Questions from Reno and answers from Ian Maykaye

Ian Mackaye held a question & answer session at UNR yesterday (thanks Holland Project). It was really inspiring to listen to him because he is such a huge influence in DIY/punk/hardcore and of course straight edge cultures. All of which I consider myself to be a part of. Ian Mackaye was the singer of Minor Threat who is often credited for creating straight edge, he talked about how he wasn’t out to create a movement and thinks it has really gotten very far from what he meant when he said “don’t drink/don’t smoke/ don’t fuck/ but at least I can fucking think.” He wasn’t laying out rules(as they are now considered) but he was talking about was being excluded.

He also started discord records and singer/guitarist in fugazi.

                What I really took away from the ‘chat’ was that he only was able to do all this stuff because he just got up and did it. He didn’t do it for money he did it because if he didn't have any other choice no one was going to do it for him. Simply going out and trying something until it works. He told a story about how Henry Rollins and him went to see Bad Brains a few weeks ago and how he remembered seeing bad brains 30 years ago. All to often this sub-culture of punk/hardcore is  seen as something that you just grow out of(I’m guilty of thinking that) but then here is Ian Mackaye who is almost 50 years old and still holding on to the idea that, if you try something you can usually pull it off. He hasn’t let our society tell him that what he can and can’t do. It is just really cool to see that he hasn’t been forced to ‘grow up.’ Another thing that I took away was he said that he doesn’t think about the future because once you can see the future it is too late to change it, so just live for today.