HENRY
ROLLINS
Interview by MCM
Formerly a hardcore skater and singer for
Black Flag, currently a published author,
spoken word virtuoso and front man for his
own band, Henry Rollins has been a promi-
nent figure in the 'punk scene' for years. He's
an intense, outspoken guy. Whether you agree
with him or not, his ideas and opinions are
guaranteed to provoke thought and probably
some action, too. I caught up with Henry in
San Francisco while he was touring with his
current outfit, The Rollins Band...
What have you been up to lately?
Well, this is my first day back in California
since I left for the reading tour in February.
I did a month of the reading shows, a month
of practice, and now I'm in the first month
of this band tour. It's just been bam bam bam.
That's the way I like to work.
Do you consider your spoken word per-
formances to be poetry?
I never use that word to describe anything
I do. It has too many connotations attached
to it. To me, well...do you remember in "The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly" when Eli
Wallach is in the bathtub and a bad guy
comes in and goes, "I'm going to kill you
now," and Eli just pulls out a gun from
underneath the bath water and BOOM. Then
he says, "If you're going to shoot, shoot.
Don't talk." If you're going to write, write.
Don't classify it. Don't talk about it. Just write
it. That's what Bukowski does, that's what
all my favorite authors do. They just let it go.
Who are some of your other favorite
authors?
Well, I wouldn't say Bukowski's one of my
favorites, but I do read a lot of his stuff. I like
Nietzsche, Henry Miller, Hubert Selby Jr.,
Flannery O'Connor, Don Marquis, Knut Ham-
sun, John Fante, James Thurber.
What do you think about the new crop of
trendy authors like Brett Easton Ellis?
I don't. As much as possible. I'm only in-
terested in real people. There's a special hell
that awaits people like him. He'll die, then
he'll wake up in a huge condominium where
everyone is nice, dressed in white with eigh-
teen Swatches on their arms going "Hi, let's
go meditate for a while." There will be nine
million miles of fake people having safe,
casual sex and being totally innocuous, mak-
ing innocuous movies about safe, casual sex
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and writing books about lightweight drug use
and safe, casual sex. Everyone will have a
personal computer sewn to their side with
a colostomy bag and a condom that covers
their body so they can have a safe and casual
life. Every one of their brain cells will be
covered with a condom so they can have safe
and casual thoughts. Everything they say will
be wrapped in a condom so no one will of-
fend each other and no one will affect each
other's thoughts. All paintings will be covered
in condoms; art will be safe and casual. I'm
going to get the whole band shrink-wrapped
in condoms to protect us from ourselves.
Soon you'll be able to hire people to protect
you from your own thoughts.
Sounds like a lot of fun. Moving on to
another area, how has your musical focus
developed?
Hopefully it's expanded, moved forward, or
at least somehow changed. Change is the
one thing I'm always interested in. I need to
make music that is both joyful and painful
as well as being physically, mentally and
spiritually challenging to play. It's something
I can create that tries to destroy me. That may
sound strange, but it's my trip.
Is there anyone you're interested in
working with?
Nope. Not really. See, I just don't think like
that. Right now I work with those three guys
(points at band). They keep me plenty busy.
Who are those guys?
That's Andrew on bass, Sim Cain on drums
and Chris on guitar. Andrew and Sim were
in a band called Gone that played very ex-
tensively on the last Black Flag tour in 1986.
That's how I met them. Chris and I go back
from like '79 or '80 in D.C. We've been friends
for ages. It's a very talented band.
Is your drive to perform spurred by inter-
Inal motives, or are you mainly trying to
make an impact on other people?
No, I'm more interested in having impact
upon myself, challenging myself. That, to me,
is the difference between artist-performer
nut-case and entertainer. It doesn't get any
worse for me than entertainment. I don't mind
being entertained-that's why I go see a
James Bond movie or something-but I don't
want to be jerking someone off. I just express
myself. I'm not trying to influence people. I'm
not trying to change people. I'm just trying
to do my thing.
But it must increase your personal
satisfaction when you know that other
people like what you do?
Oh, it's wonderful when people come. It's
fantastic. The people who come to the shows
keep the roof over my head. I couldn't do this
without people coming to the shows and buy-
ing books and records.
Would you ever sign to a major label?
No way. If you had to deal with some of those
record company people for one day-if you
had any integrity whatsoever-you would run
screaming out the door. I am not interested
in the mainstream. I like the independent
thing where I call the shots. If someone told
me I had to re-layout my album cover, that
would be the end. I'd start ripping apart the
office; it would drive me out of my mind.
You tend to comment on a lot of social
problems...
Well, I comment on them because they hap-
pen to me and they become my problems.
I'm not one of those people who reads.
Newsweek in their condo and points fingers.
The reason I hate cops is because cops fuck
with me, not because I read about some
other people getting hassled by cops.
What specific things make you angry?
Lots of things make me angry, but what I hate
most is weakness. Weakness is the root of
all the nastiness in the world. Name one
social or psychological problem and I can
find how it relates to weakness. Take rape,
for instance. That's weakness. If you can't
control yourself, go to a doctor. It's weak.
Do you think people are inherently evil?
Well, I don't believe in evil, but I do believe
in weakness. All that bad shit comes from
weakness. A cop pounding some Mexican
boy's face into the hood of his car till he
vomits all over-it's just because the cop is
weak. He's insecure, so he's got to affirm
himself on someone else's flesh. People are
very used to a comfortable existence. In
Beverly Hills everyone has a 100-yard front
lawn, but you go ten exits down the 405 to
East L.A. and you've got 80 people living in
a four-bedroom apartment. You're not go-
ing to get the guy in Beverly Hills to give
half of his front yard up so someone can
set up a shack on it. That's weak. People
have had it too good for too long. Now
times are changing. Natural re-
sources are running out, the
economy is bad. Newsweek and
American Express and Moon-
lighting and Dolly Parton and
everyone else will tell you that
America is just fine. Well, it's not fine, and
from that inconsistency you see people do-
ing a lot of sado-masochistic shit. People lie
to themselves every day, they flog
themselves at work, and it makes them very
nasty and very ill. It's sickness.
What do you think people can do to start
changing this?
It will be changed for them. Mercifully, reality
will come in and World War Three will hap-
pen. Helter Skelter will fall down. You want
to change this country? Have a war on these
shores. Have an air strike come in on San
Francisco. Have people getting loaded into
trains and shipped off to the Grand Canyon
to get gassed. Then social consciousness
will be stirred. Lock and load. Bring me a
string of ears you've cut off dead pigs, and
then we'll start talking about change. This
culture is dead. There will be no artistic
revolution, no musical revolution. Look
around you. Look at the independent labels.
They're nothing but farm teams for majors,
waiting for Arista or Capitol to snap them up.
I am an alternative. For me, Bruce Spring-
steen is a public servant. He's one of my big-
gest helpers. He gets nine million bovines
off my back so I can get to the 150 maniacs
who'll come to my show. I'm just not in-
terested in his world. The people who are
create dead music for dead people, who
perpetuate a dead culture which is contin-
ually feeding on itself. When something
feeds on itself, it gets very vicious and weak.
This culture is sick. It's a wounded animal
and it's on borrowed time. I'm not
pessimistic, I'm just realistic.
You said that your albums are about sex,
death and God's silence...
That's one of Hubert Selby's one-liners. In
a lot of ways, he's right. Most of my stuff
stems from what makes me get up in the mor-
ning: sex, violence and the fact that I'm
alive-the war inside me. That turmoil, "I
want to live, I want to die, I want to live so
much that I want to die. I want to screw her,
her, her, I want to kill him, him, him." It's just
a big drum roll all the time.
Do you believe in life
after death?
No. If I have the
(Continued on page 122)
SEARC
OLD
NEW
You want to change this
country? Have a war on these shores. Have an air
strike come in on San Francisco....
Then social consciousness would be stirred.
Weakness is the root of all the nastiness
in the world. Name one social or
psychological problem and I can find
how it relates to weakness.
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