Ian MacKaye

MacKaye spoke to Salon by phone recently: What makes running Dischord Records interesting after 20 years?

What's interesting for me is just the fact that people continue to come along and reinterpret things. They continue to challenge me musically or aesthetically. 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. So I feel really connected to that. I feel like with these bands today, while some of them were barely born when the label started, there is still a connection.

When I came across this counterculture world in 1978, it just made me so happy, because this is where I wanted to be. I've always felt really dedicated to the idea of continuing to support that area. When people come along with new ideas and new interpretations, I think, "Wow, it still happens." And who knows what will happen next year.

I'm not a particularly nostalgic person. The only reason I'm interested in underscoring the fact that we've been around for 20 years is that, for years, people considered Dischord a novelty thing, something that didn't really work because we weren't taking into consideration what they consider "reality." But I think if a label is functional and stays in profit -- manages to have employees and manages to pay them reasonably well and give them healthcare after 20 years -- that certainly refutes the notion that it was a joke or a novelty or due to sheer luck. It is certainly not a luck issue; it's always been about work.

For an independent record label, you've had some extremely long-term employees. Is there a secret?

I don't know how other labels work, so it's hard for me to say. We don't see it just as a label and our employees don't see it as just a job. The people who work for us decide their jobs, really. Being a boss means that I get to deal with the things nobody else wants to deal with. I don't tell people what to do. Everyone who works here also comes into it understanding the basic structure and the mission of the label.

One aspect of this label that I think has resulted in our longevity is that I hate the record business. I never wanted to have a record label per se. I wanted to put out records, and I hated the record business so much that I couldn't stand the idea of someone else putting out the records, because I could never trust them to do it. So I don't have any illusion that this [will always] be my livelihood. At some point I assume the label will stop and that's fine with me. I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. So once you don't give a fuck anymore, it's easy to go on and on.

I've always told the people who work for me that this is not the end, that this is not the last station for them. This is supposed to be an auxiliary job for them. They should be doing what their heart tells them, whether they want to make music or make art or write. Right now we have somebody who's in law school. Some people have come and been in school while working here, and then they graduated and got the gig they were looking for, and I'm happy for them.

Next Page: It's all thanks to Ken Kesey's wife

• View blog reactions