Formation and early years Prior to forming Minor Threat in 1980, vocalist
Ian MacKaye and drummer
Jeff Nelson had played bass and drums respectively in
the Teen Idles while attending what was then
Wilson High School. During their two-year career within the flourishing
Washington, D.C. hardcore punk scene, the Teen Idles had gained a following of around one hundred fans (a sizable amount at the time), and were seen as only second within the scene to the contemporary
Bad Brains. MacKaye and Nelson were strong believers in the
DIY mentality and an independent, underground music scene. After the breakup of the Teen Idles, they used the money earned through the band to create
Dischord Records, an independent record label that would host the releases of the Teen Idles, Minor Threat, and numerous other D.C. punk bands. Eager to start a new band after the Teen Idles, MacKaye and Nelson recruited guitarist
Lyle Preslar and bassist
Brian Baker. They played their first performance in December 1980 to fifty people in a
basement, opening for
Bad Brains, The Untouchables, Black Market Baby and
S.O.A., all D.C. bands. Minor Threat band members stated they never intended or viewed "Straight Edge" as a "movement". "Out of Step", a Minor Threat song from their second EP, further demonstrates the said belief: "Don't smoke/Don't drink/Don't fuck/At least I can fucking think/I can't keep up/I'm out of step with the world." The "I" in the lyrics was usually only implied, mainly because it did not quite fit the rhythm of the song. Some of the other members of Minor Threat, Jeff Nelson in particular, took exception to what they saw as MacKaye's
imperious attitude on the song. The line "Don't fuck" sparked widespread debate, to which Ian clarified that the intent was commentary on society's attitude towards predatory or
casual sex, not on the act itself. but MacKaye has strongly denied such intentions and said that some listeners misinterpreted his words. He claims that his experiences attending Wilson High School, whose student population was 70 percent Black, inspired the song. There, many students bullied MacKaye and his friends. In an interview, MacKaye stated that he was offended that some perceived racist overtones in the lyrics, saying, "To me, at the time and now, it seemed clear it's an
anti-racist song. Of course, it didn't occur to me at the time I wrote it that anybody outside of my twenty or thirty friends who I was singing to would ever have to actually ponder the lyrics or even consider them." According to Baker:Did we all want to develop Minor Threat’s sound to be more melodic, but Ian MacKaye didn't? Yes, Ian was right, and we were wrong. What Ian was doing was not just a band, Ian was building a community. He was so far ahead of his time and was thinking about the idea of Dischord and several bands and having this kind of reciprocating relationship with other artists. He was so big picture. But I was like: 'I want to play bigger shows, I want to tour more. Minor Threat is a great little punk band, but have you heard the
Boy album…?' I was dumb! And he wasn't. So Minor Threat fortunately stopped exactly when it did.MacKaye was skipping rehearsal sessions towards the end of the band's career, and he wrote the lyrics to the songs on the
Salad Days EP in the studio. That was quite a contrast with the earlier recordings, as he had written and co-written the music for much of the band's early material. Minor Threat, which had returned to being a four-piece group with the departure of Hansgen, played its final show on September 23, 1983, at the
Lansburgh Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., sharing the bill with
go-go band
Trouble Funk, and Austin, Texas
punk funk act the
Big Boys. In a meaningful way, Minor Threat ended their final set with "Last Song", a tune whose name was also the original title of the band's song "Salad Days".
Subsequent activities In March 1984, six months after the band broke up, the EPs
Minor Threat and
In My Eyes were compiled together and re-released as the
Minor Threat album. The
Complete Discography archival compilation would follow in 1989, with the additional release of
First Demo Tape in 2003. Two previously unreleased songs were featured on the
20 Years of Dischord compilation in 2002. Nelson played less-frantic alternative rock with
Three and The High-Back Chairs before retiring from live performance. He runs the record label Adult Swim Records (distributed by Dischord) and Pedestrian Press, as well as being a political activist. == Copyright issues ==