Henry Rollins carved out a place in American pop culture literally out of brute force. In his seminal role fronting the hard-touring and influential punk band Black Flag, he replaced two other singers and hung on, not because he was the best singer (he freely admits that he isn’t the best singer the band had), but because he was able to withstand the abusive and violent crowds of the early punk era. When Black Flag broke up in 1986, Rollins formed his own Rollins Band, which still records and tours today.
Rollins’ real distinction comes from his spoken word performances, which are known for self deprecation, irreverent and often violent sensibilities, and for their subject matter: Rollins culls from 20 years of experience on the road for a vast array of hilarious, touching, and fascinating stories with characters like Ozzy Osbourne, Motorhead’s Lemmy, Tom Waits, and Jello Biafra.
Underneath his tough-guy demeanor and scatological humor, the attentive audience will find a surprisingly mature and incisive intellect.
Henry’s spoken word tour will find him in the State Theater on Congress Street this Tuesday. Tickets are $20 and the doors open at 7 p.m. The show starts at 8 p.m.
The Free Press got a chance to interview the aging alternative icon by telephone last Saturday.
This isn’t a college gig, but it is a college town. What have you noticed about the college crowds as opposed to those in an ordinary venue?
When I do a real university gig – like on a campus – I find a lot of the students to be incredibly dull. I meet these often very nice people that are kind of laid back and not that interested in being in college. I was really hoping they’d be, I don’t know, more on fire. At that age I remember being more pissed off, wanting to know everything, ambitious.
What will you be talking about this year?
I did a lot of pretty crazy travelling last year and I’ve learned a lot, so that’ll be in there. It’s also an election year. A guy like Bush kind of serves himself up to me. Every time he opens his mouth it’s like grist for the mill. He can’t help it, and neither can I. There’s some interesting peripheral information about the war in Iraq and the president. There’s some interesting websites to investigate. I talk about that, things that have just happened a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago, things I’ve dragged back from the field.
I talk about what’s on the news, what’s going on here, where I just was. Every year I go to pretty interesting places geographically, and there’s always a story to be had. If you saw the show last year, the basic format is the same.
Your tour’s name this year is “Shock and Awe my Ass.” What’s that about?
I took real exception to how the war was worded to us citizens on the news – you see these kind of barrel-chested general types saying “We’re gonna shock and awe the Iraqis and give them a lightshow the likes of which they’ve never seen,” and I was like “Wow, this is the eve of a war.” People are gonna get killed: civilians, little kids, bad guys, our own allied forces, American boys and girls. Can we be a little more grave and have a little decorum on this event and not treat it like a sporting event? Let’s leave that to the jocks and the rappers. Where it’s cool. Not some guy who’s gonna lead a bunch of fine young women into, obviously there’s gonna be KIA, you just can’t help it. I was like “Wow, if you were really sure of this, you wouldn’t have to sell it so hard.”
And sure, he needs to pump up the troops – but there should be a speech for the troops and a speech for the world. When you’re an American general on TV you’re addressing the world.
I have a live CD and a poster but other than that all my Rollins and Black Flag stuff is mp3s from the Internet. What do you think about that?
I don’t care, really. When you steal the music, you’re stealing from a drummer with two kids. So you’re taking food out of those two kids’ mouths. I don’t know how you feel about that, maybe you don’t care. Put it this way, I don’t download music. But if it’s the difference between someone checking us out and not, I’d rather they check us out. If things were better, I think music should just be free anyway.
The major labels for so many years have been brutally overcharging people. Our band sells like two CD sets for ten bucks, with one dollar going to charity. So basically there’s nine dollars going to me, the record company owner. How can we do that? ‘Cuz we’re not greedy, and we’re only making a thousand, two thousand at a time. If you’re Sony, and you own the pressing plant, you’re probably making a single CD for, I don’t know, probably about five or six to the dollar? And then they charge you 20 bucks? I see that and say “Yeah you motherfuckers, no wonder people are downloading.” That’s why I say “Ahh, screw ’em. Steal it.”
But then there’s labels like Discord. A band like Fugazi that charges you ten bucks for a record and five to see their gig – you want to rip them off? I think you should pick and choose. Long ago I abandoned the idea of loyalty to anybody. It’s a jungle out there.
Have any new bands caught your eye?
There’s three bands out of D.C. that I’ve been paying close attention to. One called “El Guapo.” I think they’re really great. Their last album is called “Fake French,” and it’s incredible. I think they’re just brilliant. There’s also another band called “Q and not U.” I think they have a new record out this year. Another kind of noisy band called the “Black Eyes,” and that was last year’s favorite album for me. Their new one will be out probably spring, summer. So this year there’s gonna be releases by all three of them. There’s also one called “Antelope,” they’re pretty cool. I pay attention to those bands and anything that J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. does. He’s got a new band called “J. Mascis and the Fog.”
Are you reading any good books?
Right now I’m reading mostly history, cold war history, I’ve been reading about the Russian-Afghan war. ‘Cuz I just went to Afghanistan [on the USO tour] and I’ve been to Russia many times. As for fiction, I’m reading a Mid-period Louis-Ferdinand Celine book. It’s great.
There’s this slim book with interviews of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Here’s F. Scott in his own words, in nonfiction, being asked about his writing, which is really interesting because he’s a writer that I’ve always been quite taken with. I’ve also been reading that, and I have some books that are critical of the Bush administration. There’s always something to learn there. I’ve brought some Anne Coultier as well, so I can get some food for thought from the right.
Really? I’ve always found books like that to be really hard to read because they are so over-the-top.
You have to get into the heads of these people. The liberal books usually seem to be far more researched, the books of the right seem to be mud-slinging and generalizing. Her books especially. Anyone that can sit there and defend Joe McCarthy to you. I think she really works at it. These people are trying to sell you a dream that can’t ever be yours. It’s a power-pyramid with a few people at the top running a lot of stuff. Every day I tell people: if you’re not a millionaire, you can’t afford another four years of Bush.
If you have ever read Machiavelli’s The Prince; the cabinet, and the people who put him in office, it’s like The Prince was their handbook.
It’s just interesting to check the record, find the facts, and see where things really are. There is a deficit, people are unemployed, and they keep saying, “Oh, there’s all these new jobs!” Really? 50,000 new jobs today? I don’t see ’em.