Brendan Canty: ‘There is always a lingering chance Fugazi will reunite’
There are countless defunct bands that fans would give anything to see live. In recent years, cult alt-rock legends such as Failure, Duster, and Unwound have all reunited, offering new and longtime fans a chance to experience what they had been missing for years. Yet, many other iconic acts remain dormant, with even larger droves of hopeful fans willing to queue online for hours at the mere possibility of seeing them in the flesh. Among the most influential of these is Fugazi.
Although it has been 22 years since the DC legends went on hiatus, Fugazi remains a storied and exemplary force. Essentially a hardcore supergroup featuring Ian MacKaye, Guy Picciotto, Joe Lally, and Brendan Canty, their fervent blend of hardcore, art rock, and experimental sounds remains as sonically impressive as ever. Taking the classic DC sound to new heights, their music is defined by duelling guitars, grooving basslines, and a relentless drive that set them apart.
It wasn’t just the stellar music that set Fugazi apart. With Ian MacKaye—the visionary behind hardcore pioneers Minor Threat and Embrace—alongside Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty, who helped shape emo’s hardcore roots with Rites of Spring, and Joe Lally, a former roadie for Beefeater, the band embodied the DIY ethos from the ground up. Refusing to work with corporate entities, they released all their music through MacKaye’s independent label, Dischord, and prioritised keeping ticket prices affordable for fans. Fugazi became standard-bearers for the independent spirit, creating music for art’s sake and fostering a sense of community. Unlike many of their contemporaries, they avoided egotistical posturing, staying true to their principles and setting a powerful example of integrity in music.
Fugazi never were just a band, and this was the key to their success and cultural significance. This DIY approach and genuine care for their craft stood out like a ray of light amid the cynical cash grabs of the major labels during the grunge and alt boom of the early 1990s and throughout the rest of the decade as the forms became husks of their original selves, and other, much less substantial genres such as Britpop – the antithesis to what they represented – emerged.
After raising the sonic bar with The Argument in 2001, it seemed Fugazi was poised to enter an exciting new chapter—one that promised to be even more stylistic and experimental. However, true to their ethos of resisting external pressures, the band announced an “indefinite hiatus” after concluding their 2002 UK tour in London. For Fugazi, it felt like the right moment to step away. They had delivered a brilliant album, but the world around them had changed, as had their personal circumstances. Having been a band since 1986, they symbolically prioritised family and other professional pursuits over the demands of the music industry, staying true to their values even in their departure.
While Fugazi’s hiatus occurred a long time ago, according to drummer Canty in a recent interview with White Lake Productions, “There’s always a lingering chance” they might get back together. Luckily for themselves and fans, they’re all still close. After all, he and Lally had been playing in The Messthetics since 2016, and they see each other regularly.
He said: “There’s always a lingering chance that we’re going to get back together, and I mean it becomes less and less likely, but there were times throughout the last 22 years that we have gotten together and played for sometimes a week at a time, and we always see each other in town, and we’re always working on other reissue projects. I mean, we’re just in each other’s lives a lot so, you know, it’s not up to me whether we get the band back together. If it was up to me, we’d be out there playing, but it’s not that easy.”
Although it’s been quiet on the Fugazi front for a while, Canty explicitly outlines his desire for the band to get back together and the fact that they’re all still close is more than enough to fan the flames of hope within followers. Stranger things have happened in music, so maybe one day, the quartet will get back together and show us exactly what we’ve been missing.
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