Henry Rollins is arguably one of the founders of American Punk. He is a prolific writer, activist, publisher, recording artist, lecturer, and some would say- though he despises the term- performance artist. Though he will not call himself an actor, you can see him take on impressive roles in films like Johnny Mnemonic, House on a Hill, and Bad Boys II, to name only a few.
For a strict disciplinarian, his ascent into stardom was unusually spontaneous. Watching the seminal Punk Group Black Flag in the early 80’s, he threw himself up on stage and sang with them. They liked what they heard. This was the lineup that propelled them into glory and fame.
In ’88 Henry put together the Henry Rollins Band and hit the road. This is the group that hit MTV and had a massive hit with “Liar”. That band still does a tour now again and Henry has expanded into his own record company, publishing house, writing books, and the famous lecture/talks that you will be able to see at the State Theatre in Ithaca 7:30 Friday night. Feel free to check out the only graduate of early slamming Punk who’s words are good enough for print and even National Public Radio.
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Timothy Parker: There are a lot of stereotypes about artists. You negate all of them.
Henry Rollins: I don’t know the list that my proclivities happen to negate. But I go against the image of the constant smoking, drinking drugging artist who can’t get out of bed.
TVP: Also, you have ideals that extend beyond paper,. You apply them to action.
HR: I try. Its easy to talk about things, harder to get it over the wall.
TVP: Yeah, I mean, rather than just showing people how it is, you proactively encourage people to do something about it.
HR: Mostly what I go for is to create an example. You can look around your town and see something wrong, and say “polluted water sucks.” Good for you, you don’t like polluted water. Do something. The hard part is finding out what to do and seeing it through. That’s what I work at: seeing something I disagree with and trying to come up with a solution. We do that at my company, and benefit tours with the band. There’s a lot of money we donate to various organizations.
TVP: Do you feel a responsibility as an artist to right wrongs?
HR: To me that’s not my job as an artist. I do it as an American. We provide a lot of money for this one orphanage in L.A. because they’re down the street, we know then. There’s a bunch of kids without parents-they’re screwed, they might need some help. We donate a lot to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who battle white power groups via litigation. To me that’s just looking out for my fellow countryman. An artist can get some notice. You have a voice that gets heard, more than, say, a plumber’s. You can use that dubious power in a good way.
TVP: You work in every conceivable medium.. What is unique about speaking as a medium?
HR: I like it because I don’t have to be a slave to the snare drum like in a song. I enjoy the discipline of being in a band, being part of a unit, but it’s a really great thing to just be up there on my own. I can go one way or tangentially the other, change it up because I won’t be messing anyone up. I can be very current and spontaneous. Its easily the hardest kind of performing I do. Its everything but easy.
TVP: It hast to have the same kind of immediacy playing music live. Do you get things from the audience in the same way?
HR: They’re not screaming things out. I’m not trying to antagonize them. The fact that they’re there listening is inspiring. It gets you cooking.
TVP: Let’s compare writing a book with what comes to you before a live audience.
HR: The book thing requires a lot of preparation and coming up with an idea that will be strong enough to carry for several thousand words. So you’re working on a premise or a topic or you have a goal. I do a lot of travel writing. That involves getting out there in real time and going to these places, getting the events and the people and putting it onto a page in a way that’s somewhat compelling.
On stage I do a lot of storytelling. It won’t make you change the character of the story, because you can’t stretch it out of truth. What you find say three nights into the tour is that a point in the periphery of the story was actually the main point of the story. You start to light it that way. In one story there are a lot of ways to approach it, a lot of ways to go through. Some of the stories I tell get kind of complex . I end up building all the aspects
TVP: Do you find the act of touring becomes part of the process of inspiration?
HR: When I tour I watch a lot of news, and I work in a lot of current events. Just in the nature of moving I find that geographic displacement has always been a great tool for creativity and spontaneity. The scene is constantly moving and there is very little that’s familiar. I find that I’m more creative on the road than I am off the road.
TVP: Do you get a sense of a current of feeling in America from hitting so many places in the last few months?
HR: You have to remember, you can travel a whole lot, as I do, but your audience is only a certain slice of the American demographic. I’m not going to be getting a whole lot of K.K.K. members at my show. I can’t really draw a bead on what they are thinking about. People who buy a ticket to see me do my thing are usually on my side. I don’t run into a lot of people who worship Newt Gingrich. In a way I’m preaching to the converted. I find a lot of people who are pretty angry with how things are in America, which I think is very healthy.
TVP: Did you run into a lot of hostility when you we’re doing the WM3 tour.
(For information on the Memphis 3, three teenagers convicted of killing three children and thought by many to be innocent visit www.wm3.org]
HR: No, not really. There was one day in Memphis Tennessee, which is right next to West Memphis Arkansas, where the incident happened, where we enjoyed a press blackout. The local ticket vendor had been threatened, so we didn’t sell a lot of tickets. Fortunately, the venue sold tickets and word-of mouth provided a decent audience. There was a small demonstration in front of the venue, which received a lot of coverage. I did managed to meet one of the mothers of the slain children. She was glad that we were doing what we were doing, which was great to hear. The whole time there was on of those Channel 7 cameras waiting for the fist fight. It was kind of a Michael Jackson day- with the media. The show was fine, but we all breathed a sigh of relief when the bus rolled out of there. We raised a ton of money on that tour. We rocked out, and not one show was anything less than a 9.5!
TVP: How are the efforts toward the WM3 working out?
HR: We gave them about $120,000, which is now with their lawyers. They’re now waiting for the State of Arkansas to shuffle some paper around and give them permission to test 3 pieces of DNA evidence.
TVP: Where is the consensus coming from that the WM3 were wrongfully convicted? What gives you the sense that this is an important cause
HR: It is pretty evident that these guys didn’t get a fair day in court. There was no compelling physical evidence brought against them. There is a strong likelihood that this new DNA testing will be compelling enough to warrant a new trial, or result in them going home.
The three incarcerated boys cannot wait for this DNA to get tested. They want to go to court. They want to show everyone that they’re innocent. If I were guilty I would not be all that hot on DNA evidence being tested because it would implicate me. These guys are ecstatic about the prospect because they really want to get out there and show you a thing or two about innocence and guilt. This leads you to think that maybe they’re innocent. There is a lot of compelling evidence that wasn’t checked out, it makes you wonder why it wasn’t. There are so many people who weren’t talked to who should have been, one in particular.
My opinion is that they are innocent. Why not give them a fair day in court, innocent or guilty. Every scumbag pedophile drug dealer deserves at least a fair day in court. They deserve due process- that’s how we run this place.
TVP: The Punk lifestyle has always seemed to promote drugs. You’ve used it as a medium to fight drug abuse.
HR: I certainly speak out against them. All the evidence shows me that dugs are a bad idea.
TVP: Did it feel strange coming up through Black Flag. The music industry even to this day can be perceived as not being hostile to drugs. Did if feel strange to be against that, but so close to it?
HR: In those days, and in every band I’ve even been in, we worked rally hard on the music. All we ever really did was play and drive and play and drive and try to eat 3 meals a day. We always got the gigs n, but we didn’t always get the three square meals. It wasn’t even an idea- throwing drugs into the mix. We were an ambitious band, playing hard every night, there was no room for that when you’re trying to be excellent nightly.
TVP: Do you think punk has been homogenized, co-opted by the culture?
HR: Anything that hangs around long enough will be, to where you can find all kinds of death video games. Everything is eventually absorbed into modern culture. I’m a 43-year old. Te gripe of an 18 year old might not be necessarily my gripe. I respect them, but it is not my preferred listening at this point. I can’t say that I’m an expert on what can be seen as contemporary Punk Rock.
TVP: What do you thing is pushing the edge now?
HR: It all seems to be pretty palatable these days.
TVP Can you talk to me about “Shock and Awe, My Ass”?
HR: I took exception with the way this war was sold to us. At one point I was sitting in this bus, where I am sitting now, watching the news. A General was talking about how we would shock and awe the Iraqis and bring them a light show the likes of which they’d never seen before. I thought, What is this, a Direct TV sports package? Are you selling me ultimate fighting on Pay Per View? Or, is this a war where there’s going to be American and Allied K.I.A. and along with the bad guys there’s going to be dead women and little children, which happens in all wars?” If we’re going to war, can’t we be a little grave and serious, unless you’re insecure and don’t believe in what you’re selling. It made me terribly angry that this is the way we chose to talk about what is now 500 American dead. It was sold like, “We’re going to kick some ass!” I’m not with that. A soldier wrote to me and told me he heard about my thoughts on the matter. He said that that was to pump up the troops. I said that it’s the kind of things a soldier should hear, but not civilians. When you’re on CNN hearing this, the whole world hears it. I don’t want the world to perceive this country that way. We should be careful how we speak of this things out of respect for what will happen and what it will mean to the world.
TVP: It seems like the media and the administration were singing the same song.
HR: I don’t agree. Some of the media was gung ho with it. I remember one Marine being interviewed who said, “I feel bad for all those people being hurt by Sadam, but isn’t he Iraq’s problem?” I thought that was interesting coming from a Marine. There are many people who are not in support of this war. Everyone supports the troops, as we should.
TVP: You are doing a lot of acting in very mainstream action type films. It looks like you’re funneling a lot of money into artistic projects that don’t get the attention they deserve.
HR: I’ve been doing that for years. Whenever I do an acting gig, its always a good story, because I’m not an actor

TVP: What makes America so prone to seek the lowest common denominator in the art and media that’s being consumed?
HR: Of any country I’ve been to with an active media and an active consumer population we do go more for the easiest and least valuable stuff. The U.S. and England, which is just as inundated with magazines and TV and all that.
We’re just born and raised to consume in mass quantities. Lots of food, lots of TV, lots of movies, it can’t all be good. If you’re going to serve someone a lot of food it has to be cheap, processed junk. The same is true of media.
TVP: What can people expect of your current speaking tour?
HR: I’ going to be talking a lot- for two hours. Stories of where I’ve just been and stories of things that are going on now,. Nothing that I did last year.
TVP: What kind of musical projects are you working on now?
HR: I’m doing this until April, so that’s all that I’m thinking about.

Henry Rollins:
21st Century Renaissance Man