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 MacKayeAll we wanted to do was to make live records all available. For us, the idea is to make it all available and let people decide which ones they like better. It's not for us to decide. We don't care about that. What we're interested in is the idea that we made these recordings, and they're not doing anybody a damn bit of good sitting in a closet.
Ian MacKayeThere's also a lot of skateboard stuff, because I was a skateboarder. Somewhere around here I have one of my original boards.
Ian MacKayeIn the late 90s, there was a reverse. Everyone would stand stock still and be so attentive and quiet. But then, it was almost like, "C'mon people! Engage - make a show with us!" You can hear these different eras pass through in the recordings.
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 MacKayePeople ask me: โWhat is punk? How do you define punk?' Here's how I define punk: It's a free space. It could be called jazz. It could be called hip-hop. It could be called blues, or rock, or beat. It could be called techno. It's just a new idea. For me, it was punk rock. That was my entrance to this idea of the new ideas being able to be presented in an environment that wasn't being dictated by a profit motive.
Ian MacKaye