INTERVIEW: JEFFERSON HACK
In the truest sense of the term ‘Provocateur’ Jefferson Hack is a person to whom ‘the rules’ serve only as a hurdle to leap or a wall to climb over…Social confines and media friendly protocol have never prevented his reactionary, anti establishment thought process nor revolutionary output.
Now with over three decades at the forefront of Independent Publishing via his Dazed Media empire, is the venerable Mr Hack continuing to manifest change, break rules, and stir up an anti establishment free thinking? /
Growing up in Kent, were you part of a close-knit tribe or more of a loner who observed and soaked up everything you could ?
I had a few close friends, but mostly the feeling of our group was that we were outsiders, definitely looking for a sense of identity through culture and specifically music subcultures.
What were you reading, wearing and listening to through your teens as you became the person you would be? Were you chameleonic with regards to your look ?
Yes things changed with great frequency. I was morphing between goth, psychobilly, post punk, indie... Jesus and Mary Chain, Bauhaus, King Kurt, New Order, The Clash, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Burning Spear, Flux of the Pink Indians, Kraftwerk, The Sugarcubes.
What was the defining moment that gave birth to the realisation that you weren’t ‘for the norm’ and that your destiny lay elsewhere? Was there a person / an occurrence that spurred the migration to the capital ?
Define normal? I think I’m pretty normal.
Was it always going to be about magazines and a steadfast attachment to subculture within culture and society ?
I think underground magazines and zine culture heralded a promise of being a part of a movement. Subcultures that I gravitated towards was Crass and then slightly later the soundsystem culture. I was also fascinated by Cyberpunk and Mondo 2000, as well as Re-Search by V.Vale and Vague by Tom Vague of the London situationists. I was also into older subcultural independent press like OZ and IT which I would search out back issues of in the markets. Also I was very into Terrence McKenna, psychedelics, Situationism and Sufism a fun combination.
It's the early nineties – hedonism at an all time ‘high’ – why start a print magazine at that time ?
From the very first issue Dazed & Confused was ‘not a magazine’ as I wrote on the cover. It was a way of thinking, a mindset and it was really an attempt or project to provide a platform for a new generation of cultural outsiders. It was not confined to print, it was accessible as a 'living magazine’ where our events and open-house actions would encourage participation and open transdisciplinary dialogue and sometimes end in wild dancing and drug taking. It took about ten years for someone to introduce the no smoking cannabis until after 6pm rule.
At the inception point of Dazed, were your peers and partners, you co-conspirators if you will, from Rankin to Katie Grand et al, inspirational as well as instrumental to your personal drive and blind faith?
It’s all born from collaboration, it seemed like there was lots of time to talk, to discuss, to review ideas and develop a point of view back then….things felt less reactionary and more inventive. We were not interested in reporting on culture but on really being the creation point for authoring new speculative realities in culture. A lot of commissioned reportage photography, fashion photography, essays and art projects as well as interviews made the mix unusual for that time. I loved editing. I think I am a much better editor than a writer. In many ways Im returning to that mode of operation now with my exhibition work.
The first issue had what you may describe as a long shelf life as in issue 2 came a year later. What made you stay committed to getting out an issue 2 when surely many would have given up?
Great question! I was influenced by Warhol and Interview Magazine and the idea that it the magazine didn’t have to be a printed but could exist as exhibition as a living project started to materialise. Rankin and I went to a series of night clubs and took the idea of ‘Dazed & Confused’ on tour to document club culture from a fashion and personality perspective. After the contact sheets came back I showed them to someone who gave us space to exhibit and from that forward momentum the issue became sponsorable… it was all about keeping the momentum up…despite the knock backs...what I learn’t is that if people won’t support you, you just keep going and don’t ask for permission. Create the conditions that make the work exist.
In an age when there was no social media to promote and germinate the seed of Dazed & Confused, who were you relying on to buy the mag in its early stages ? How did you promote it?
Stickers! LOL. We were sticking and fly-billing the hell out of London. Also of course our club nights and parties…and then the press. When Bill Clinton mentioned Dazed & Confused as being responsible for Heroin Chic the world press went insane and we couldn’t keep up with demand.
Were you always targeting a community or moreover trying to build one via the magazine as the proverbial flyer inviting you into the ‘Dazed club and collective’?
It’s all about community. A magazine is a community of thought for a community of like-minded souls.
I don’t know any other way than my way.
As a publisher is it your responsibility to find ‘the new’ as a modus operandi whilst simultaneously pushing boundaries and fucking with peoples thought patterns and pre conceived ideas?
Its never cynical. The key for me is to respect the audience. The responsibility is in publishing from a perspective of positive social change. The rest is decoration.
You've always talked to a youthful generation, are you aware how much impact what you publish can have on peoples lives and trajectory through their formative years ? How do you continue to reach them and inform them?
Dazed, by its very nature, questions a lot via intelligence, consciousness and provoking words and pictures.
Is bravery and disregard for the acceptance of others key to the manifesto you adhere to?
Courage is key more so than bravery. It takes a lot of courage for the artists, photographers, writers, stylists, and interviewees to produce their stories. Especially when they are dealing with very personal material and often times quite marginalised positions. We celebrate and platform otherness and strive to make Dazed a place where nuance and intelligence is respected. We talk up to our audience and lift our audience up as a result.
You have worked with, and continue to work with, the best of the best in the creative fields and beyond. Is having a liberated platform, from the magazine to more recently the website, as a means to put these people’s work out there, a factor in continual momentum and success?
I am lucky that I have great editors and a great team of dedicated freelancers who support the project. Success is really hard to determine. I am just very happy that I can create the conditions now that allow them to do their best work.
In the digital age you could argue that we are regularly misinformed and over subscribed to a deluge of information online – how can the modern day individual switch off and / or regulate their consumption : case in point even date nights consist of regular perusals of Instagram and the like – is it all too much?
Switch off. The most radical thing you can do now is hug someone, and show physical affection and care for others. Lets make Radical Kindness cool.
Another issue is the over importance of identity that social media now exacerbates. We need to not look to our own identities as the solution to guide our social orientation but to accept the multiplicity of identities that we share with our own and other groups; in other words to respect difference while focusing on commonality is key. The radical indifference to others as well as the hate on social media is negating any social progress.
Social media – a dangerous assassin or a trustworthy confidante’?
Social Media has played some positive role in bringing people together, but ultimately FB and Instagram with their likes and comments are reductionist and conformist. They are a simulation, a virtual distraction from the real engagement of culture.
You have broken talent, broken ALL of the rules, and on occasion broken the internet – how do you continue to do this in ‘your way’?
I don’t know any other way than my way.
To progress and succeed, while staying true to yourself with credible identity and confidence as a preference, you don't have competition you have contemporaries. discuss…
I was working for you for nigh on 6 years from the late nineties and I remember nothing about being at Dazed as conventional from my interview in a pub over a half a Kronenbourg to everything around me – I loved it and I firmly believe it made me who I am. It always felt fantastical from the incredible people who changed me to the experiences I had. Is defying convention key to what you have achieved and what you now have in what is a vast publishing portfolio with Another / Another Man / Nowness / Hunger.
Media is all about people. People make media. If the people are interesting and progressive and there is a progressive culture and mission, then the media will reflect their passions and interests. There’s no magic formula. The difficulty is to be consistent and build trust.
Print is dead - Long live Print! There’s a new wave, a rebirth in print from 032C / Buffalo et al that is flipping the bird to the rapid fire nature of disposable digital dissemination. Does this excite you?
Very much. Paper carries a beautiful emotional ability to lift the senses. It is also easy to reference and keep. Print is scarce while digital is about abundance so their is still a premium on print. Independent publishing is very much alive just not in the traditional newsstand. The coffee table is the new newsstand!
How can digital publishing challenge the notion of being transient and disposable? How do you cherish and hold on to something, love something, that you can’t touch?
It has to affect you sensorially for you to care. Long form journalism, essays, audio formats like podcasts, short from video and interactive forms of storytelling all have much possibility to offer.
How will publishing the ‘Dazed way’ continue – what are you going to do next to challenge the way people think and consume media?
There’s lots new coming - I’m particularly excited about our experiments in audio.
To end, what is your favourite cover of Dazed? Who is your most memorable interview subject?
Alexander McQueen fashion-able cover 1997 shot by Nick Knight.
Bjork - my favourite collaborator - she gave us the motto ‘declare independence’