A mercifully brief introduction to a long Q&A: Ian MacKaye is from Washington, D.C., and he is in the rock band Fugazi. For the last 22 years, he’s co-owned Dischord Records with Jeff Nelson, his former bandmate in Minor Threat. But you already knew this. Dischord has just issued a delayed reaction to its two decades of existence, the three-CD boxed set 20 Years Of Dischord, which collects both previously released and unissued tracks from the label’s locals-only roster: Minor Threat, Teen Idles, SOA, Rites Of Spring, Jawbox, Shudder To Think, Fugazi, the Make-Up, Lungfish and others. Also included is a 134-page booklet with band bios and a preface by Henry Rollins.

A not-so-brief side note: MAGNET has been trying to get an interview with MacKaye and Fugazi for years now; the last time we asked (admittedly, a few years back) we were told something along the lines that our magazine was “too corporate.” We laughed—there are more people in Fugazi than in the MAGNET office (you do the math)—and regretted the disconnect. So it was somewhat surprising when MacKaye picked up the phone and agreed to chat about the 20 Years Of Dischord boxed set for a dinky news piece in issue #56. I’m glad he did. Forgive the gross personal interpolation here, but a lot of what MacKaye says below about running an independent record label rang true for our experience in running an independent music magazine: Success does not equal compromise, expansion and world domination; success equals a personal connection with your listeners/readers, a meaningful workday and a job well done. But you already knew this.

Herewith the Q&A, during which MacKaye rivaled the Apples In Stereo’s Robert Schneider as Fastest Talker I Have Ever Interviewed.

I wanted to ask you about the two photos on the front and back covers of the booklet; they seem to speak volumes. In the early photo, you and Jeff are glaring at the camera and in the later photo, you’re smiling.
That’s interesting. For the early photo, (noted skateboarding/music photographer) Glen Friedman was in town—I don’t know if you’re familiar with the cover of the “Salad Days” seven-inch, it’s a sort of well-known Minor Threat photo of us sitting on a porch—it was taken the same day. We weren’t taking it for any reason other than the fact that we thought it’d be cool to ham it up and take a picture of the office with the records everywhere. The glaring is not really ... in D.C., there’s a term called gritting, which is kind of like giving someone the stink-eye, giving them a face. It’s not really a big deal. The later photo, Jeff picked that out. Jeff really wanted a photo where I wasn’t giving my ...

Serious look?
Well, just a look, you know? The point is not that I’m so mean or tough, it’s that I mean it. I’m not trying to bullshit or tap-dance my way through this stuff. Obviously, if you want to see what I look like, this is what I look like. I don’t want people to think this is all light-hearted, because it’s not. It’s serious business. People use the word “fun” when they talk about music all the time, and I just happen to be a person that doesn’t necessarily think that music is “fun” or that I have “fun” with music. I think it’s an abused word to begin with, and frankly, there’s more to it. This actually has weight to me. If it didn’t have weight to me, I wouldn’t have done it and I wouldn’t have done it for so goddamn long. It’s very interesting that you picked up on this, because it was a discussion Jeff and I had. I’m not exactly smiling on the back photo—I’m looking at it right now—but I am more relaxed-looking, you could say.

The early photo also just brings to mind that when you’re younger, you tend to be a little more intense, especially when entering some kind of venture like a record label. Then in the later photo, you guys seem a little more comfortable in the job you’re doing, more beatific-looking.
Yeah, I don’t know if that’s the case or not. I gotta tell ya, I may have been intense when I was a kid, but I’m way the fuck more intense now. I just don’t have to wear it on my sleeve the same way. I’m a hard thinker, I think hard. You have to keep in mind that we weren’t embarking on a career as a record label—we were punks and this is what we did. We put out records. We were in a scene in D.C., we were in a band, we were psyched. We felt we were a part of something that was going to impact American culture. It certainly affected our culture: We thought we were a part of a tribe. But the back photo, yeah, we’re both 40 now and as you can see, I’m sitting in the same office right now talking to you. This is my office, where I spend most of my time. Here’s my whole point about [20 Years Of Dischord]: I’m not really one to celebrate anniversaries. Twenty years went by without much notice; we didn’t have a party, we didn’t send out bags of cookies to people, we didn’t have a special show with the band, we didn’t waltz down Nostalgia Lane. I don’t care about that kind of stuff at all. My work is what I think about. The one element of the label existing for 20 years that I do appreciate is the idea that, after two decades, it’s clearly not a fucking joke. At the beginning of this label, people thought it was a novelty. “The way you guys operate is so un-businesslike, it’s not going to last, clearly you must be subsidized by some shady organization.” People thought we were crazy about the way we were doing our business, but we had a strong business philosophy that was based on ethical concerns. People said that ethical concerns were antithetical to business interests, but I think that’s bullshit. After 20 years, the fact that we’re still here and all the other labels that were popping up all around us and giving us a hard time about the way we did things—“You don’t use contracts, you’re not a real label”—well, they’re gone.

That sort of answers my next question: Looking at the photos, the office is virtually unchanged and I would wager that you’re talking to me on that telephone with the mismatched receiver.
Well, I’m actually on a different phone, but I am at the same desk and the Rolodex is the same.

If a Wharton Business School graduate looked at that unchanged telephone, he’d say that Dischord never really took off. But as you hinted at before, the label invested in endurance and stamina rather than expansion.
The American business model is based on expansionism. There’s a theory that if you’re not growing, you’re dead. I reject that. If you wanted to be in the bakery business and bake good bread and give people a sense of, “Well, I can go there for good bread,” you make the bread, they buy it and go. And everyone’s happy. If you have to buy all the bakeries or if you have to be bought by other bakeries, it stunts the possibilities. You don’t know what can happen when you develop a long-standing relationship with your community.

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