By Adam Lovinus
By Lilledeshan Bose
By Gabriel San Roman
By Rachel Mattice
By Stephanie Zacharek
By Daniel Kohn
By Nate Jackson
By Mike Seeley
I've talked to people who like music but don't pay much attention to it—the benignly indifferent—about why there aren't more "political" bands, and I've said if a band is just trying to be as honest as they can, that's political enough.
It's easy to write some political song or any song that says anything. Words are cheap. It's what you do and how you live and how you conduct yourself more than what you say. Somebody who is "benignly indifferent" might not happen to notice that band X or band Y is political because maybe their songs are just love songs. But if they go down to the shows and see how the band comports themselves—Fugazi is a perfect example. Though they do have some political songs, if they didn't, you would still know. That's why they have the impact that they do. Not because they're railing against the system—plenty of massive corporate bands do that, and maybe they have their place too, but it's weird to be part of the problem and rage against the problem. There are legions of bands that aren't being honest—they're trying to write hits, trying to make money, trying to plug into that world that people like me are trying to avoid and maybe even take little snipes at. It's all just about honesty—it becomes political if you look at it that way.
Why is your old Roxichord organ in a museum in Seattle?
They've got it in some backroom. They were buying a bunch of stuff from local musicians of varying degrees of popularity. They've probably written it off now, but they thought if I made a big record, got famous and died, they could put it on display and someone would be interested.
That's what museums are all about.
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