.

— Ian MacKaye

I do feel like I have always, in my life, been inclined to be on the outside, walk a different path or something. Because of that, and increasingly over the years, my sense of distance from mainstream society or from the way culture works, I have a different kind of perception of it.

— Ian MacKaye

“To me, music is no joke and it's not for sale.”

— Ian MacKaye

When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.

— Ian MacKaye

“I've had people call me from bands that are very popular, and they're like, 'What do we do? We want to do what you do.' It's almost impossible to do what I do, because you would have to start in 1980. You can't just do it.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I was into Ted Nugent, I was a Nugent guy. I was a skateboarder listening to Ted Nugent.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I have thousands of tapes, and photos and fliers, letters, posters, artwork - basically everything that ever happened, I kept. I'm not a hoarder, though. I'm sort of a librarian.”

— Ian MacKaye

I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but ... I have a reputation of - people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow.

— Ian MacKaye

“I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.”

— Ian MacKaye

When people who are songwriters say 'That's my property and if you give it away for free then I'll lose my incentive,' then, well, good riddance.

— Ian MacKaye

“I consider the guitar a tool for the most part. I do pick up the acoustic now and then, I certainly don't have any routine. Usually the only time I practice is when the band gets together. Hendrix has always been one of my favorite players, but I was a sucker for Nugent in the late 1970's.”

— Ian MacKaye

“With Napster and the sharing of music, of course, there are going to be people who exploit it. Greed has no end. But there's a lot of good that could happen. We shouldn't let the economic concerns of the major labels infringe on our freedom to share music.”

— Ian MacKaye

I'm always happy when I hear about people selling records or selling books or selling movies. It makes me proud of them.

— Ian MacKaye

“Basically we just created our own label, but again we just did it to document our own music and create our own thing, so the major labels were just always out of our picture, we're not interested.”

— Ian MacKaye

I stand behind all the lyrics I've ever written; I don't have a problem with that.

— Ian MacKaye

“I feel completely fortunate to have this outlet for something I don't really feel like I have a choice in, to make music. I've got to make it.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I consider the piano my 'main' instrument and have been playing for as long as I can remember. It seems to me that I might have come up with something resembling a song as early as 4 or 5 years old.”

— Ian MacKaye

“The thing is, people can't complain about profit-oriented moves if they're only interested in profit themselves. You can't have it both ways. If they're willing to polish up a gift and sell it to make money, they can't really complain about the fact that somebody above them has sold them down the river. That's the way it goes.”

— Ian MacKaye

Yeah, if someone's selling downloads and collecting money for our songs I would be unhappy about that but if they're trading it I don't mind, obviously if I make a thousand records or CDs or whatever, I like to sell a thousand.

— Ian MacKaye

“I have stuff from 1979, 1980 in my collection. But I also have things from 2012. So I don't know if it's memorabilia as much as it is holding on to things that I find relevant that most people might not.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I have other projects to do. I try not to let that documentation interfere with my present day.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I'm not talking about what came later, indie music, or whatever you want to call it, but the music that came before that - that's an important story. So many interviews with musicians get the time or context wrong. You have these older bands, usually men, who tell stories about "Oh, we got into this huge fight, this guy punched that guy," that's the wrong sort of story. My view of the time is truly pioneering.”

— Ian MacKaye

Columbia Heights was a poor, messed up area, and the church was in the middle of it. What happened inside was a reflection of the community. I actually saw my first rock concert on the altar of that church [St. Stephen's].

— Ian MacKaye

“I think it's my nature to engage in things that are more difficult.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I'm not a sports guy. However it's interesting to be in a place where people have a sporting fever. One time I was in Italy during one of the European soccer cups, and it's interesting because it's so electrifying.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I'm not a sports dude, but I'm interested in the sociological implications of it.”

— Ian MacKaye

“We play loud electric guitar music, and we'd hope that that doesn't mean you have to act like an asshole.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I do not consider myself a teddybear. Just to be clear, I don't feel sorry for myself.”

— Ian MacKaye

“It's just hard to have a nuanced discussion with like a thousand people, 30 of which are white-power skinheads.”

— Ian MacKaye

“It doesn't hurt me on a personal level, but it hurts me on a larger level of like, why are people so stupid? Why do we have to go through these unnecessary exercises. Fight crime, don't fight me. If you really want to make a difference don't fight me or Fugazi.”

— Ian MacKaye

“Let's say for instance people say, "He's a really totalitarian, strict guy, he's hard to work with or whatever." I don't think it's true, but people's perception of me leads that direction, like I'm a fundamentalist person. I end up having to spend extra time saying, "I'm not a fundamentalist." I have other stuff to do.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I never imagine myself as anything. I've never had a goal or any future vision at all. I just do what's in front of me.”

— Ian MacKaye

“When someone writes a really nasty piece about me. I think they're generally untrue because I think I'm a nice person.”

— Ian MacKaye

“Bars are meeting places and places to unwind. But at some point, what is culture unwinding from, and why can't they meet anywhere else?”

— Ian MacKaye

“I do remember seeing Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar, one of those. It was a liberation theology venue. Anything radical seemed to be accepted there. I definitely picked up the idea there that you should question authority.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I don't watch TV but occasionally I'll read the Washington Post. I will say that sports are the only "real thing" on television.”

— Ian MacKaye

“As hard as you try and create narratives about sports, once the ball is in the air, there's not a damn thing you can do about it, it's just very real.”

— Ian MacKaye

“You had bands like D.O.A., or Black Flag, and a whole network opened up to trailblazer a counter culture movement. I'm more interested in the less sensational type of stories.”

— Ian MacKaye

“Totally another bread and circus, when you think about it. That's a Roman concept where the government can do anything, as long as you give the people "bread and circuses." And I'd say this culture right now is similar, as long as people have money, fun, and food, our government can do heinous, heinous things.”

— Ian MacKaye

“I jump from one thing to the next but try and strike a balance. But it's not nostalgic in the sense of 'those were the good old days and now we're not there'. I don't think like that. Not my way.”

— Ian MacKaye

Getting your letters or pictures digitized. I don't think it's that important. The more you spend on your materials, you're given the sense that those things are more important due to the total amount spent. You'd probably be better off giving that money to a soup kitchen.

— Ian MacKaye

“We had punks literally protesting Fugazi. I respect a boycott. I respect a conscionable boycott, but of all bands to boycott? Fight crime. If you really want to get out there, go fight crime.”

— Ian MacKaye

Structures can be manipulated for ill as well, especially when people are dealing with issues of power, or control, or violence.

— Ian MacKaye

For most people who have or who do identify as or with [song] Straight Edge, I feel like for most people, they're just trying to do the right thing.

— Ian MacKaye

"Straight Edge" was a song about my life. There was no structure, no premise as if I was forming a club. There were no tenets. I mean I wrote a song called "Straight Edge," I'll take that, but the song was about my life the way I wanted to live it.

— Ian MacKaye