Issue 10
Henry Rollins
By Anne KeehnIllustration By Shepard Fairey
Henry Rollins stands in front of a black backdrop set up for him by a photographer. He is inside his office, a converted fixer-upper house in the residential area of Hollywood. It is modest and tasteful—the kind of place one can imagine curling up with a thick book and hot cocoa. Framed photographs and mementos gathered from around the world are placed carefully amidst shelves of books and CDs. The office, which was once Rollins’ own home, has the worldly air of a graduate student’s abode.
Rollins shifts from foot to foot, his large round eyes darting around the room. He is exuding a boyish vulnerability and charm—the eager, sincere kind that might bring out the mother in some women. He is talking, talking, talking. About African pop, his “best friend” Ian MacKaye’s immaculate musical taste and his hero Iggy Pop. “That man has insane amounts of charisma,” Rollins says. “They have trucks come up, like ‘What’s that? Oh, that’s Iggy’s charisma!’”
His publicist Tresa Redburn nods with a smile. She is a protective, motherly sort who exudes a calming energy. Her presence comforts Rollins, who seems nervous during the photo shoot. When the camera is on him, Rollins’ expression changes: his brow furrows, his lips tighten, and the veins pop from his legendary neck. He gazes into the lens with a look of distrust and aggression: a fighting stance.
Rollins has been called a moralist and a meathead. He calls himself a “rated PG kind of guy.” He is famously straightedge, and when he deals with sexual themes in his art, it is always in the context of political and social commentary. Known for his blunt wit and pumped-up performance style, Rollins has built a multi-decade career in what he modestly calls “the fringes of the entertainment industry.” He was part of the pioneering D.I.Y. Washington, D.C., hardcore scene, heading S.O.A. (State Of Alert) and playing alongside bands like the Bad Brains and Minor Threat, fronted by Ian MacKaye. In 1981, Rollins became a West Coaster when he was recruited to Southern California’s early hard-core group Black Flag.
Rollins keeps an early photograph of Black Flag on his bookshelf. Four young, skinny lads—Gregg Ginn, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson and Rollins—are scrunched together, gazing shyly at the camera. In the photograph, Rollins’ tattoos are fresh and crisp on his skinny arms.
His hair is shaggy and long. He looks like a boy. “That’s probably the only picture of us where we’re all smiling,” he says. The band had an exhausting work ethic. They booked their tours themselves and personally promoted their shows with fliers and stickers made by Ginn’s brother Raymond Pettibon. They released seven albums in five years, and their sound became increasingly experimental. Slip It In had elements of jazz. Family Man featured instrumentals and spoken word.
The band was angst-ridden. But they pushed the envelope on what it meant to be punk and hardcore—they were progressive. Exhaustively so.
1986 was a turning point. Black Flag broke up, and Rollins soldiered on with two solo records: Hot Animal Machine and Drive-By Shootings, released under the name Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters. That same year, he formed the Rollins Band, a Grammywinning group that achieved worldwide MTV attention throughout the‘90s.
Rollins has also done prolific voiceover, film and television work. He was the voice of Goodyear Tires in 2005 and has appeared in movies like Jackass, Johnny Mnemonic and David Lynch’s Lost Highway. His Hollywood career path was taken, he says, for the security of a paycheck. “I work hard and give everything I have when I am on the set,” he says. “But I have no illusions about my career as an actor.”
Rollins’ true milieu is as a professional social commentator. He is at his most sharp and stirring when he toils in the controlled environments of his one-man shows and journalesque books. On his sparse International Film Channel (IFC) show, Rollins raps on everything from gun control to the war in Iraq with the sinewy delivery of a pro wrestler.
The camera tends to face him head on or from below, and he gazes out at the audience with an unblinking intensity. Well read, intelligent and unforgiving in his directness, Rollins’ half hour shows are airtight editorials on the issues he is “still pissed off about.”
It has been said that people watch the news for the comfort of knowing nothing has changed. The atrocities that happen are, at least, predictable. Even when they are not, they are delivered in a predictable format. The news can be very much like the mail: as soon as one story has been put to rest, another one arrives, ready to be packaged and delivered in the same manner. Similarly, Henry Rollins’ shows—be they on television, radio or the stage—have an easily digestible familiarity. In his trademark buzz cut, t-shirt and Dickiestype trousers, Rollins is still angry and “not afraid to let you know.”
Uncorrupted by a university education, which might have forced him to become more verbose, Rollins’ communication skills were honed through the lean, mean medium of punk rock. A voracious reader and consumer of the popular arts, he has appropriated the ability to relate his ideas in sound bites. His persona is instantly recognizable and consistent—perfect for serialized television and radio. At least on the surface, with Rollins, you know what to expect. As Tresa says, “Henry is Henry is Henry.”
Which is not to say his message is redundant. It is precisely the discipline of his day-to-day life that has allowed for his productivity. Rollins subscribes to the straightedge ethic of sobriety and creativity—he finds an almost spiritual transcendence in work. Generally uncomfortable in social situations, Rollins seems to depend on his work to engage with the world.
He is hands-on with every aspect of his product and image. At his independent publishing company, named 2.13.61, after his own birthday, Rollins signs the invoices, packs the boxes and delivers the books to the post office himself. It is as if he feels he must continue to earn every ounce of his success and celebrity through backbreaking work. And by doing so, perhaps, he feels he can exert control over his celebrity. “Most people who are into what I do—who are fans of mine—have met me,” he says. “I stick around at the end of my shows, and I sign everything people give me.”
Since the mid ‘80s, Rollins has produced a prolific body of literature. He has authored dozens of books. An obsessive diarist, Rollins also keeps a daily blog entitled “Dispatches.” Since December 2005, he has added to it every single day.
Rollins says he works on his blog in stolen moments at the end of the day. The writing here is often fractured, brief and blunt. And— like with the rest of his creative outpouring—it can be unsettling in its directness. One entry in Dispatches is about a young aspiring poet who wrote to him for advice. “I don’t want to be a nobody. I want my name to be in the stars, and it will,” the youth writes. Rollins reflects on this: “Nice. Here’s to your work not being one of a kind. Hey, I know a place where all the non-conformists hang out!… I hope he won’t take my advice which would be to write some great poems, leave Paris for Africa, contract all kinds of diseases and die young in Zimbabwe and hopefully be famous long after the worms are done with you. I have to go. There’s someone I’ve got to call.”
There is humor and self-effacement in this passage. But Rollins’ intense delivery covers it up somehow. In entry after entry, Rollins muses on his solitary existence. On New Years Eve 2005 he wrote, “I have been here at the office every day since the staff left for Christmas. The phone has rung only a few times. In the last week, I have spoken to about five people. The lady at the grocery store, the guy at the mail place, a few others. I don’t notice stuff like that. Strange.”
When he writes, he is alone. When he performs, he is in front of a faceless audience. Rollins’ kinetic rage is directed at an abstract world—and perhaps, even to Rollins himself. Ever since his days at Bullis Academy military school, he has been an avid fitness freak, working out with discipline and consistency. Rollins seems to approach life with this mentality: you’re not doing it right unless you’re pushing your limits. Feel the burn!
In another dispatch, Rollins writes about a British expat friend who transplanted from Moscow to Istanbul. “I admire him,” Rollins writes. “It makes me see how conventional and tied to all my normal bullshit I am.” He continues, “Something like that is exactly what I should do. Go somewhere for a while and just deal. At some point, maybe. See if it’s possible to get a visa and somehow get lodgings in Vietnam or St. Petersburg, Russia. Do some time there, force me to change, adapt and grow… If I don’t keep pushing it somehow, I don’t feel like I’m living.”
Rollins lives an almost hermetic, monastic existence. He wakes up alone and goes straight to work. The staff at 2.13.61 consists of himself and two employees. He puts together his radio show alone in his office and records it with his engineer in the Los Angeles-based radio station Indie 103.1’s studio. He comes into his office on the weekends when there is no one else there because, he says, he is most productive in a solitary, quiet environment.
Fear of stagnation keeps Rollins industrious. But what inspires his creativity is anger. An April 2006 CNN report on his USO visit to Dubai was titled “Henry Rollins: ‘I Get Angry About Stuff.’” In the article, Rollins described his artistic outpouring as “always kind of a wail.” Anger, it has been said, is rooted in fear. And Rollins had a chaotic childhood that instilled in him a fear of an irrational, unstable world.
In Rollins’ office, there is a large print of a photo of him on his first day of school. In checkered shorts and a mock turtleneck, he grips a briefcase that is almost as big as he is. Rollins points at the picture. “By the end of that day, I had been hit, and I had learned about racism,” he says. “I was one of four white kids in that school. It’s what happened to white kids in the public school system [in Washington, D.C.]. When you’re a little kid and you get hit in the face—it didn’t make me tough, it made me traumatized. It was traumatizing.”
The race-based bullying caused Rollins to get panic attacks before going to school, and he suffered from instantaneous, uncontrollable nosebleeds. “I’d be sitting there one minute, and the next thing I knew I’d be covered in blood,” he says. “I remember how scary racism was. The worst part of it was, there was no back up. It was not rational.”
Rollins was raised by his mother, a leftwing intellectual who volunteered as an art docent at the National Gallery for fun. She surrounded her son with “books, lots of art books, and lots of music.” His father was the opposite: a right-wing alcoholic. “Often the racial discrimination comes from this idea of entitlement,” Rollins says. “It is just people talking stupid. ‘Marvin food stamp’ is what my father used to say.”
When he was in fourth grade, Rollins was prescribed Ritalin. “I remember I took the yellow ones,” he says. “They changed color and shape over the years.” Perhaps it was these early experiences with prescribed drugs and exposure to his father’s alcoholism that prevented Rollins from dabbling in substance abuse as an adult.
Still, his teenage years were fraught with instability. He moved around different school systems—first in public school, then Quaker school. Deemed a problem child, he eventually made it to Bullis Academy, which at the time was an all boys military school. Discipline and education were “beaten into me,” he says.
When he was 10- years -old, Rollins got his first job, delivering the now defunct Washington Star newspaper. He has had gainful employment ever since—something that seems to have given him a feeling of control over the trauma of his frenzied childhood.
One of the most inspiring events of his life transpired when he was “18 years and two days old, February 16th, 1979.” He saw The Clash and discovered punk rock. “All the big moments in my life, they all had to do with music,” he says. “When punk rock and puberty hit me all at once, it made me discombobulated. Punks—now they were angry. And I was angry.”
Rollins is not a religious man. But his love of music borders on spiritual. During our conversation, he pulls a book from his shelf that shows a photograph of his first meeting with Joe Strummer. Rollins is an eager, buzz cut young man, gazing at the godfather of protest punk with child-like awe.
Despite having been part of one of the most influential American hardcore bands, Rollins says, “I am not a musician.” Instead, he is the ultimate music appreciator—an intellectual historian of pop culture.
For his radio show on Indie 103.1, Rollins doggedly curates the music to “tell a story.
Each song leads into the next.” His show is truly eclectic, roaming the expanse of pop music—from Miles Davis to Pure Hell. He summarizes his playlist and posts it online after every show. A visual artist might paint a picture when he is creatively inspired. A musician might construct a song. Rollins, it seems turns to contextualizing and commenting.
One of his mentors was the late, great Los Angeles radio host Dierdre O’Donoghue, creator of the cult-hit show Breakfast With the Beatles and KCRW’s S*N*A*P*—a stylistic precursor to Nic Harcourt’s Morning Becomes Eclectic and Rollins’ own radio show. Rollins nursed O’Donoghue on her deathbed, and helped pay for her medical bills. When she passed away in 2001, he delivered a eulogy at her funeral.
Robert Lloyd, in his obituary for O’Donoghue for the L.A. Weekly wrote, “She made being a disc jockey seem a noble calling… she played what she felt you just had to hear.” The same could be said for Rollins. Like O’Donoghue he is a sucker for art that moves him. He has been called a renaissance man. He is an actor, a musician, a writer, a philanthropist and activist. But his true calling is to share the ideas and issues that inspire him with an audience who trusts his sincerity and passion.
“I can’t sing like Diana Ross or write songs like David Bowie,” Rollins says. “But I can damned well play their records on the radio.”
Henry Rollins says, “Being part of the USO [United Service Organizations] is the only credible thing I can do with my fame.” He was in the middle of his seventh USO tour—this time to the Middle East and Africa—when he answered these emailed questions.
You have such a well-known disgust for the Commander-in-Chief.
A lot of soldiers, while they support their commander-in-chief, see other points of view. There are many people who do not support the president. Polls show that those who do are currently in the minority.
A lot of the soldiers I meet are in disagreement with what’s happening, and they are amazed that I am out there, on their side. I don’t think it is always clear to them how much they are supported by people who are against the reasons they are where they are.
How do you stay informed enough to not only form a well-educated opinion, but be proactive on issues? I have all but given up on television news. I think it’s tame and controlled. I think almost all media outlets are, to a certain extent. But TV is the most. I prefer articles written online, newspapers, magazines and radio talk shows. The most informative sources I have found are some of the books that have been written in the last few years on the invasion of Iraq and the current administration. Also, history books have helped me understand that nothing we are enduring now is anything new, and sometimes the players are the same.
Did Get In The Van start out as a daily journal to maintain sanity on the road, or was there intent right from the start to make it into a book? The book was taken from my journals, which I wrote out of loneliness and a desire to understand what I was seeing and dealing with. Some of them were released at one point in a very limited edition. It was only years later that I decided to publish them. When I was writing them, I never thought [they were] going to be read by anyone. Which is probably the main reason they came out the way they did. Had I thought there was going to be a potential audience, I don’t think I would have had the compartmentalization skills to wall that off and would have probably played to it.
In your Black Flag days you were an angry, anti-social, misanthropic, isolated outsider. Today you are sometimes enthusiastic, optimistic and more humorous. What catalyzed this maturity? I don’t feel all that different than I did in those days, and those adjectives still describe me very well. I think with years and experience, I have been able to see more of my surroundings and direct myself a little better. Mainly I see that things are bigger than I am, and there is more going on than just me and my life. That is not always the first conclusion you might come to when you’re hungry all the time and things are constantly in flux, which was how things were a lot in those days. That kind of thing tended to drive me inward.
How did you avoid the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol? Your personal heroes like Iggy Pop aren’t exactly the leading role models for a sober lifestyle.
That kind of thing never really appealed to me, as I was more about the work and getting things done rather than sitting around looking at my hand for seven hours. I don’t understand how people can do drugs or drink and tour. I don’t know how you can expect to be good every night on stage and do that to yourself. On tour, I live for onstage excellence, as best as I can give it every night, and I can’t do anything to get in the way of delivering that. There are a lot of people who did awful things to themselves chemically that I appreciate artistically. If I had to chuck out every album that had someone on it who did drugs or whatever, I think I would have a lot less records. To each his or her own, but it’s too bad when they ruin themselves.
How have you developed and nurtured such a diverse—if not obsessive—musical taste and library? Does this curiosity arise inherently in most musicians?
As a child, I listened to my mother’s records. She has very eclectic taste in music; so there was always a lot of jazz, classical, folk, rock, show tunes, etc. I took it from there, and over the years, have tried to keep pushing that and checking out unfamiliar and challenging music.
There’s great music in every town, country, etc. I don’t know how musicians are. I am not one, but for me, music has always been the perfect friend. As a listener, music is unconditional. You can interrupt it mid-song and not have to apologize. You can turn it off and on when you want and you don’t have to be polite in any way. Like a book, it’s something someone pulled out of themselves—their best gear. And you don’t have to wade through all the hello-how-are-you stuff. I spend a lot of time alone, and music is good company.
Your longtime friend and fellow musician Ian MacKaye continues to keep his music fiercely independent. Was there a certain point when you decided to branch away from the independent scene to reach a broader audience?
Almost all my journeys into the mainstream have been strategic. I always felt like a Trojan horse in Hollywood. To me, all that stuff like the IFC show is an opportunity to dare. I come from the minimum wage working world and have no illusions as to my extremely limited range.
So if there’s some work I can get that I can do, I am going to consider it.
Or, if it’s work that I don’t think I can pull off, [but] want to go for, I will show up to that audition and see if I can infiltrate. It takes a lot of guts to do what Ian has done with his label and his music and to stick to his guns. I don’t think Ian ever considered any other way of doing it, though.
I don’t think there was a moment where he considered money over art.
I think he has done exactly what he wanted—and what he thought was the right thing to do. I don’t think he is the only person who has ever done that. He does happen to be extraordinarily good at what he does, and we all benefit from that.
Does acting—and Hollywood—effect your credibility and integrity as a speaker, writer and musician?
It’s work, and it pays, and I’m grateful for it and desperate for the next job. I give every possible ounce to any film I have ever been in. When it comes to work, I am as serious as a heart attack. I don’t take myself seriously, though. I meet with my accountant a few times a year, and the first thing I ask is if I am living fathoms below my means. He says “yes” and my stomach loosens slightly.
I am hell-bent on surviving America. I think that some people need to wake up and see that there is a good chance that America will not be there for them when they are old or any way in need. America can’t get a soldier the proper armor plating for his vehicle—what do you think [it is] going to do for you? Ask a Katrina survivor where America was when the levees broke. Americans helped. But America failed them miserably. I have no backup in this world beside my bank account and my unwavering belief that America is, at best, a concept loaned to Americans by corporations. I am alone in this world, and as wonderful as you are, you are not my ally, resource, companion, peer, guiding light or sanctuary—and I am not going to treat you as such. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like people. I do. I just don’t want to lean on them. On the other hand, I get leaned on a lot and most of the time, I don’t mind and do what I can.
A lot of this leads back to coming from minimum wage work—a wage that has not increased in almost a decade, because a congress that has given [itself] several pay raises doesn’t think a working person needs to be able to keep up with the rate of inflation. Do you need another example? Isn’t that good enough? Ask anyone who is working at any of the jobs I used to work at if they would like a shot at something else.
What do you think they are going to say: “I’m sorry, I can’t. My coworkers at the parking garage would think I sold out?
I am not insecure as much as I have no belief in security past what I provide for myself. It’s also why I raise money for organizations, donate funds, do benefits, etc. I like giving, but I don’t want to get, really. I like to do the work and help but I don’t want to stick around for the “thank you.” It is how I pay respect to the opportunities I have been given. I visit [veterans’] hospitals and hang out with young men with their arms, legs, faces and balls blown off, and they thank me. They’re welcome but nothing grew back from my visit, and I don’t think any of these visits make me any better of a person. There are some young people—too young to know what lies ahead—[who] don’t know that I have opened savings accounts in their name. They won’t know until they are of voting age, many years from now. Thinking of what lies ahead in their America makes me cringe.
Someone at my office has suggested that I am basically a coward, and this may very well be the case. As far as my integrity and credibility are concerned—I reckon I wouldn’t be telling you all this if I didn’t have any—I think those qualities are best not talked about, but illustrated by action. What conclusions anyone draws from this is up to them. Let gravity take its course. In any case, I’m waking up alone and heading out. As the Green Beret sitting at the bar in the film The Deer Hunter said, “Fuck it.”