Ian MacKaye - Retrospective Interview

Choosing D.I.Y, inventing straight edge and exploring spirituality and politics

Mar 01, 2025

This interview took place in 2005, taken from a zine my friend Dan Jones and I made called, ‘Die Trying’. It was a limited edition Punk D.I.Y product made from our need to share ideas from that time and also just to make art. It is also possibly the only interview Ian has ever talked about Piano - Noah

Guest contribution from Dan Jones who ran the Q & A. Ian is not Melbourne based as we know but I think his story and music are both relatable and important to us.

Artwork by Noah Symons from Die Trying Zine 2005

Messages in Music

Hi Ian, Thanks for the opportunity! I know email is impersonal, but it cheap and convenient. I have tried to keep these questions as open as possible, feel free to take them in any direction you wish for and as long as you please. - Dan

What does music mean to you?

A form of communication that predates language, and something, that in my case, is not a choice.

What are your thoughts on the music industry? Where do you stand in relation to it?

The music industry is the '‘bottling plant’ for the river that is music. It has it’s place, but profiteering has resulted in a number of attempts to block access to or poison the water.

I found/find the industry a fairly distasteful affair, so I decided to put out my own records.

Give us a brief musical history. How did you start out, and where have you been since?

I’ve been playing piano my whole life. I started playing bass in my first band, the Slinkees (1979), and played bass in the Teen Idles (79/80), sang for Minor Threat (80-83) and Embrace (85-86). I’ve sang and played guitar in Fugazi since 1987. I’m currently singing and playing guitar in a band called The Evens, but we don’t have any records available. There is a song available online (www.protest-records.com) it’s called ‘on the face of it’ and it’s under volume 2). I’ve worked on a number of other projects including Egghunt, Pailhead, Skewbald, and Pea Soup.

Tell us a little about Straight-edge, your involvement, and thoughts on what it has become?

Straight edge was a term that I coined when I wrote the song, ‘Straight Edge’ in 1980. It was a song about an individual’s right to live their life however they wanted, and in my case that meant not drinking or getting high.

I never intended to create a movement or whatever you want to call it, but it’s not mine to control.

I do distance myself from the more fundamentalist/violent elements of the ‘movement’, but for the most part I think that the people who identify themselves as or with ‘Straight Edge’ are good people trying to do what seems right to them.

Is the 80’s punk-hardcore ethic still relevant to punk and hardcore cultures today?

Everything is relevant if one considers life a flight of stairs, one step leads to the next.

Do you consider yourself a spiritual person? Have religious ideas or experiences shaped your personal beliefs?

I am a non-subscriber and faithful agnostic.

Religion is so predominate in our culture it would be absurd to think that it hasn’t had an effect on me.

At the same time I think that there are many human tenets that are often attributed to religion… for instance there are those that say that my belief in, ‘giving a f**k is Christian, but how did they get the patent on something like that?

Where do you see yourself politically in light of current world events?

Opposed to war. All war. Opposed to people that promote war. Opposed to people that profit from war. Opposed to government that declare war. Opposed to governments that celebrate war. Opposed to the flags that are used to justify war. Opposed to the perversion of religions to rationalize or bring about war.

Should the focus ever return to the role or government in the terms of people that are being governed, I believe that healthcare, education, and community services and infrastructure should be the primary concerns and functions. The world is a good place, and there is no such thing as ‘evil’ as has been presented and manipulated by the people in power.

The fact that the USA will plunk down $100 billion to blow-up people and buildings is a good indication that there is plenty to go around. Those without, the less-than-fortunate, are unhappy about the situation, and I can’t blame them.