A conversation with Brendan Canty of Fugazi from 2013
The D.C. legend talks about raising four kids, hating computers, ripping off The Beatles, and learning to love the Grateful Dead
Welcome to stübermania, where I dig into my box of dust-covered interview cassettes from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to present bygone conversations with your favourite alterna/indie semi-stars (and the occasional classic-rock icon). This is a newsletter in three parts: The Openers (links to recent writings, playlist updates, and/or other musical musings), The Headliner (your featured interview of the week), and Encores (random yet related links).
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THE OPENERS
Notes on this week’s additions to the stübermania 2025 jukebox:
Sharp Pins, “Storma Lee”: Chicago wunderkind Kai Slater self-released his second album as Sharp Pins, Radio DDR, last summer, but today the album receives an expanded re-release via K Records that will hopefully bring more ears to this absolute gem of a record, a non-stop hit parade that marches somewhere between the whimsical basement-pop of vintage Guided by Voices and the wistful rainy-day jangle of The Clientele.
YHWH Nailgun, “Animal Death Already Breathing”: With its uncanny fusion of trash-can funk and tropical gloss, this track from the New York noise quartet is kind of like gazing at an ad for a sunny vacation destination as you lie in a pool of blood after getting swarmed on a deserted subway-station platform.
M(h)aol, “Snare”: This week, Wet Leg hinted at an imminent comeback, but until any new music arrives, you can get your fill of fun ‘n’ freaky deadpan post-punk from this mischievous Irish outfit, who drop their sophomore album, Something Soft, on Merge on May 16.
Goddess & Ex:Re, “Shadow”: Goddess is the new project of Fay Milton, best known as the drummer for Savages, and this debut single is a collaboration with another aliased 2010s indie veteran—Ex:Re, a.k.a. Elena Tonra of Daughter—that yields a Bat for Lashes-worthy display of goth-pop grandeur.
Nell Smith, “Boy in a Bubble”: Not a Paul Simon nod, but an endearingly quirky tribute to Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne—complete with all manner of lyrical Easter eggs—from a teenage fan-turned-friend-turned-collaborator who, tragically, won’t be here to see her debut album’s release on April 11.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, “Earth 1”: For the first track on the second instalment of UMO’s IC series of improvised instrumental releases, Ruban Nielson and co. set up shop in a Bogota studio and get blissfully lost in the groove. This one goes to 11 (minutes).
THE HEADLINER:
A conversation with Brendan Canty
The date: March 5, 2013
Publication: The Grid
Location: I was at the Grid office in Toronto, Brendan was calling from his home studio in D.C.
Album being promoted: The self-titled debut from Canty’s band Deathfix
The context: Brendan Canty is a certified legend many times over—drummer for Rites of Spring and Fugazi; founding member of Girls Against Boys; soundtrack composer for National Geographic; Wilco documentarian; Ted Leo producer; sideman for the likes of Bob Mould and Eddie Vedder; and background model in the greatest concert photo of all time. Our conversation centered around another addition to his overflowing résumé: singer/guitarist for Deathfix, a band he formed with seasoned dance-music producer Richard Morel, the only guy whose credits include producing multiple records for D.C. EDM titans Deep Dish and playing in Bob Mould’s backing band. But in lieu of the expected dance/punk crossover, Deathfix’s 2013 self-titled debut actually leaned into their formative loves of ‘70s classic-rock, power-pop, glam, and funk.
And yet, for all of Canty’s accomplishments, I wanted to start our conversation by asking about one of his less-celebrated achievements in life: raising four kids. This interview occurred mere weeks after I had first become a father myself, so speaking to Canty gave me some reassurance that, even when your life revolves around another human’s bowel movements, you can still get shit done.
When you look at the sort of totality of your résumé with all your soundtrack and production work and filmmaking work—that's impressive in its own right. But then I read that you now have four kids. So my first question is: How the hell do you get anything done?
I just don't sleep very much. Honestly, you're around when the kids are there, but then when they go to bed you go back to work. You stay up until about 1 or 2, and you get up at 7, and that's just what you do. Honestly, that's the way it's worked out over the last 10-15 years, I guess.
I asked that question as a father of a newborn myself. I'm just six weeks in, so I’m still figuring out the work-life balance...
Well, I always look at the first-time parents and I think, “What the hell did I find so difficult?” Because it's completely overwhelming to have four. But the funny thing is: your kids become humans. They become interesting people in their own right, and they also become self-sufficient. So your job does actually get easier, you'll be happy to know.
Last night was probably the worst night for us so far.
Yeah, it can be fucking impossible if they don't sleep, that's for damn sure. None of mine ever slept. All I'd say is: once a week, give yourself a break, get some sleep. Otherwise, just expect yourself to get grey and fat and grow old and die early.
So given where you are in your life now and the fact that you’ve carved out this really prolific career outside of Fugazi, what is compelling you to get back in the van and back into the clubs to front a band?
I just really hate modern computer life where you just sit on the fucking computer all the time. And it seems like with everything I get involved with—filmmaking or music production or soundtrack work—you end up sitting in front of the computer all the time. And I found it to be totally unsustainable. I really honestly think it's killing me. So I'm trying to do stuff away from the computer with people—collaborative things. But to be honest with you, if Deathfix hadn’t come along, I probably might still be in front of the computer. And I will be still in front of the computer at some point. But I'm on a tear to liberate myself from the screen a little bit.
Did you see the movie WALL-E?
I did not see the movie WALL-E. It may be the only animated film in the last 15 years that I haven't seen. But I have not seen it. I like to see movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes or the Jackass movies.
The reason I brought up WALL-E is it imagines a future where everyone is just a sedentary blob with their computers floating in front of their faces.
That's me!
So with Deathfix, you're working with more classic ’70s rock influences, and I'm wondering: Has that music been a constant throughout your life, or is it something you rejected at one point and came back around to later on?
You know, I don't really reject things. There was a very small period of time when I first got into punk rock where I rejected my passion for Funkadelic. And then I turned right around and said, “Why did I get rid of all those records? Why did I do that?” And then since then I was like, “You know, there's probably room in my head for all of these competing aesthetics.” And so I really have tried to be as open as possible. Like, I hated the Grateful Dead with a passion, but decided I really didn't know the Grateful Dead enough to hate them and that I should really go out there and learn everything I can about the Grateful Dead. So I went out and bought that Long Strange Trip book, which is an excellent biography of the Dead. And I went out and bought a bunch of their records and I listened to them, and I learned about them, and I taught myself to love the Grateful Dead. So I just want you to know how open-minded I am!
When did this Dead phase happen?
About 10 years ago. But the ’70s love has always been there. I mean, I'm just like anybody else who's into music. I don't know too many people who are music fans or record collectors who aren't into lots of different stuff. They love the Bowie and the Eno and all that junk. Honestly, I think the early-’70s rock influence is in there, because some of the songs we wrote definitely have that vibe—like “Better Than Bad.” I was like, “We have to get that Thin Lizzy/ ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ guitar sound.” Or, you know, Hot Chocolate—they're not a rock band, but I wanted that “You Sexy Thing” sort of flat fuzzed-out guitar. I'm just like, “Oh, this is just heaven!” There were a lot of production aesthetics that were going on back then that I’ve always loved, and Deathfix is a band where it’s like, “okay, we can write songs where if I use that sound, it really sounds like we're referencing that.” It's not like some distant idea worked into a dub song. It's like, “we can make a fuzzed-out pop song!” And that ability to not just tap the influence, but to ride it a little bit has been really fun.
Well, that's what I find most interesting about the record: The songs often start in one place, and then around two/three minutes in, they open up into different moods and arrangements. Where a song begins and where it ends are very different places.
Yeah, that’s all just about experimenting and playing around—that's all the same stuff that Fugazi would do. You get an idea and then you just try to write a song. I mean, it might not sound like the same ideas at work [within the two bands], but it's very much a similar kind of idea, where you're really just trying to please yourself by writing a song that makes sense.
Well, even Fugazi was sort of developing more sort of classic melodies on the later records. I'm thinking of stuff like “Forensic Scene,” or “Life and Limb.”
Oh yeah, “Life and Limb” is one of my favourite songs we ever did. And that was like: “Let's pan everything over to the right, just like a Beatles record,” you know? We're just trying to rip off the best, like everyone else.
And I'm hearing some George Harrison in your guitar licks on the Deathfix record.
Yeah, totally. I mean, I used to make records with this woman, Lois Maffeo, out of Olympia. She was part of the Beat Happening/K Records kind of crew. She was really poppy, and I started bringing in a lot of that stuff at that point. But those were all her songs. In terms of production, I would always go in and say, “Oh, you really need to put a Johnny Marr part in there,” or” put a George Harrison part.” I'm shameless. It would be great if I had an original idea, but I don't. So I just rely on my elders.
Well, do you find it ironic that you're exploring this kind of music now when it seems like ’90s hardcore is back in a big way?
It is funny, isn't it? I can't believe how many people are so responsive to that stuff. I mean, it's great. I'm totally happy that it's still living. It makes me really pleased.
I feel like ’90s alternative rock got so commercialized and diluted that it seems like it took another generation to pass for people to go back and realize what was good about that era and sort of key in on that.
Right. I mean, it's a lot like the ’60s. People were dead into that stuff and then everybody was so sick of it. And then suddenly everybody was, “You know, there was a shit-ton of good music that all came out in a five-year span.” And I think that's sort of what's happening now.
So was the name Deathfix a misdirection to lead people to think you've gone back to playing hardcore?
No, it's unintentionally so. I hope it works in our favour to lead people back in a misdirection, so that they show up and are completely unsatisfied with what they find. But if that doesn't happen, I'll be okay with it, too.
It's easy to assume that the more danceable moments on the record—like “Dali’s House”—stem from Richard's influence, but Fugazi always had some funk in it as well. Are you into dance music as much as Richard is?
Nobody's into dance music as much as Richard is. But I have always loved that stuff. And I'm telling you: Richard and Mark [Cisneros], my bass player, can bro down about ‘70s funk and dance music in a way that you can't imagine. So their knowledge is really, really deep with that kind of stuff. Mine, not as much. But I do love really bad ’80s and 90s dance music. To be honest with you, there's really not a ton of stuff where I just put my foot down. If something's super-dancey, catchy, and poppy, I usually can respect it, even today on the radio, you know? I mean, I go see Beyonce and stuff like that, and I just think that there's amazing stuff being made at that level. It’s kind of like a blockbuster film: There's plenty to complain about, but it's just a completely different genre. And it definitely does something for people. And if it does it for me, too, then that's fine, you know?
What kind of stuff are your kids into?
Oh, you know, lots of Frank Ocean, and all those guys… Macklemore… who’s that other guy with a K who’s having a moment? Kendrick Lamar. There was a period where one of my kids was getting into Guns N' Roses, which I was a little freaked out about, but he seems to have passed that stage. They've been advising me every step of the way… I mean, it's wild to put out a record now on the internet. It's like: boom, everybody hears it all at the same time, and that never was the case back in the day. It's really fabulous. So they follow what's going on, and they advised us on the record—my oldest, especially, Asa, is pretty hip.
You focus-grouped the record.
Totally. It got focus-grouped around the house a lot, ad nauseam.
I think a lot about how you introduce a child to music in this day and age. I'm 38, and I grew up at a time when, if you were getting into punk rock, you knew which records to reach for, because there was a canon to follow. But now, trying to teach someone the history and the context and how to connect the dots must be difficult, because there's a million possibilities.
One thing I've found is they don't really care about the minutiae. I mean, there's so much stuff happening right now for them on every level. They can like Kendrick Lamar, but they're also getting into weird, smaller bands. The level of discourse is so rapid with the internet, so they're just hearing shit every day and passing it around amongst their friends, and they're all into different things. They're turning me onto stuff every day, which is great. So I don't find any need whatsoever to educate them about the ’90s or the ’80s or anything. If they really become geeks like I was, they'll figure it out. And if they don’t, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. It’s like my dad trying to get me to love Bix Beiderbecke, which I eventually did and I really appreciated him turning me on to all that stuff. But when I was young, it was torture, especially classical music.
So with this record, you shoot off in a lot of different directions, but now that the band has had some time to play together, is there a particular direction that comes most naturally, or do you want to keep it open-ended?
It's really open-ended and we're writing as a group now more. I mean, all the initial songs on this record were sort of just me and Rich writing, and then we brought them in and arranged them with these guys. But we are sitting in a room together now, and I did notice that the songs are… like, we have one that's getting really, really loud and really gnarly-sounding. We have a bunch of songs that we could have put on this record that we didn't, I'm just not sure exactly what we're doing with the next record. But we are working towards it.
How long are you touring?
We're doing a couple of weeks out east, we're doing about a week in the northwest and then we're playing Coachella and then we're coming back, and then we're going to go out and do California to Arizona and Las Vegas and stuff at the end of May. And then I don't know what we're going to do over the summer—probably not a ton. And then we're going to go over to Europe in the fall.
So this isn't just some weekend-warrior project…
No, no. I mean we all do our own stuff—Rich DJs and does all the Blowoff stuff, and everybody works. It's not the kind of thing we're going to get in a van for three months. But we could go for a few weeks every month or so. We're just going to see how it goes, basically. We're going to take it one step at a time. But as long as we all continue to enjoy playing together, as long as people seem interested enough to invite us to their towns, then we'll do it.
Was the Bob Mould tour in ’06 the last time you've toured extensively?
Yeah, but I've been going out with some films that I was working with. There was a film called Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then by Brent Green, and then there's another film called Utopia in Four Movements by Sam Green. And those two guys and myself and other musicians would do live soundtracks to these films that they made. Like, we'd go over to Turkey for a week or we'd go out to do a few shows in the Midwest. We'd go to festivals or we'd go to the Getty or MoMA or do a couple nights at the Kitchen—all these little one-off things. And I was just like, “Oh, shit, I've been spending a lot of time doing this stuff,” and it started really making me feel like I should be doing my own things. I was like, “Nobody at home seems to miss me, and this is kind of working,” so I should probably get my shit together and commit myself to something that's mine.
Alright, we've reached the part of the interview where I ask: what's happening with Fugazi?
Nothing right now. We are living and communicating, and that's about it. Joe lives in Italy, Guy lives in New York, Ian and I live down here. We communicate a lot by the internet and by phone, and we see each other when we're in each other's towns. But beyond that, I would say not much. There's always little Fugazi business to take care of, and so we communicate about that as well. The live series continues to be put out, and that's about it, really. I mean, we have so much cool video from those tours, too. I would love to put out—like there’s a multi-camera shoot from London from 1991 that's really great with a 24-track tape. Things like that would be just so cool to have out there.
And I imagine there’s tons of usable stuff Jem Cohen cut out of Instrument…
Oh, there's tons of stuff from that, too. We were thinking about putting out a whole other DVD of concert stuff when we were going to put out Instrument. I think it would be great to put out high-quality versions of that. But Ian's got The Evens, and I've got Deathfix, and everybody's raising their kids… maybe there'll be time to do Fugazi at some point, but it just doesn't seem like we have that time right now.
You just need everyone else in the band to reach that same realization that you did of being pissed off about your dependence on the computer to get anything done.
I know, right? If everybody gets fed up and just realizes that they actually need to be in the same town as one another, then you've got a reunion. Then you've got the band back together. But if we can all just channel that energy at the same time, maybe we can all get there together.
And failing that, there's always holograms.
Yeah. I wish I had a hologram of myself sometime.
ENCORES
Despite Canty’s optimistic comments about a second Deathfix album being already in the works, the band was ultimately a one-and-done affair. But Canty has since embarked on another exciting chapter of his career with the jazz-punk power trio The Messthetics, featuring fellow Fugazi alum Joe Lally on bass and Anthony Pirog on guitar. Last year, they teamed up with Buffalo-bred saxophonist James Brandon Lewis for an excellent set released through iconic jazz imprint Impulse!
In case you missed it: Fugazi finally reunited last year… on a podcast. All four members of the band joined honorary fifth Fugazi Jem Cohen on Vish Khanna’s Kreative Kontrol podcast to mark the 25th anniversary of Cohen’s essential band documentary, Instrument.
This is a free newsletter, but if you really like what you see, please consider a donation via paid subscription, or visit my PWYC tip jar!