Originally published in Verbicide issue #3

Since 1998, Ross Siegel has been in charge of producing one of the finest independent, DIY magazines in the United States. Law of Inertia magazine has come a long way over the past few years, expanding in size, quality, and audience, and was voted one of the top 54 zines in the world by Zine Guide 2000! Aside from putting out a great magazine, running a record label, and a web site, Ross has been incredibly helpful to me in creating this zine. Since my damn speakerphone broke, we did an email interview in early April 2001.

First of all, I have to ask the basic, predictable question: who makes up the Law of Inertia magazine team, and what does each person do?
I do a good deal of the work, but with help. Officially — or unofficially depending on who’s asking — my title is publisher/co-editor. The man on the other side of the coin is Jonah Bayer. He lives up in Ithaca, New York, and is the greatest guy in the world. Unfortunately, he’s a bit too great a lot of larger magazines are stealing Jonah’s time from me. I used to do the zine with an old friend of mine, the great Dan Frantic, but that really didn’t work out, so I persuaded — and threatened — Jonah into joining our ranks. On any given issue we probably have about 25 people helping out in various ways.

Do you have a company softball team?
I wish! More importantly, I wish that my staff all lived in the same city — much less the same state — so we could get together. I think most of our regular contributors have all met each other. Everyone on LOI is a friend of mine, though. Friends are the only people I want to work with.

Can you give me some history of LOI? What year did you start the zine? Back then, how many people were involved?
The idea for Law of Inertia was embarrassingly enough conceived at a Mr. T Experience show in San Francisco during a conversation with Dave Brown of Muddle fanzine fame. That was a few days after New Year’s in 1998. On the first issue, I think Dan Frantic and I wrote the entire thing. It was pretty much just a way to get some free records and keep me from watching too much TV after class (I was in college at that point).

Issue #1 was pretty poor, looking back. But, back then it seemed like the greatest thing in the world to me. Issue #2 was definitely a big step up, but it too had a lot of necessary improvements to be made. Issue #2 had four or five people as opposed to two working on it, which was also rough. Anyone who thinks its easy to throw together a zine — no matter how shitty — obviously has never done a zine in the first place.

What was your biggest motivation that initiated your desire to start a fanzine?
Well, other than the prospect of free records which I would never listen to, no social life after school, losing unholy amounts of cash, heartache, writer’s block, and a waning interest in punk rock, I’d have to say that the idea of being in a town like Ithaca — which is where I went to college — which had a small, but devoted punk scene, and not regularly partaking in a pastime I had flung myself wholeheartedly into about five years earlier, was kind of sad to me. Since I wasn’t seeing as many touring bands, and I was virtually exiled from new records being released, I decided to bring the punk scene to my mailbox. It really did save my interest in punk, as at the time I was way more into jazz than punk.

Other than that, I wanted to be creative — and give my friends something other to do than watch TV and drink beer — so I decided a psuedo magazine would be the best way to do that.

I recall you telling me once that you played soccer as an undergraduate. How did you find time to manage keeping up with schoolwork, athletic competition, and running your zine? I play baseball, and it can be hell trying to balance everything.
Well, I played soccer, but I didn’t play on a team. Rather, I played another sport as an undergraduate (which I prefer not to mention — it’s too embarrassing) instead. Oh yeah, you forgot my record label (Law of Inertia Records to be exact) and regular work. I have always been incredibly productive. I’m not sure why it is. I’ve never been very good at budgeting my time, but I have this need to always be doing something. I hate just sitting there, so I take up projects to keep myself busy. Also, I get bored really easily if I find myself not doing anything. I’m hyperactive, you see.

Do you feel that the payoff is worth the effort you put into your magazine?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Losing lots of money, spending roughly 550 hours on each issue, worrying about deadlines, cash flow, space in my apartment to put back issues and CDs, having people hate me for speaking my mind, etc. is not exactly my favorite way to operate. However, that feeling of making something — something I can hold in my hand and flip through — is unreal. When I know a new issue is en route from the printer to my house I can barely contain my excitement. I have a new issue coming out in a few days and I am so excited! I can’t wait to rip open the box and see how the thing turned out! However, sometimes this zine — which is just a hobby for me — turns into a job, it turns into something I have to do rather than something I want to do. It’s a trade off. Obviously the personal benefits are better than the negatives or I would have stopped doing it a long time ago.

Is it something you would like to do for a career? Do you even consider that to be realistically possible? (If not, what are you aspiring to make a career out of, and will you continue with LOI once you have a full-time career?)
No, LOI will not be a career for me. I will keep it going as long as I have time. But, I don’t want go into publishing. Rather I want to have a career in which I could ever possibly make a decent living.

Ever just feel like quitting?
All the fucking time. Law of Inertia is the best thing I ever did. Period. But, it might be time to end it soon, before I start getting bitter.

Who’s been most helpful to you since you’ve been running LOI? Any people that you really just couldn’t have done without?
Well for starters, I couldn’t have done it without the support of my parents. They are the best. At first they thought it was a quaint little hobby. Now I think they are impressed that while my friends in college were doing nothing, I was putting together an internationally distributed magazine. Secondly, Jonah Bayer, my co-editor, can be credited with saving LOI from my destruction. He is the reason it is still around and he is the reason this next issue that is coming out will be our best yet. Hmm, who else? Oh yeah, my close friends. Almost all of them have done something for LOI, be that writing, copyediting, or taking pictures. Without them LOI would be nothing. Actually, it would be something: me whining about the state of indie rock.

Has anyone ever spelled your name Ross “Seagull”?
No, but people always ask me if I’m related to Steven Segal, even though my name isn’t spelled anything like his.

What do you think is the most difficult aspect of producing a good zine that the public is going to want to buy?
Being well-rounded. It’s tough, dude. Try putting together a magazine that looks good, is intelligent, covers many many different styles of music adeptly, as well as many different topics ranging from politics to pop-culture. It’s tough. I’m not sure if we’ve really succeeded. I hope we haven’t, actually, because that’ll give us impetus to get even better.

How do you feel about the scene in terms of potential buyers?
I’m not exactly sure what you mean. If you mean how do I feel about the state of the punk/hardcore/indie scene in relation to my zine, well, let’s put it this way: when I started out with LOI I quickly abandoned the idea of trying to sell zines at shows, since no one buys zines at shows. I actually try to give LOI out free in person, and I would be more than happy to have the zine be free everywhere, but that’s sort of impossible since I want it to be a) taken seriously; and b) found in as many places as possible. I don’t really look at LOI as being marketed towards anyone in particular. We cover so much ground in each issue that your typical hardcore kid will be just as confused/interested as a sappy emo kid.

What have been your favorite band interviews that you’ve conducted?
Um, I thought the Sarge interview I did in issue #7 was my favorite. Elizabeth Elmore is so blunt and brutally honest. The AFI interview in issue #6 was fun, since we did it at their house and sat out on their steps drinking lemonade the day after they sold out one of the biggest clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area two nights in a row. I think the Drowningman and Dillinger 4 interviews in our new issue — the 9th — were great and fun. Basically they were all fun not because they turned out the best, but rather because the talks I had with those people was interesting to me as a music-lover and fan, you know? I’ve done an Elliott Smith interview, I did a BS2000 interview (with Adrock of the Beastie Boys… in our 9th issue), but those didn’t mean as much as the guys from Time in Malta telling me they were so excited to be in my zine or Simon Brody from Drowningman telling me that mine was the best interview he’d ever done.

Is there any specific geographical region that LOI panders to?
Nope. But, for some reason a lot of our readers seem to be from the Southeast, Southwest, or Long Island.

Any other zines out there that you think are really cool, or really inspiring?
Of course, there are many. Hanging Like a Hex, Status, Eventtide, and Rumpshaker are all fantastic publications. I think I am very like-minded to the people that edit those zines as well, and all of them are friends. Even though Jessica Hopper doesn’t like when I say this, her zine Hit it or Quit it, is the most fashionable and sexy zine out there. Bigger ones like Giant Robot, Bust, Bitch, and Punk Planet are all great as well.

Do you think Smurfette is hot?
No, she’s ditzy. She always needed the help of the other male Smurfs to get herself out of trouble. Had Smurfette been a punk rocker, she would have been one of those girls who holds their boyfriends’ coats while the boys are dancing up front. If Kathleen Hannah (of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre) or Jenny Toomey (of Tsunami) or Kim Colletta (of Jawbox) had been Smurfs then the show would have been awesome.

Tell me about your Law of Inertia record label. When did you start, and how many records have you put out to date?
We have six records out with our seventh one coming out soon. I started about two years ago with a compilation entitled Pocket Bomb. Fortunately for me it did pretty well (thanks to some unreleased stuff from the Alkaline Trio, Errortype:11, Hankshaw, Metroschifter, and Ann Beretta), so I released a few more records. The new stuff we have is a This Year’s Model six-song CD, which is utterly fantastic aggressive rock and roll, a Hot Rod Circuit/This Year’s Model split CD, and the upcoming Angels in the Architecture full length. We have also released stuff by the Grey AM and the 65 Film Show.

Lastly, if you could give one essential piece of advice to a person with aspirations to publish their own magazine, what would it be?
If someone wants to produce a professional looking underground magazine with lofty aspirations: expect to lose a lot of money, expect to lose the great social life you once had, find a goal for your magazine, find reliable and intelligent friends to help you, learn about printing processes before you sit down at the computer, do not try to sell $1,000 worth of ads for your first issue, expect no one to care at first, expect to deal with a lot of shifty people, and have a sense of humor damnit!

Thanks a bunch for all your time and help Ross, I can’t wait to read LOI #9!
Thanks to you too, Jackson. That was fun. I can’t wait to read issue #9 either!