Young and awkward Henry invites you in, you know you're not jealous of his awkward stage.
Interview by Scott Preston
When Henry Rollins turned 50 this past February, he celebrated in the usual way: He set off on a whirlwind, two-month spoken word tour, commissioning renowned street artist Shepard Fairey to create a poster for the event that depicted the Angel of Death hovering just over his shoulder.
Since then, Rollins has refashioned himself into something of a modern Renaissance Man. In addition to his music and spoken word careers, he also pens a regular column for the LA Weekly, hosts a radio show on Los Angeles station KCRW and has authored over a dozen self-published books. (source)
Cleveland Groove: How does it feel to be 50 years old and busier than ever?
Henry Rollins: As far as thinking about being a certain age, in the past its been just another day in that I feel the same as I did the day before. I really don?t stop to think about it very often, because I am so busy with so many different projects. But this time around I played 2 shows on my birthday and will play a month of shows honoring the fact I?m 50 but its not really the central theme of the tour. It?s really just an excuse for me to go out there and make fun of myself. It?s also not really that big of a deal to me because I hope to be 60, 70, 80 and still going strong.
It is interesting coming from the rock and roll world where you have a ?Use By? date stamped on your ass, because a lot of people think its a young mans game. It feels good to still be around and relevant at 50 years old. I still get calls for all kinds of projects and people still want to see me on stage which is the greatest compliment I could get.
Cleveland Groove: You have really diversified yourself in the projects that you take on, do you think that could be a reason you have stayed relevant for so long?
Henry Rollins: Absolutely, I don?t think I?m all that talented but I am very tenacious. I come from the minimum wage working world therefore I really don?t have any illusions in front of me. So when I was younger and offers would come in to me, they would ask ?Want to be in a movie?? , I would say sure, I mean really what did I have to lose? That?s the approach I have been taking for a lot of years now in regards to every project that is presented to me. It really takes me 7 days a week to keep up with everything.
Cleveland Groove: What led you to performing as a Spoken Word artist instead of music?
Henry Rollins: Well I started doing spoken word tours back in 1985 when Black Flag wasn?t touring. In the beginning I was drawing about 12 ? 50 people each night. I remember my big goal was to sell 100 tickets to one of these shows. I believe I hit that goal within the first year. With the Rollins Band I was able to call the shots and say we will tour from this date to this date and then I am doing a spoken word tour. I would do 100 shows with the band and then a week later I?m going through those same towns all over again. The process would repeat it self for much of the 80?s, 90?s, and 2000?s. I think I did 143 shows last year, this is planning to be an off year with about 50 shows.
Cleveland Groove: How do you feel about being on a major label instead of an indie label?
Henry Rollins: One of the things I enjoyed about being on a major label is the press. I now have a team of publicity people behind me that make sure people know I am coming to their town. Our joke in the band used to be we are playing secret shows. For example, we would get to Boston and go to a record store and someone would walk in and see me and say ?Whoa Henry Rollins, what are you doing here?? I would say we are playing tonight and they would then ask where. Usually people that would really want to see the band play would find out too late. With a major label, they have the power to get the radio spots, ad space, etc.. We were never going to sell a ton of records, but we could draw a lot of people to the shows as long as they knew we were coming.
When people would give me grief for being on a major label, I would say look, I am taking advantage of the machine. They are getting a good record from me, and I get to use them to tell the people where I will be performing.
Cleveland Groove: Since you have been performing for a number of years, you have experienced the music business before the internet and now after. What are your feelings on the subject?
Henry Rollins: I think its good and bad. It lets the bands starting out get more attention that they might not otherwise get. It lets someone who might never be able to afford to make a record the possibility of doing so, which I think is fantastic. So what if your band sucks, if you want to make a record you should be able to. Life is short, you should be able to get your ya-ya?s out before you die. The ability to be able to connect to your audience with such efficiency is just amazing. I can send out a newsletter to everyone on my list with just a point and click. It used to be I would have canvas duffel bags full of the mass mailings we would do. We would spend $500 to print, fold, staple, stamp, and code bulk mail to get our catalog to a guy in Battle Creek, MI and hope he might check out my new book. That would be all the money my company would have and you hope it comes back around. Most of the time what would come back and I?m not exaggerating, is about 10-20 percent of the letters would come back undeliverable because the guy would have moved. What sucks is seeing 4 of those dirty canvas duffel bags sitting on your front porch, with all that postage completely down the drain. So now with the internet I don?t have to do all of that work. Every Sunday or Monday I post my newsletter on my website for everyone to see in just seconds.
Cleveland Groove: You have said you have been pitched a lot of different project ideas, can you share some of the more unique or unusual ideas?
Henry Rollins: Once a company in Australia had asked me to do a voice over for a Guinness ad. I?m not an enthusiast of alcohol so I said no. Then they offered me a pretty fat 6 figure payday for not a whole lot of work, but I just couldn?t take it. I have walked away from quite a few things like that, because it just wasn?t what I?m all about. You really have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror the next day.Cleveland Groove: Are there any younger artists that you are impressed by?
Henry Rollins: There is a singer from I believe New York, Marnie Stern. She records on Kill Rock Stars, a really good indie record label. She is just an amazing guitar player and I play her music quite often on my show. She is new to the world of making records but is doing a great job. There is also a young songwriter, Dax Riggs, who used to be in a band, Dead Boy and The Elephant Men. He is really a great songwriter, tremendous vocalist, great lyric writer, just has the all around complete package.
Cleveland Groove: What are some of the current projects that you have on the table?
Henry Rollins: I have a photo book that?s all finished that comes out in October. It contains photos from 2003 ? 2010. I?m also working on three other books, editing two and writing one. They all should be out in the next 1-3 years, putting a book together is a very slow process. It is very time intensive on every level, it takes a long time to write them and very, very long time to edit them. I?m also doing some documentaries with National Geographic.
Cleveland Groove: What are the documentaries about you are doing with Nat Geo?
Henry Rollins: The last one I did with them was on tv last December, it was about a gene that thirty percent of men carry in their DNA that skews them toward aggressive behavior. In the media it?s called the warrior gene. We interviewed men who were very aggressive and some who weren?t aggressive. We also tested them for the gene. I was tested for it, the whole camera crew was tested as well. We interviewed monks, bikers, ultimate fighters, I was interviewed, guys who have been shot, guys who have shot people, to see if they thought they had the gene. We tested these Buddhist monks, and they all had the gene, which I found very interesting. Then there is another documentary coming out in April, which is about an extreme look at people who keep everything from snakes, alligators to 20 foot pythons.
Henry Rollins: 50 Years Old, '80 Percent Bastard'
The hardworking musician, actor, author and self-proclaimed nature geek on how he staves off working for minimum wage, Iggy Pop and why evolving sometimes feels 'like ripping a molar out.'
'I am 80 percent bastard?I don?t get to judge people,' says Rollins. 'People like me don?t get to tell you what time it is.'By: Dana Raidt
Henry Rollins turned 50 in February, but he?s not taking that landmark birthday lying down. The former Black Flag singer, who over the last 30 years has launched himself out of the punk world and into the mainstream lexicon with spoken word, a Grammy nomination (for the Rollins Band?s 1994 song, ?Liar?) and a stint on Sons of Anarchy, is branching out even further. He?s celebrating the big 5-0 in true Rollins style: with the aptly named 50 Tour, a new book and a slew of other projects. In anticipation of his sold-out performance at the Cedar Cultural Center Monday, March 28, Rollins talked to METRO about what he?s up to, his perspective on aging and (sorry, Black Flag fans) why he won?t go back to making music.
METRO: You?re getting up there in years and most people would take that opportunity to bring it down a notch or slow down. What?s different in you that makes you do the opposite?Henry Rollins: I just think there is not a whole [lot] else to do but get out there and do a whole lot of stuff.
I don?t feel that since I am older there is more a sense of urgency; I just feel urgently [the need] to do things. In the last few years I have been getting a lot more interesting opportunities and a lot of interesting things have been coming my way. For many years I just did band stuff?I am not putting that down, but it?s kind of all I did. Then, when I said ?I got my fill of that, let?s see what else is happening,? I started looking around and all of a sudden I am doing all of these different things. For a few years now, work takes about eight days a week to keep up with.
I?ve heard you say in interviews that you are trying to stave off going back to the minimum-wage working world and that?s one of the reasons you take on so many projects. Is that still true?Yeah, between tours I am essentially, by and large, kind of out of work. I don?t treat all of this with dull utilitarian weight on my shoulders, but if I am off the road and I am in Los Angeles and someone says, ?Hey, do you want to be in a movie for three weeks?? Yeah, I am going to take that work. ?Want to audition for a voiceover?? Yeah. I want to be working. I really enjoy being employed, and having something to show up for everyday.
I don?t dig idle time; it does not serve me well. Not like I am going to go run to the bar and get wiped out?I would rather be vigorously plugged into something. A lot of the things I do, I do because someone offered it. I never aspired to be an actor, yet I do a lot of [acting]. I never aspired to be voiceover guy, but I do a lot of that.
Given that you have never aspired to be an actor and that you say that you are not an actor or an expert at that craft, why do you think there is such a high demand for you? Why do people respond so well to you?Obviously I am hitting some mark. Someone is saying ?[You look] good to us, so here is a job.? That is obvious. I can?t see it myself, quite honestly. I just show up humble, with a healthy dose of fear of failure.
How long have you been traveling soloI?ve been doing it for a long time?as soon as I got enough money to travel besides just band touring. I?ve been traveling just to travel ever since the ?90s. As soon as I could afford to have some extra cash to go to Africa, I put my money down and got the visa and my passport and went. I?ve been traveling that way for about 11 or 12 years.
Where did you go this time?China, North Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and Vietnam. I took a lot of photos, interviewed people, walked around quite a bit, saw a lot of things.
Has your approach to your spoken word, or your subject matter, changed over the years being that you started out [doing spoken word] when you were pretty young?Yeah, the approach has changed like my life has changed, in that when I was younger I would read things that I had written from a piece of paper. That got boring pretty quick. Who wants to sit in a seat and get read to? It does not take a great deal of courage or skill to get up there and read from something, so I said to myself, ?Let?s see how you do without your notes?get it out there and let them know what you think without the training wheels.? [I think] if you?ve got something to say, then get up there and go say it?so that?s what I started to do in the ?80s and early ?90s.
These days the shows reflect a lot of the travel that I do?the dots I connect, the things I can tie into America from these trips. Which are many, especially things like globalization, global climate change, Islam, [the] perception of what poverty is, what emerging and third world countries look like.
How these people comport themselves in their day-to-day [lives] and how that juxtaposes how the average American comports himself day-to-day. All of that is pretty relevant, pretty interesting. It allows me to do a lot of thinking and hopefully it brings something really relevant to the stage?at least something that might be somewhat new to your ears?I am trying to ?hit them where they ain?t,? as they say in baseball.
You are not going to do music anymore, right?No, I am not feeling it.Not in the foreseeable future, at least?It never occurs to me. Sometimes I miss it but it would be like going back to a thing I know how to do very well. I just don?t know if it?s valid to sing old music. It?s like when I see Mick Jagger sing, ?(I Can?t Get No) Satisfaction.? At this point I just have to say, ?Really? After all this time? What?s your problem, are you stupid???Life is pretty short, you are not 19 anymore. You can look back and say, ?That was fast.? All of a sudden here you are, whatever age you are now. The time went by pretty quickly, unless it was a bad date?there are some things that crawl by?but by and large, damn. I woke up the other day and I was 50.
That being the case, I am trying to do some different stuff. The music thing would just feel like I was in year 5 at the university, [like] ?Shouldn?t I be moving on??
There are some people who can keep music relevant as they get older. [Musicians] like Neil Young, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Dylan, Prince and Nick Cave are still discovering music. I just talked to [Cave] the other day. He is so into it, and the last time I saw him live he [was] just on fire. He is doing new music; he is not relying on ?remember this hit of mine?? He is all about his next record and it is a very progressive thing.
I don?t really feel it that way with music. If you said ?Sit down and write a song,? that format is not working for me. I would much rather write you an editorial.I heard that you saw Van Halen recently.Yeah, [that] was kind of fun and kind of depressing. I saw them back in the day, as we old codgers say, and I bought those records when they were coming out because it was all relevant to me?I was 16 or 17 when that music was relevant to me. It hit me at a time, and I still like those records?they?re fun. I had a night off in Chicago and went to go see Van Halen?and on the cab to the hotel, I said [to my road manager], ?What do you reckon?? He said, ?It wasn?t that the band wasn?t good. It just seemed like guys in their 50s revisiting their past, and it just seemed kind of sad to me.? That?s why they make records; I would rather play the record than go see it. There is one guy I go see and that is Iggy [Pop], and I really enjoy the phenomenon of that guy. I want to watch him move because one day he?s going to stop.
Any chance I get, I will go to [an Iggy] show. He?s playing 40-year-old music at this point and with him I don?t care. I am contradicting myself, but I am not here to judge people. I am 80 percent bastard?I don?t get to judge people. People like me don?t get to tell you what time it is. If that?s what these people want to do, great, it?s just that I don?t want to.
Fair enough.It is fair enough; it is what you want to do with your life. No one is twisting your arm to buy a ticket to that show, If you said to me, ?Go out with Black Flag this summer,? as much fun as those songs would be to play, and as much as I still like them very much and still believe in them,
I would also love to sleep late everyday and have pizza for dinner every night, and I would?but I can?t.Sounds like you?re growing up. There are some things you have to part with [as you get older]; [things] you have to rip from your grasp.
I am 50 and women who are younger look good to me?I am not dead yet. It?s not appropriate, I guess it?s a social norm I have fallen into but I think I am right about it. When the rubber meets the road with that there is not much to talk about [with] a person that age. There are a few things [that come along with aging] that are very freeing, but at times it?s like ripping a molar out?I am 50, I am not 20. I am moving on artistically, I am trying to do new stuff. I am booking tickets to new countries and saying yes to different kinds of work. So what if I like to listen to a Stooges record now and then? It?s still good music?I just don?t have to live in the year it was written.
What?s happening with the National Geographic show? [Rollins will host Snake Underworld in April on the Nat Geo Wild channel.]We have a few [animal-related] shows we are working on now for Nat Geo, hopefully three that we will shoot all at once?the commonality is a lot of the animals that we are going to be covering come from the same region. We have five or six ideas we are wrestling with and three will come to bear. It?s not my station, so there are a lot of meetings you take and a lot of cooks in the kitchen [at the network]. Thankfully they are all really good; they are amazing people and obviously they kind of know what they are doing at this point. For some reason they ask me my opinion on this or that, so I give them my two cents.
This is kind of a dream job for me. I grew up in DC near the Nat Geo building and at heart I am kind of a geek for all of this stuff. More interested in history and science and critters and geographic stuff and all that than [in] being in a movie, which is fine. But I don?t aspire to that as much as I aspire to be a guy in front of a camera in some hot, sweaty rainforest-y environment.
What?s on tap for you besides the show after the tour? You have another book coming out, right?Yes, I do. One of those again [laughs]. It?s a photo book called Occupants. It will be [out in] October or November. The people I am working with and I argue a bit and it flared up a bit today. If we put this small fire out today we will proceed onwards. I have become somewhat militant when I work with other companies. When anyone says ?Here?s how it?s going to be,? I am like ?Really? I am out of here; it?s my book you can?t tell me how it?s going to be.? I have made a few concessions on this?not artistically. I hand them a photo and say that it?s for the cover and they say, ?OK, we will kick that around and get back to you.? I say ?How about I just kick you up the ass and we just stop talking to each other?? That?s the spoiled brat you get to be when you have your own company [Rollins owns a record label/publishing company, 2.13.61], and so it?s been a growing experience.
They are incredibly nice and hardworking and quite excellent, but when they are telling me how it?s going to be, if it precludes me from doing other things there are certain relationships you give up all control?. If it?s not my property, I respect it. The other day going through my car, which looks like someone lives in it?it's a ghetto of paper in the back?I found some [script], from Sons of Anarchy [in which Rollins starred from 2009 to 2010] and I dutifully took it to my office and shredded it. I don?t want it going into someone else?s hands?that?s the kind of respect I have for other people?s property. But when people tell me how I am going to run [a project], even if it?s on their label, I am probably one of their more difficult relationships. This morning I wrote this one company and said, ?Read the 13th amendment. It?s all you need to know with me. That?s that. If that makes it undoable for you, just tell me and that?s fine.?
Yeah, you seem like a pretty straightforward kind of guy.Absolutely, if I sign on to work with you, you are going to get every ounce of what I got. If you want me there at 6 I will be there at 5 and I will do what you ask me to and I will do it really hard. I walk every day with the spirit of Madison, Wisconsin coursing through my veins.
Currently just waiting on the email response to question's. If not, pouncing at SF show.
Interview 1Interview 2Source: http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/57647329.html
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