A reunion from revered D.C. post-hardcore legends Fugazi has been one of the most talked-and-or-joked-about, could-happen-but-probably-won’t-but-maybe events in the past decade of music. To put it in A.V. Club-style terms, it’s like the rock version of an Arrested Development movie, yet somehow even more unlikely. Of course, as with the AD movie, people probably would have given up on it long ago were it not for interviews like this one that Ian MacKaye recently gave to Approaching Oblivion, where he once more allowed fans to dream that he might get the band back together for another go after more than 10 years on “indefinite hiatus,” saying:
“The four of us love each other dearly. I saw Brendan last night, I was on the phone with Guy [Picciotto] today, and Joe [Lally] is on tour at the moment. We are a family we don’t stray from each other. We worked really hard for 15 years; the band was the central aspect of our lives, and at some point life demanded attention. We had kids getting born and parents that got sick and some died. A lot of new things happened in our lives that we had to pay attention to. It meant that we had to stop working.
We didn’t break up, I coined the indefinite hiatus term specifically because I thought it was absurd to break up, it wasn't a circumstantial issue, it wasn't that anyone did anything wrong. There wasn't any anger there wasn't any big ‘fuck you!" It is entirely possible that we will play again and it's also possible that we won't. We have the desire to play, but there’s a geographical issue. Joe currently lives in Rome and that makes it hard to practice. There's also a time issue. Everyone is super busy. You've got to remember that when Fugazi was actually working we usually practiced 5 days a week from 4-6 hours a day…. We worked our asses off. We practiced and practiced and practiced. That’s just not possible right now. I’m so busy right now with work.”
As some small consolation, some of that “work” involves digitizing vast stores of old Fugazi live tracks that MacKaye hopes to make available for download in the “near future,” beginning with about 100 different shows, he says. So anyone who didn’t catch the band the first time around will at least be able to hear what all the fuss was about. Or you know, maybe you’ll finally see for yourself when they get back together, man, you never know… [via Pitchfork]