The Outspoken Cartographer of Punk Energy
As the reel of Soundgarden’s “Outshined” music video came to its famous halt, Kim Thayil’s guitar tone wheezing violently while harmonizing with the unmistakable roar of one pre-fame Chris Cornell, came a sharp silence as the static crackled on the evening music video circulation of VH1. The evening talk show VH1 Legends had just come on, and out came a stocky, awkward looking man in his 30s with a swift sense of earnest, reaching out beyond the television screen in the hopes that some grunge-absorbed teenager would listen to his message: Expand your music tastes. Expand who you are.
This man sat behind the stereotypical, almost parodical view of a news anchor’s desk, only to stare beyond it, shifting his gaze toward the camera. With every word came a musing of his own, and with every musing came this impression that this man, whoever he was, had seen and perceived things far beyond his years as a music journalist.
Except he was much more than that on its own. This was Henry Rollins, the notorious frontman of Black Flag, workaholic architect of Santa Monica’s punk rock scene, and he was not appearing on television for celebrity or exposure. Frankly, he was there to make a small point, with every word casting through the screen like a proverb informed by the virtue of perspective. To him, it did not matter at all; he was just speaking his mind.
“It’s impressive that the 1990s music has had so much staying power,” recalls Rollins, now in his late 50s. “I don’t think about it much. I’m in my own little world of music appreciation.”
Rollins is certainly in his own realm and headspace, maintaining this grounded sense of observation considered rare among the litany of voices on the radio and internet. His entire approach to his work and creative outlets reflects a long and unfathomably intimidating road toward the high price of success and the payoff of unequivocally hard work. His sense of observation has proven keen, amassing a prolific discography of over a dozen spoken-word albums, comedy specials and books. And that’s not including the massive wealth of studio albums he’s done with several bands, like State of Alert, Wartime and the Rollins Band, since the 1980’s. Rollins is unacquainted with the concept of rest.
“I don’t know what it’s like to be a ‘creative’ but I can tell you what I have been doing since I left the straight world of hourly wage in the middle of 1981,” says Rollins. “Work harder than you have ever before. Also know that it’s probably not enough. No matter what you think is your limit to commitment, you can commit more. The real thing comes at a great cost.”
Rollins’ status as a revered writer and radio host burgeoned from an origin point drenched in infamy, as the fervent and unrelenting frontman of anarcho-punk band Black Flag, a band whose legacy is mired in tragedy, chaos and political activism. Alongside Black Flag, he pioneered the do-it-yourself movement of the 1980’s that has become commonly associated with hardcore punk and indie rock, inspiring and influencing artists like The Dead Kennedys and Swans to follow suit.
Rollins has maintained a level of consistency in his intensity ever since, pouring out his unabashed grit with a tenacity and popularity unrivaled by celebrities his age, and is ever-present in his underappreciated spoken word and comedy.
“I try to find the humanity in it, what the information is telling me about humankind, these lives,” Rollins divulges, describing his work ethic and process. “What you see is one thing, what you ultimately conclude is as much about you as anything else,” he remarks, “so you have to remain open.”
Rollins is no stranger to the shifting paradigms and societal flux that engulf humankind’s daily deeds. In fact, he’s maintained relevancy as a free thinker driven by his own experiences, becoming unintentionally part of the zeitgeist of modern rebellion and defiance. “Here’s an idea: what if defiance is a war you don’t have to show up for? Defy? Who? Beyoncé? The Super Bowl Halftime Show? The Grammys? Pepsi?” Rollins, whose persona is synonymous with the avoidance of mainstream media and entertainment, looks at the very idea of defiance with unfiltered ambivalence. “None of these entities ever once tried to stop me from doing anything. I would rather just do my own thing, with my own resources and pass or fail on my own merits. In a way, defiance is playing someone else’s game.”
Despite this, he has gone far beyond his own efforts in his writing, which almost always anecdotally discusses his experiences traveling throughout the world as a writer and multimedia journalist, standing as his most enthrallingly insightful achievement.
“Travel. Travel to the African Continent, Central Asia, the Middle East, India, these journeys have been incredibly eye opening and dot connecting,” recalls Rollins. “A great way to learn about the USA is to go to other countries and see the effects of what’s been done over the decades. Hang out in Vietnam a bit and you’ll learn almost as much about the USA as you will about Vietnam. Same goes for Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq, at least, that’s been my experience.”
Although he has seen much of the world, immersing himself deep within the cultures of foreign nations and documenting them, he has certainly witnessed a continuous ferocity of events and contingencies unfold during his travels, often leading to several close calls in destabilized regions of the world.
“Once in Tehran, I was eating dinner with the guy who got me my visa, who knew who I was. His wife gets a phone call during the meal from her brother telling her that I’m on national television and that it is known that I’m in the country. This could possibly end badly,” Henry recounts. “I was told to get up and go. We went immediately to my hotel, I packed and we went to the airport. I wasn’t set to fly out for several hours. I was told to clear customs, find a corner and keep my head down, get on the flight and hope for the best. I sat with my head down for hours, made the flight back to Dubai.”
Rollins’ experiences abroad have drawn parallels to heartbreaking tragedies back home in Santa Monica, in which he still resides and works as a renowned DJ and radio host for 89.9FM KCRW, regularly bringing in friends and acquaintances from the music scene that propelled him to stardom, like Ian Mackaye: Fugazi frontman, Dischord Records founder and close friend of Henry’s.
Rollins often recounts the infamous unsolved 1991 shooting that led to the death of his best friend and Black Flag roadie Joe Cole, which served as a momentous turning point for the then-musician Rollins. His work ethic began to heighten, his admiration for the pen, unrivaled. He wrote five books, compiling them under a shared volume in 1997 to critical and commercial success.
His work as an author has always stood as a very serious and concentrated effort for the outspoken frontman, and has always relied on sheer tenacity to get his ideas off the ground and onto paper. “Writing a new book, I try, and try is a big thing,” he insists. “I try to have the idea pretty much mapped out, the beginning and end points set, so I take myself on the journey from the first point to the second.”
Rollins has, throughout the years, turned to his manager and close friend Heidi May for criticism and feedback on almost all of his projects, often spending years slowly snowballing ideas into fully fleshed releases, while leaving plenty of dead ideas on the cutting room floor.
“What I’ve noticed is the more I “like” the writing process on any given project, the less good I find it later,” says Rollins. “The more arduous, painful, slow, research based, inch by inch or otherwise laborious the work was, I find it to hold up more when held under the bright light of sober scrutiny.”
His tirelessness has led him to a consistently voracious path of struggle and unfiltered world exploration, enlightening him with an abundance of wisdom beyond his years, but also leaving him with a starkly distinct absence of existentialism, which he reflects upon while recounting his journey to Pakistan.
“I was in Islamabad when Bhutto was assassinated. The airport shut down, there was smoke and fire everywhere. I went out every day and checked things out,” Rollins recalls. “I eventually got out. It didn’t really have any effect on me. Since then, I’ve been to North Korea, Syria, etc.”
Despite his trademark grit, his candor towards the universe is unapologetic. “It sounds a bit much but I’m not all that concerned when I die,” says Rollins. “I’d rather do what I want and pay in full than not do what I want and pay double.”
