RED MED TALKING
The oral history of Red Medicine, Fugazi’s first, second, or third (definitely not fourth, fifth, or sixth) greatest album.
Fugazi released Red Medicine, their fourth full-length LP, in the spring of 1995, at perhaps alt-rock’s very peak, 21 months after In Utero but before the bubble burst and the pop market for grungy guys with guitars caved in.
The album hit 126 on the Billboard chart, an amazing feat for a band that handled everything itself. They didn’t really do interviews with major outlets, nor did they have a massive publicity apparatus. Nobody purchased Red Medicine by mistake—it was just that popular.
Produced by themselves and recorded with longtime engineer Don Zientara, it was the first time the band had really used the studio as an instrument, working in extraordinary sync with one another to make a record that sounded like a balance of all four musicians, all of whom were bursting with ideas.
And it was the first one bassist Joe Lally sang on. There’s also that.
Ian MacKaye (vocals, guitar): I remember coming out of [the recording sessions] thinking, “Finally. We made a record.”