Ian MacKaye Quotes

There are many things that people do happily that I can't imagine why they would do it... But I have to say that even though I am critical or judgmental of society at large, I'm not critical of people individually. We are who we are.
Ian MacKaye

Society, Why, Though

An unlocked door means that, occasionally, you might get a devil come in, but a locked door means you have thousands of angels just walk by.
Ian MacKaye

Door, Means, Devil

Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different, but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.
Ian MacKaye

Music, Money, Different

Major labels didn't start showing up really until they smelled money, and that's all they're ever going to be attracted to is money-that's the business they're in- making money.
Ian MacKaye

Money, Business, Start

There are certainly good examples of incredibly brilliant, beautiful music that has been made commercially available and sold everywhere. But I would say that, for the most part, quantity certainly does not speak well for quality.
Ian MacKaye

Music, Good, Beautiful

American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up.
Ian MacKaye

Business, Everything, American

And in fact, one of the central reasons why I never got involved with any drugs or anything is that I remember talking to people in maybe 1975 who saw Hendrix but couldn't remember it. I was like, 'How could that be?'
Ian MacKaye

Remember, Why, Fact

At every election, my vote goes to the candidate less likely to declare war. You're dropping hugely expensive pieces of exploding metal on a population. America deserves the president it gets, whether the country votes for them or allows their vote to be stolen, and the least we can do is to elect someone who won't do that to other people.
Ian MacKaye

War, Someone, Country

Basically we just created our own label, but again we just did it to document our own music and create our own thing, so the major labels were just always out of our picture, we're not interested.
Ian MacKaye

Music, Again, Picture

I consider the guitar a tool for the most part. I do pick up the acoustic now and then, I certainly don't have any routine. Usually the only time I practice is when the band gets together. Hendrix has always been one of my favorite players, but I was a sucker for Nugent in the late 1970's.
Ian MacKaye

Time, Together, Guitar

I consider the piano my 'main' instrument and have been playing for as long as I can remember. It seems to me that I might have come up with something resembling a song as early as 4 or 5 years old.
Ian MacKaye

Long, Remember, Old

I do feel like I have always, in my life, been inclined to be on the outside, walk a different path or something. Because of that, and increasingly over the years, my sense of distance from mainstream society or from the way culture works, I have a different kind of perception of it.
Ian MacKaye

Life, Society, Different

I don't dismiss the music that I was involved with, I don't think it was a joke, I don't think it was funny or a phase, I don't think it was just something I was doing back then, to me it was who I am. It connects all the way through. I don't distance myself from any of it.
Ian MacKaye

Funny, Music, Through

I feel completely fortunate to have this outlet for something I don't really feel like I have a choice in, to make music. I've got to make it.
Ian MacKaye

Music, Choice, Fortunate

I feel quite connected to the past, and my memory. Everything that I've ever done I can still relate to, and feel connected to it in a way. There's no part of my life that I look at and go, 'I don't recognize that person at all.'
Ian MacKaye

Life, Past, Person

I have thousands of tapes, and photos and fliers, letters, posters, artwork - basically everything that ever happened, I kept. I'm not a hoarder, though. I'm sort of a librarian.
Ian MacKaye

Everything, Though, Happened

I just have work to do; I just do it.
Ian MacKaye

I never, ever had it in my mind that I wanted to be in the record industry, because I still contend that the record industry is an insidious affair. It's this terrible collision between art and commerce, and it will always be that way.
Ian MacKaye

Art, Mind, Between

I stand behind all the lyrics I've ever written; I don't have a problem with that.
Ian MacKaye

Problem, Stand, Behind

I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but... I have a reputation of - people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow.
Ian MacKaye

Funny, Humor, Thought

I was into Ted Nugent, I was a Nugent guy. I was a skateboarder listening to Ted Nugent.
Ian MacKaye

Guy, Listening, Ted

I work so I don't need to make rent through my songs, and I think if more people engaged with music without needing it to provide for their welfare, you're not beholden to anyone.
Ian MacKaye

Music, Work, Through

I'm always happy when I hear about people selling records or selling books or selling movies. It makes me proud of them.
Ian MacKaye

Movies, Happy, Proud

I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.
Ian MacKaye

Religion, Person, Sense

I'm really anti-option, so computers have been my nightmare with recording. I don't want endless tracks; I want less tracks. I want decisions to be made.
Ian MacKaye

Computers, Made, Decisions

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: April 16, 1962

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