Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" 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

Want

Decisions

" Ultimately, I'm not the most prolific person, but I've been doing this for a long time, and I keep on putting out music. The only thing that drives music is the people who are making it. "

" 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

I Am

Myself

" When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point. "

" 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

Person

Religion

" My point of view is, I'm just a person, and there are times when I look at other people and think, 'My God, they spend so much time thinking about things that seem so absurd.' But I'm sure people must think the same thing about me. "

Ian MacKaye

Thinking

Time

" I just have work to do; I just do it. "

" 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?' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I've had people call me from bands that are very popular, and they're like, 'What do we do? We want to do what you do.' It's almost impossible to do what I do, because you would have to start in 1980. You can't just do it. "

Ian MacKaye

Impossible

People

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I've done thousands of interviews in my life, and it's a format that I quite enjoy, because I think of questions in interviews as an opportunity to sort of gauge my growth in a way. It gives me an idea of how I'm navigating this world that I'm in. "

" 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

Choice

Music

" Minor Threat was an important band, believe me that it was important it in my life, but it belongs to an era that no longer exists. I'm not nostalgic. I think music today is much more important, because something can be done about it. "

Ian MacKaye

Life

Today

" I've always been a bit of a documentarian. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" My focus is always on the day. What I've done behind me, I try to have respect for it, and keep an eye on it, and make sure it isn't abused, and obviously be thoughtful about it, because it's all real to me. I'm basically in every band I ever was in, and the songs, I still mean them all. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" To me, music is no joke and it's not for sale. "

Ian MacKaye

Music

Sale

" The thing is, people can't complain about profit-oriented moves if they're only interested in profit themselves. You can't have it both ways. If they're willing to polish up a gift and sell it to make money, they can't really complain about the fact that somebody above them has sold them down the river. That's the way it goes. "

" 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

Business

Start

" 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. "