Ian MacKaye of Fugazi and Minor Threat is playing at the local YMCA this month with The Evens. Columnist Brandiff Caron talked with him about his new band, playing small gigs, and what D.C. Punk really means.

While on tour and driving somewhere between Wichita and Oklahoma City, 16 Blocks telephoned Ian MacKaye and he answered. Together with drummer Amy Farina as The Evens, he will be making a stop at the YMCA thrift store before heading back home to D.C.

16B's: This will be the first time Blacksburg has had a show at the thrift store here in town. I've heard that The Evens like to play non-traditional and more personal spaces in principle. Right. We don't like to play bars or clubs. We travel with our own PA and we're a self-contained operation. We like finding rooms that are creative and interesting and I think most people are up to the challenge. We don't like playing places that bands are already populating. The Evens also have a thing about admission prices. You don't like to charge more than $5 for a show. How does that work out financially for a traveling band?

Ian: Because we're self-managed and we run our own affairs and do all of our own work, we're not tied into the rock and roll economy. Usually we can get a room for cheap. And if just a hundred or so people show up that usually means that we're pretty well squared away. We recognize that many people have never seen us and never heard our music. We want to make it as inviting as possible. We're not touring to make money. We're touring to make shows. Without people, you can't have shows.

16B's: I bet the name 'Ian MacKaye' probably doesn't hurt with that.

Ian: No. It doesn't hurt. On the other hand, I could put together a really traditional rock group and use that name to be playing much more commercially established venues and be charging a lot more. I understand that I'm well known....and of course that doesn't hurt, but I think it's irrelevant for what The Evens are trying to do.

16B's: So you think it's possible to be in a successful band and live outside of the music industry?

Ian: Do I think it's possible? No. I know it's possible.

16B's: Yeah. You're doing it, right?

Ian: Yeah! I've been doing it for thirty years! I'm not sure how you measure success.... If people's measure of success involves owning a sports franchise, I'm a tremendous failure. But, if it's a matter of making music, engaging with people in different communities, making shows with people, exploring ideas-sound ideas, lyric ideas, song ideas-and engaging in that aspect of music, and also being able to eat and survive, then, yeah, I think we're a tremendously successful band.

16B's: Speaking of engaging with people, I read that you have recently been doing 'speaking engagements'. What do these involve?

Ian: Generally, if I'm invited, a lot of times it's colleges, I do straight Q & As. I've done hundreds of interviews over the years. One thing, though, is that interviews are always biased. The person doing the interview always has some sort of agenda or bias. I thought why not just get together with a bunch of people and let everybody ask things. That would actually be an interview with the people. It usually develops into a conversation. I find it much more interesting. I don't actively seek out these sorts of events, but it's cool when I get an invite (I've had over a dozen or so so far).

16B's: Let's talk about Amy Farina [the drummer for The Evens] for a bit. How did you meet her?

Ian: I met Amy about 17 years ago now. She had moved to Washington to go to school and she played in a band that opened for Fugazi and then she was in a band with my brother called The Warmers. I recorded The Warmers and we released their first album on Dischord [Records]. She was basically just part of my scene in D.C. and we became really dear friends and eventually started to play music together. It was very natural.

16B's: Speaking of the D.C scene, we have a piece about musical genres and categories in this month's issue of 16 Blocks. What do you make of the category of 'D.C' punk which your earlier bands like Minor Threat, Teen Idles, and Fugazi helped to shape?

Ian: I think music from D.C. is indigenous, that's all. I'm not sure I would go as far as to call it a genre. I mean, if you set somebody down and played them a Minor Threat song, and then you set them down and played a Fugazi song, I don't think they would necessarily hear the connection. Especially if I wasn't singing the Fugazi song. I think that a lot of people can draw connections retrospectively, but I don't think there's necessarily a connection. What I can say, however, is that because D.C. is so culturally isolated and there's no music industry to speak of, the people that do make music there largely do so purely to make music. They're not trying to "make it" necessarily. And I think that that has in turn created a kind of indigenous vision of music because you're not really trying to become commercially successful, you're just trying to make engaging and original music.