Henry Rollins

Photo by Joshc

It’s 2:45 in the afternoon mid-week in Los Angles a couple of days before Christmas. The weather is nice, it’s ‘t-shirt and shorts weather’ according to my interviewee – Henry Rollins! Rollins’ staff have vacated headquarter office for their holiday vacations and it’s just good old Henry ‘holding down the fort’.

How’s things been for you lately? What projects are you currently working on?

I just finished a bunch so I’m kind of just catching my breath but as far as new stuff, I have a few new books in the works that will take many many months, some will take years to finish. It’s like building a ship one handful at a time. I’m slowly cracking away at those projects. I’m slowly working on music and I’m gearing up for a whole lot of work for next year – a lot of TV and radio and voiceover work, some shows not as many as this year which was 119. So far for next year there’s about 30 shows booked. Now that the staff is gone and the place is pretty quite, management has gone, everyone has gone away, I’ll come here everyday which is what I usually do at this time of the year and just work on writing projects and research. Getting myself prepared for next year. It’s kind of my ritual every year. I catch my breath, put on some weight ’cause I’m usually pretty scrawny by the end of the year and get some reading done.

Do you take time to reflect on everything you’ve achieved in the past year?

No. I kind of eject the clip reload and keep moving. I don’t like to look back a whole lot on it unless there’s something that needs to be done but no, I usually don’t dwell on the thing not like ‘boy aren’t i cool?’ I usually just take stock and go ‘ok that one hurt, it must have been good, let’s go’.

A lot of people come along to your spoken word shows and have a good laugh along with you about all your tales and adventures – I know I have – Do you consider yourself a funny person?

Ummmm…. I on occasion have humorous reactions to things that happen but no, I don’t consider myself all that funny. I wish. I would like to be a funny guy more than anything. I’ve been around funny people and there’s a different mechanic. Things occur to them differently. I don’t think I have that. Every once in a while I can come up with something that kind of funny.

Do you have a hidden talent?

No. Unless eating ice-cream and loafing can be considered talent. I’m very good at that. I can eat popcorn and inhale pizza with the best of them. I can sleep in with great ease. I can procrastinate as good as anybody. I could win a metal for that. If there’s a metal for procrastinating and putting things off, I could rock that.

Then how do you get so much achieved?

Oh, it’s all I do. My work is pretty much all I do. I don’t hang out with people. I don’t have any kids. I don’t want any kids. I don’t not like them, I like them, I just don’t want any. So that’s how I get it done. Literally I will be in this office alone working, I will save my files onto a lazy hard drive which I can fit into my pocket, I will take the work home with me and I will be writing through the night tonight. I’m going to work out. I’m going to eat and I’m going to do a lot of writing. At least a couple of thousand words tonight.

Photo by Ilja

You seem to look after yourself. Do you feel as fit now as you ever have?

Fit? No. Do I feel more fit now than when I was twenty-two? No. My knees hurt. My right shoulder hurts. I’ve smashed my left hand a lot of times fighting. The last two fingers on my hand, on a cold day don’t open and close properly because I’ve smashed them up a lot. I’ve been very hard on my body over the years. I’ve broken a lot of bones. I’ve been cut up a lot and bashed around a lot and now I’m feeling it. They told me that would happen. They said ‘You’re going to get arthritis in that hand from that’. I’m feeling it now. I don’t exactly feel fit. I’m in shape because I work out but I don’t feel like I did when I was twenty. No way.

A lot of people know you, through your music, your writing, your acting – what is your attitude towards your own fame?

I don’t think about it. I do all of this stuff with a very utilitarian sensibility. It’s just work that I do. I don’t consider it my job. I do this stuff and I don’t feel anymore special than a plumber. When someone goes ‘Oh I know who you are’ I go ‘Thanks, ok’. I don’t feel better than anyone. I don’t mind meeting the people that want to meet me and I always answer all their mail but I don’t pull back from the mirror and go ‘Damn man I’m famous’. I come from the punk rock world where you load your gear in, you walk through the audience, no one wants to meet you, in fact it’s the anti wanting to meet you. It’s like ‘Oh there’s the singer, like I really want to talk to the singer’. I got that for years. Guys would come up to me and go ‘Will you sign this but don’t tell anyone I asked for your autograph’. I was like ‘Your secret is safe with me’. I’ve loaded the gear into so many gigs into so many venues were you could smell the mens room throughout the entire building, it’s hard for me cop an attitude. You know what I mean?

Ah ha… totally!

I just know the mechanics of how the entertainment industry works. I’ve produced records, I’ve typed up press releases, I owe a record label, I own a book company, I own music publishing – if you ever see any of my records, I own them, if you see the photos on the record, I paid for that photo session, I paid for those prints and with the songs I own the music publishing. I’ve been in the mail room humping the inventory up the drive way to the office. It is fairly impossible for me to think of it… I do a lot of writing not more than five paces away from boxes of books. I am in the office right now. All the inventory, all these years of my life I’m staring at right now they’re all in shelves which will slam into jiffy packs and send world wide when the orders come in. Basically I work in the engine room writing the fuel. For me it’s just work that I do. I don’t have ego with it I just have a desire to make it really good and be honest and intense and really make it rock.

I read an interview with you and the person interviewing you asked ‘what was one of your greatest achievements so far?’ You said it was your 30+ year friendship with Ian Mackaye. I wanted to ask what it is you value the most in friendship?

I don’t know many people. I don’t pause. I’m not saying I hate people, not even remotely but I don’t know many people. I talk to my road manager and my staff and my manager more than anybody because I do work. On the weekends if I’m not on the road I don’t hang out, I don’t go places and I don’t want anyone calling me. I don’t get lonely and I don’t need anyone to hold my little trembling hand. I don’t tremble. I just get it done and I go to sleep. I’m not anti-human. I just don’t really take time for people past answering the mail, shaking th dudes hand and getting onto the next thing. So, People I break for, there’s not many. I take friendship every seriously because I don’t have many friends. I don’t want many friends. I’ve known Ian since I was twelve and I’m forty-four now. We’ve been friends a looooong time. He’s just this one guy I know. He’s my favourite person and I greatly admire him. I’ve learned a great deal from him over the years and I continue to.

Last year when his mother passed a way that was really hard on me. She was another one of these people that if I could, I’d go over and sit with her and talk because she was an amazing intellect. She was a brilliant woman. I’ve known her since I was a kid. She was old she passed away as people do and that was hard on the family but boy it was hard on me too. I catch myself thinking about her and I just can’t move. There’s like four or five people I would put the breaks on four and three of them died in one year. That was really hard on me. It was very tough. Ian means a lot to me because we’ve known each other for so long and I’ve watched this guy grow and do all this great music and become this really amazing man. It’s just great to watch it. I’m half friend, half fan. I really enjoy what he’s doing out there, with his music, with his label, how he is. I just really dig it. It’s fun to know the guy. I’d do anything for Ian and that’s not a unique sentiment, everyone has a friend they’d do something for. I mean hopefully you feel that way about someone it’s a great thing in life to put someone ahead of yourself. It’s a very good thing to do. The older I get the more I enjoy doing it.

When I was younger I was starving all the time so it was just me me me, just feed me! You get a little older and you can kind of take your hands off the wheel knowing that you got a meal tomorrow – you can pull your head out and look around and go ‘We can do some could over here. We can do some good over there’. I do a lot of that and it’s very satisfying to me. I don’t necessarily hand around for the thank you but I do contribute a lot of money and time to agencies who I have sympathy for or empathy with. I don’t need the thank you. I just like to do the things and move.

How has living in Los Angeles for so long influenced your life?

It sucks! I’m from Washington DC, it’s a very different part of America. When I’m here I feel like the weird East Coast guy who’s not LA. When I’m in DC amongst people I’ve known for years I feel very LA because DC, the people I’ve known since I was a kid, I still know them, I still see them when I’m in DC. They come to my shows and I go to their shows. They’re all these intensely intellectually challenging people who married really whip cracked smart people and have brilliant kids. When you’re amongst them.. they all drive like PC ancient cars… they’re all politically activated, they’re not going to the protest marches, they’re organising them. These are some very switched on intense people. When I’m out there I feel like ‘Hey where’s my latte’. I feel so light weight. When I’m out here I feel like a psycho because people are like ‘Hey Man…’ I’m like ‘Don’t hey man me I’ll tear your fucking ear off’ (laughs) It’s just funny ’cause it’s another reason I don’t hang out with many people out here, it’s a Californian thing, it’s just not my thing. I don’t hate these people. I just don’t understand the aloofness without the intellectual thing behind it. If you’re going to be too cool well OK but, at least be able to debate me. At least be able to bring something to the table. All they bring is tremendous hair and some really nice sunglasses. They can’t come to the net with anything.