Guy Picciotto
If Fugazi were a body, then Ian MacKaye would be the brain, Brendan Canty and Joe Lally the limbs, and Guy Picciotto the heart.
Since Fugazi went on hold after the release of The Argument, Guy has been one of the quieter members of the band, keeping out of the radar while Ian, Brendan and Joe have been involved with other groups.
Mudlark - With Fugazi on hold for the time being, how have you kept yourself busy, and have you found it frustrating being not as musically active?
Guy - I've been doing alot of different things since the end of 2002 when Fugazi last played together. I've produced records for bands like Blonde Redhead, The Gossip and the Casual Dots. I've played a some shows as an improvisor with a group called International Silence. I've been writing music and getting a new band together slowly but surely. My life continues to revolve around music so that much hasn't changed.
Though I do miss touring and playing with the other guys, I haven't found it frustrating not being in Fugazi - I mean, we were together for 16 years, we did a fuck of a lot of work and we never played a show or made a record where I wasn't into it. I would be much more frustrated if we had continued past the point where all four of us could say that. That would be a recipe for serious hell.
Mudlark - Do you find the hardcore/punk scene as exciting and creative as you did at the height of the scene in DC? Are there bands that still push the boundaries?
Guy - I don't really compare eras - everything is so contextual that to try and compare the way I felt going to shows at age15 to going to shows now at age 39 seems a bit pointless. Every scrap of time has its own perspective and value. And sure, there are bands now that are every bit as inspiring and extreme as bands from back then.....I would name Orthrelm and the Ex as just two convenient examples.
Mudlark - How hard was it for you starting out in bands, to form a coherent community built around its music and geographical location? Was it conscious or purely organic?
Guy - I don't have any memory of it ever being hard because back then there were no ambitions, no careerist implications to anything - playing music was just an extension of hanging out and it all just came together pretty naturally.
Most of us were still in high school and so we just felt like we were making it all up on the spot. We didn't feel beholden to any historical strategy or rulebook. It was really free.
Mudlark - Do you think the internet and related technologies open up new opportunities for bands, musicians, artists and such like, to form their own labels, distribution outlets, etc. free from the strangle hold of corporate interference?
Guy - I don't really think technology plays that much of a role in escaping corporate interference because there was plenty of independent networks formed long before any of these technologies existed. The technologies are just tools - the will to do it, the imagination to do it, the creativity to shape it are all human traits and they will always be the pre-requisite no matter what tools happen to exist at any given time.
Mudlark - George Bush now has a second term in office - how concerned are you?
Guy - I can remember Reagan getting a second term and feeling sick to my stomach. The George Bush re-election was only about a thousand times more awful.
Mudlark - I saw Fugazi play in Glasgow on your last tour of the UK. Apart from it being musically brilliant, it was a very refreshing experience to see how the band interacts with the audience (I remember you kept some of the lights on over the crowd and asked us if we were comfortable with that). Would you say that is an important element of what Fugazi is about?
Guy - We have always been really fastidious about lighting. It bugs us if we can't see the crowd - we don't like playing to inky blackness because then there is nothing to react to. We like to see faces. We also don't like lights flashing while we play - our whole thing is built for really clinical, plain white light. We will supply the visual information ourselves - just make us and the crowd visible to each other. We like interacting with the crowd because their presence and their individuality is what makes each night different and unique unto intself. We know each other and we know the songs - for us the crowd is the one blessedly unknown factor so its critically important. It saves it from just becoming a rote exercise in repetition. Its another reason why we've never used a set list. We like to cater the flow of the music to what is happening in the room and with the people. The crowd in alot of ways is the conductor.
Mudlark - How hard is it to keep sounding original and fresh with each album? Do you feel under more pressure with bands like Q and Not U seeming to have picked up the ball and ran with it, or does it make you happy that they have clearly learned something from your approach?
Guy - We never really worried about keeping the freshness quotient high when we recorded. We just wrote the songs that we wanted to and the progression of the music just took care of itself. Its not like bread - there's no sell by date on good songs. They either work or they don't. As for other bands - we never looked over our shoulder and we never worried about bands picking up on ideas or approaches because that kind of cross-pollination is just part of music. No band comes out of the chute without having picked up something along the way from the people that preceded them....its how they develop on
it that makes them more or less interesting.
Mudlark - Has the idea of a 'solo project' ever crossed your mind?
Guy - I may make a record alone but I generally prefer to work with other people so for right now that is what I am trying to do. My best case scenario is to try and get a full band together. But if it doesn't happen soon I'm not
completely against the idea of pulling a James Taylor.
Mudlark - If you could have four guests for dinner, living or dead, who would they be and why?
Guy - I think it would have to be George W. Bush and I alone for an intimate dinner of pretzels and ultra fine fish bones.
Interview carried out via email by Kenny Mooney.
Thanks to Guy for participating.