Henry Rollins At 50, The Interview -By Helen Bach

Rollins: “Well, I can tell you about the music that I’ve been paying attention to, and the music I’ve been involved in it’s huge, I can’t make a sweeping statement.  I had a little bit of an eclectic ear, a very small one, thanks to my mom who played an equal measure of Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthry, Bartalk, Stravinski, Coltrain, Joan Baez, Mary McKayba, The Beatles, Hendrix.  An eclectic person, also big on the jazz so I heard all of that and absorbed it. Dug a lot of classical from her, dug some jazz.

And then it was somewhere in the 80s I started listening to Cagesided View when working out, and hanging out with a friend called Donahue, who was a DJ there who was Ms. Eclectic.  And she turned me on to Eno,  Nico solo records, I didn’t really know his solo work.

And she was a DJ, so she had this apartment full of records so I’d take the bus over to her place when I had time between Black Flag tours.  I’d come out of her place, every one would think that we were going out but we were just friends and I’d make all these crazy cassettes of all these records cuz I had no money.  I could buy some cassettes, though,  And from her I started hearing different kinds of music.  Also Byron Colby, who’s well known for being a great music writer, he wanted to write our records and would only set a day every other week helping us with our radio ads and he would bring me records.  And I asked him one day “Hey Byron, our friend just booked us a show at the Underground.  What are those Nico solo records like cuz it seems so interesting when you read about the marble index.”  A week later, here comes this battered marble index.  So, I had people going “here check this out, check this out, check that out”  A singer loaned me a Yani Synocky record, a Greek composer, who recently passed away.

Her dad went, okay that’s the coolest stuff i’ve ever heard.

I had a big ear and this stuff sounded interesting to me.  It was so new to my ears and the approach was so different it was very attractive to me.  Lydia Lunch handed me my first Astrid Varnay album and the second Patient OT.  And my jaw hit the ground.  I mean, I was stunned.  I said “okay, that might be my favourite band.”  And, little by little, I was listening to one German band, someone would give me a Varnay record, then maybe a Guru Guru album, and all of it clicked into that.  And then, in comes Dez, the other singer in Black Flag, he’s loaning me a Lynon Hopkins record his father engineered, he was a serious jazz and blues producer.  And my friend, Ian McKai, who you know, has an incredible ear and I’m kickin’ it with Ian whenever I can.  And he’s never heard this, and he’s like “Dillinger, wow!  Reggae, I think I like this”  So it was all kind of like this big mouth, like funnel, like throw it in.  And it all just got absorbed.  And over the years, that’s the thirst that never really gets quenched.  With every cup, you’re just more thirsty.”

hel(jokingly…sorta) “was that the 80s Henry?! Were you a hipster?!”

He responded “No, noo.  Never a hipster.  Just someone who really dug this music and when I met these bands, like Birthday Party days, and I was just amused that they had this half-rabid psycho who were very nice guys but kind of looked at me like “Whaat?  Okaay, this guy’s a psycho”. And they would kind of see me bouncing off the walls and be like, he’s a fan, well okay.  And one of my good friends Demah Nickalon would go out and see ’em a lot.

And be like “who’s that boy with the crazy hair, oh, Demah Nickalon. ” Who’s that?”  Then they’d go out and be like “they know her?”  “What’s up with that?”  We kind of got off on each other because neither person’s peers could work that out why we’re still, to this day still friends.

This music was even interesting to Black Flag.  I’d play an album and they’d be like “Oh, really?”  I’d put on a band like Birthday Party, they’d be like “no.”  There was a whole lot of no in that band, that’s why they make headphones, like go do your own thing.  I was the one going to the record stores buying like Scandinavian pop records but the rest of the band kind of looked at me like what’s up with you?  Are you kidding me?  Are you high?  I was different,  I was listening to people like George Crow, a great composer.  You know, John Kale, all of that stuff was all relevant to me.

There’s hardly any records I buy that go platinum, but I’m sure you’re well aware of the noise bands in the Midwest.  There’s a whole group of bands in the Midwest, and it’s just …noise.  Laptops and synthesizers and there’s a whole bunch of labels and they’ll do these releases just a cassette, fifteen, spray paint ’em, and if you don’t go to the gig, you don’t get to buy it.  And this one label called American Tapes and it’s five different bands all the time.  And John has released over one thousand releases on American Tapes.  I’ve got about seven hundred of them.  And I followed all of that noise music very passionately.  This is music that does not care if you like it, not trying to be on MTV, tours have all been done.  Well, they’re bigger in Europe than they are here.  But quite often they just play parties.  You know, just a basement, with some stoners.  From freezing Michigan basements in the winter, you’ll just see these three long-haired hunched over guys making this incredible noise come out with a bunch of people going “woooooooooooooooooo”.

hel: huge scene in New Jersey, Check out Don Giovan…

Rollins: ‘Yea Screaming Females, I just said here’s my Paypal, gimme what you got- I got all their stuff.  Love’um’

hel: Amazing the basement scene has a whole new literal twist but amazingly alive

Rollins: “Yeah yeah!, and there’s people who do whole basement tours.  So, music is fine.  Do people think music sucks? Not at my house, man we’re rockin’ over here and so it’s happening.  It’s alive, it’s good, too.  And music will always be okay.  It’ll always be fine.”

hel: so was turning to spoken word a grown up mans way of keeping the hardcore mans angst in check?

Rollins: “Well, I think I’m more open minded than ever.  And now I buy new records all the time.  I do(support my local music scene) as best I can.  I spend a lot of time out of town, though.”

hel: OK, lets talk about this tour, a great fast sell out Congratulations on that.

Henry: “Well I’m not doing many shows this year, about fifty, forty five, and it’ll be a short set, an hour and a half, which is short for me.  I’ll be talking briefly about a few things I’ve learned as an old man.  And then talk briefly about some places I traveled to in the last year or so.  The travel’s been fairly eventful, I mean I went to North Korea, I just came back from Sudan and Uganda.  That’s how I learn more, I go.  I don’t get it out of a book, I go to these places.  And I was in Mongolia, I went back to Vietnam for a second time, Nepal, then went back to China again.  Learn, take photos, meet people, see what’s what.  I’ve been working with an organization for a few years now called Drop in the Bucket and while I was in Uganda and Sudan, they drove water all over that area and I fundraised for them,  And said “Next time you go out there, can I inspect the well, can I come along?” and he said “sure”, so I went out, a camera man buddy of mine went out and we were out there for about three weeks and we shot every thing and took a lot of photos, met a lot of people, walked to a lot of parts of Sudan that had been wartorn. Minefields, bullet casings call over the place.  We went somewhere with a soldier where a lot of his friends had been killed, there was a mass grave with like, clothes coming out of the dirt.

I wanna know how the world ticks and I’m very lucky.  I’m given a great deal of access and then I try to take advantage of it in a good way, not just I’m gonna meet a bunch of 16-year-old girls and drive a Ferarri.  I make a pretty good income so I take that and get on an airplane and I go places.  And I take photos.  And I do interviews.  And I learn.  I bring that to the stage.”

hel: Seems you’ve been able to evolve, that many others from our old scene are just done.  Whats your theory?

Rollins: “Well, I’m not getting high.  There’s something to be said for not getting messed up all the time.  And that never held any appeal for me.  After I do a show, I go outside, I go to the bus and people gather.  And I talk to every one of them, until they all leave.  I never bail before they do.  They split and every kid who writes me, I write ’em back.  I can do an interview for the fanzine.  If I can squeeze it in, I’ll do it.  I’ll sign the thing, I’ll do the photo, they write me, I write them back.  I try and be present.  I respond to letters from all over the world, every day, and it’s not like I do not allow that voice to go unanswered.  So you can write me and go “wow, he wrote me back!”  And it’s not like this is gonna make some guy’s life, but it sure is better(than nothing).  I wrote James Williams from The Stooges the other day and thanked him for the great remix on the Kill City record.”

hel: I interact with alot of youth, you’re still held in high regard, they know you.

Rollins:”It’s nice. And I regard it with a great deal of not exactly fear, but respect to the point of I really don’t take myself seriously.  But I take all of that stuff seriously.  The fact that someone listens to me, that I take seriously.  But I’m careful.  Not that I’m self-censoring, but if a young person’s listening to me, I’m gonna be very careful with what I’m going to say knowing that kids listen to stuff I say.  But if a young personable person says ‘hey, what do you think of this’, well I’m gonna take a second, I’m really gonna consider my answer carefully.  And that’s how I kind of pay back the piece of trust that people give me.  And I do my best.  Yeah, I’ve been around some fourteen year olds.  They don’t like to listen.  And so, yeah, it’s very cool.(an older person actually listening to a younger person).  And an older guy, that’s one of the things I’m going to talk about briefly on stage, one of the things that is very important to me is and anyone in that audience should be doing, especially now more than ever, is an older person should never step on the high-spirited nature of a young person.  You should always be looking to ‘buck up da youth, mon’ as they say in Kingston.  You can’t rain on the parade of young people.  That’s why I write back.  That’s why I’ll hang out with a kid in freezing Indiana after the show until my hands go bloodless from old.  Because I’m not gonna go like, ‘hey kid you’re bothering me.’  That’s not what an older guy should do with the youth because they are going to be running things.  But they’re good natured and you should do anything you can, you should go out of your way, to help strengthen that in someone.  And not in any way be destructive towards it.”

hel: who broke your youthful spirit?

Henry: “Yeah, teachers, parents, older students.  And I don’t think every kid needs to give everything an ‘oh, you’re doing great’, cuz that’s not good either, they don’t learn about the hard talks.  But when a young person’s reaching out and it’s sincere, hey, make time, do it.  And I do.  And believe me, it takes a lot of time.  I got like eight thousand kids, and I’m a single man.  And I get some really intense letters.  From anything from a guy who mistakenly shot a kid in Bagdad, wants to kill himself and he’s writing me, and I’m supposed to write him and tell him why he shouldn’t hang himself or blow his brains out.  I get letters from mothers who say ‘please talk my kid out of going to the army’ or ‘my son just got killed in Iraq, he had eight of your DVDs, he really liked you and I think you would’ve liked him if you met him.  I get some intense mail coming in.”

hel: you’re taking it to heart, how do you alleviate that pressure?

Rollins:”I answer it as best I can and you kind of have to dig in it yet hover above it and remain clear.  My elliptical treadmill(is my outlet).  Some youth will write me a fifteen-hundred word email and I just go ‘sigh, okay’.  It’s a lot to read, it’s very sincere, there’s a lot going on and you try and write back and try to make it so he’s not writing you like every day.  I just don’t have the time.  I literally by day and then I do the second shift.  And sometimes I have to gently extract myself and say ‘okay, I can’t, I’m kind of stretched pretty thin’ and then people understand.

“I’m just happy to be back on the road again, connecting with an audience.  I really miss them when I’m not out there.  I feel like I’ve kind of lost the plot when I’m not on the road, like I’m somehow sleeping through it.  And so I’ll be hitting the road 4 A.M. Sunday.  Going to the east coast and looking forward to getting a couple of shows under my belt.  I’m still kind of zeroing in on the material.  But I always feel better once I’ve got one or two under the belt.

I don’t like waiting for it, I wish I could leave now.

I’m ready to tour.