Henry Rollins Interview (1989) by Ngaire Ruth for Lime Lizard music magazine

Fuck You Too Rollins!

This Henry Rollins anecdote recalls meeting him at soundcheck at London’s ULU on 1st November 1989 for an interview about his newly published (then) book, Body Bag. The full transcript of the interview with Rollins, which follows Henry Rollins Is a Bastard, was originally written for the independent print magazine, Lime Lizard (November 1989). Eventually, the interview will moved to www.rockbackpages.com 

Rollins was in the UK to headline a show - with the Rollins Band, having just recorded an album Hard Volume before leaving the States.  I was reviewing him for the Melody Maker later. Getting the home band’s Silverfish (grime, grit, fury, loud) and The Senseless Things (pop punk go!) as support for the gig were wise moves on behalf of somebody; they had a new audience for his music.  (Were you there that night? Please comment.)

You could tell it was important to him. He was pumped, ready to perform, and his tattoos were fresh—he didn’t feel like talking to some geek of a girl about books. I felt so vulnerable and distressed after the interview, but reading it back, I don’t seem so much of an idiot.

_______________________________________________________________________

Henry Rollins is a Bastard - 2024

Henry Rollins, vocalist, musician, actor, and author is a hero among men in the hallowed citadel of hardcore punk. 

Henry Rollins seems way older than all of us. He is filled out, taut, and tight, a symbol for the no-drink, no-drugs US hardcore straightedge movement, which he denied in an interview with me that day. 

Henry Rollins is a grown-up. 

Henry Rollins joined influential hardcore band Black Flag in 1981 (formed in 1976 by Gregg Ginn. I like the idea of Henry Rollins because he’s an example of DIY, doing it yourself, and “taking over the means of production” (Adorno, 1944). The image of Rollins in the flesh, the tone of his voice, his gestures and mannerisms, and the fact that he is not built to sit comfortably in a chair are different. His masculinity scares me at the level of 10 out of 10. He is neither a boy, a mate or peer, or a man that you can handle because they have applied their fantasy stereotype onto you. I haven’t got balls - like Kathy Acker or Lydia Lunch. 

There’s a story about how he was hanging out with Nick Cave and Lydia Lunch when she jumped toward Nick Cave, held him still by the arms, pulled down her pants, sat on his face, and farted. I know all about Lydia Lunch from my Angry Women book. 

When the interview’s finished I leave the venue for a while before the show. I walk. I cry. I smoke fags. FFS. They’re the type of tears when you don’t care how others may see you so that a passing stranger says “Are you alright?” and you have to say “Yes, I’m fine, but thanks for asking.” I find a cafe, eat and browse Body Bag.

Decades later I learned that he intimidated most people that night. Chris, from Silverfish, remembers making a move in the backstage hallway to say hello, and being ignored because “... he was pumping up for the live show.” 

Good old Henry.

______________________________________________________

Lime Lizard November 1989

Fuck You Too, Henry Rollins!

Interview by Ngaire Ruth

“Did I ever tell you that I hate doing fucking interviews and I only like doing things like singing and writing. Have you ever thought there's really nothing to talk about and all this shit to do.” (Body Bag)

Body Bag is the title of Henry Rollin’s book, a reference to Vietnam, all those kids who came home dead in body bags.  The book is mostly written in large capitals in dark black print, without titles or subtitles.

“I always make references to Vietnam just because it's a real stone. They sent all these kids off; and sold their youth. Now the shits hit the fan. All these people are now 35 years old and crazy. I saw this fascinating interview with this guy who massacred 25 people in about five minutes. The tears were pouring out of his eyes. He had a photo album with pictures of all the people who he had killed in it. ‘Why do you keep that?’ they asked him. ‘Because this is my life,’ he said. ‘This is all I’ve got.’”

Body Bag is brutally honest. Without elaborate language, Rollins transcribes and twists black feelings vividly. Most of the text is written in the first person either by its fictional but believable characters in their violent and or sexual situations or with his personal broodings. It's not written in the novel tradition with the literary delight of ordinariness, as you'd expect it's dramatic and lyrical, even the lyrics to ‘Men Are Pigs’ from the Henrietta Collins (Drive by Shooting) album pop up. HR's not interested in form, you know like a poet or singer.  His writing confronts the good, the bad and the ugly in himself and other people. Blink and the parody is missed. Somedays it’s lost on me.

Henry says life is all about perception.

“I'm driving down Santa Monica Blvd, I passed La Cienaga Blvd; passed the hotel where Jim Morrison used to camp out in, the same hotel that Janis Joplin died in. I passed that, I drove by the Hotel Tropicana. I saw a slim young man nailed to a wooden cross, instead of nails he had two syringes pounded through his feet and palms and his upward gaze was brilliant and intense. Some manager-type lady was talking to some men that were stationed at his feet telling them to load the Saint into the car he had to go do an appearance at a record store. I drove on sure that I had seen the real thing.” (Body Bag)

The fact that Henry Rollins believes in a clear head and an honest heart makes his visions all the more frightening. The popular cultural term for somebody who doesn't drink smoke or do drugs is a Straightedge. On tape, Henry denies he's ‘anything in particular’, or that there is any kind of movement under this name.

“I'm not part of anything. I work with the band, or I work in my room writing or in the back of a van writing and that's what I know.”

In the early 80s, Ian Mackaye of Fugazi was in a band called Minor Threat and they had a song which said, “I'm straight and over the edge”.  One of HR's oldest friends is Ian MacKaye, he produced Rollins Life Time album.  The first dedication at the front of Body Bag is to Fugazi.  It’s brilliant. Simply: when they do work you get destroyed. There are references to Ian throughout the book too.

Before they left the States, Rollins Band recorded their next album Hard Volume, they hit us over the head with one of its tracks ‘Hard’ at the ULU gig that night. It's also their contribution to the recently released compilation album Like a Girl (I Want to Keep Coming).  

“The new album has got a more violent fucked up sound than the last one I really like it. I'm lucky in that when I get home, I get to go straight into the studio. It's a completely different project and involves just me and another bass player. That's some pretty heavy shit too.”

HR is also an actor and has just finished making a film called No Not One. It revolves around one guy's life which interacts with a small group of people but he's allusive about it. His resume is brief: real good people, cool script. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of fine fun. Fine. Henry smiles.

“The forces that always drive me onto my motivation for lyrics and songs that I write are sex and violence. That's what motivates me to play motivates me to write.”  

Far out. We have to be hardcore. I talk about ‘hand jobs’. He uses the expression in a book called Henry Talks a published interview by Robert Fischer. He relates this to bands with a message but no real communication mentioning U2, The Alarm and Bruce Springsteen. Yet, in Body Bag it’s Bruce Springsteen’s music which calls off a redneck character roaring and on heat after listening to Madonna. He uses the imagery of a Springsteen song, ‘The River’ today. He elaborates:

“A lot of bands, a lot of writers kinda take you through the thing then, when they finished with you, they just pedal your arse out the door. I'm not interested.”

He sits barefooted and bare-chested. Glowing after a soundcheck and looking self-indulgent. He leans back and swigs Perrier watching my eyes all the time. He reads me, leans forward and says:

“Yeah, I do books. Yeah, I do records. Big fun. So what? To do shit like that, you’ve got to have an ego problem. Anyone who goes on stage is definitely a freak to a certain extent, part exhibitionist. Sometimes it takes that attitude to get yourself up there.”

The fact is, to live his own way and to survive financially he risks contradicting his very strong principles all of the time.

“I don’t like the music business. They’re very dishonest. I’m not dishonest, so, we have disagreements. Also, I put out my books real cheap and I sell them to bookstores real cheap and they just jack up the price. If you want to do the right thing, I guess you’ve got to do it yourself.”

There are references to all the various part-time jobs he’s had in Body Bag. The pet shop, the ice cream parlour and as a laboratory assistant for the NIH. Supposedly, they made him kill thousands of infected mice. I remember our chat about Aids. At first, he says, “It’s horrible”. Then he blinks, opens his eyes and turns with a growl of a voice,

“I think this body developed it called the NIH. That’s the National Institute of Health; to get rid of the Blacks and gays and other groups.”

Does he truly know that?

“They’re not fooling me. They’re very, very evil, mother fuckers’ man.”

“The corpse is in a pan with its own juices. I am eating flesh off the corpse’s bones.” (Body Bag)

It’s not so crazy acknowledging these thoughts and writing them down. It probably stops him blowing his head off in supermarket car parks or having to turn vegetarian. His commitment to publish is one of his bravest and smartest accomplishments. Henry has two words for aspirers: “Do it.” He has two words for ordinary, compromising folk, “Stupid people”. The prospect of a blooming yuppy generation seems a more frightening prospect, but Henry puts it into context.

“Their motivation is pretty scary, but it makes sense. It’s the inevitable conclusion of this Western world.”

He believes the US drug problem is run by the government. In his big voice, laced with malice and delight, he says,

“Drugs are the way to keep ghettos, ghettos. You know, they feed on themselves and destroy themselves. Drugs perpetuate ghettos and crime. Now it’s got out of hand. Now all the white kids are getting into it and it’s destroying their dream of white America.”

At his spoken word show, he describes Compton as a warzone. (Noting it’s where rap band NWA are from.)

“A ghetto is a factory and crime is the product. They added fuel to the fire and now the fires have blown up.”

Henry doesn’t leave himself much to fear but he says the worst thing imaginable would be to die a virgin.

“Imagine bleeding to death by a river and knowing you’ll never got laid. Watching your blood and guts pour out of a great hole in the side of your stomach and still being able to think ‘Shit!  I don’t know what it’s like to get laid’.”

He’s still recommending author Hubert Selby. He wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn, which was quite controversial. It was released as a film in January and at present, part of the London Film Festival. According to my friend Richard James, of Films and Filming, it’s not as hard as the book and was intended like that. Literal imagery would have perhaps been indigestible. You can pick it up and put it down again as a book. Body Bag is also that type of book. HR admits he finds Kathy Acker difficult to read once he has as far as three pages. He’s met her and reckons her a “straight-up lady”. He also points out that he’s been to a few of her live readings and understood and enjoyed them.

We all know he approves of Lydia Lunch. In Body Bag, Henry writes “Mr Ginn calls her Lydia Supper.” The Lock and Loud EP recorded in London is a spoken word record with HR on one side and Lydia on the other. In the States, they often share talk show billings. He likes to point out this is separate because I dare to think maybe it isn’t but as he had the first word, he also has the last.

I flick through Body Bag. It opens on page 207 which reads:

“Some people are critics. They can tell you what’s in a man’s soul by just turning on their typewriters. They take their bullshit ego trips and put down people who get more stuff done than them. They type out shit that you can read and understand. You and the critic are usually on the same level, whether you agree with each other or not. Do you dig what I’m saying? Some ‘Do it’ and some just make their living by writing about people that ‘Do it’. I’m glad I’m not in that bullshit game. And by the way, fuck you.”

Fuck you too Henry Rollins.

Body Bag by Henry Rollins