An Audience with Henry Rollins
Henry: I would rather work than anything. I don't have a great deal of
human companionship so I am more interested in something to do,
especially if I can do it on my own. I like the band work and all that
but it's the best thing for me to work alone. I travel all over the
world alone and that's a vacation of sorts but the locations I go to are
not always the easiest places to cool out in. It's more about not
getting kidnapped of dosed by bad water. When I am off the road, like
today, I will do a 12-15 hour day and then go back to the house and do
stuff there. Life is short, I'd rather work hard and exceed expectation.
Your publishing imprint,
2.13.61, has been going strong for a good twenty years now, but I could
imagine it was a struggle to get it where it is now.
We have had a great deal of success with the internet. With any company
selling art, literature, etc., you have to find your audience and rock them.
That's the struggle, you have to find them and keep them with you. This
sounds like a commercial but what I mean is making really cool stuff and
keeping the prices low and respecting them. We do cool stuff, we make it
really cheap and we answer all the mail. Past that, I was very lucky with
all this having the music and the profile that a young writer might not
enjoy. Also, I have worked pretty hard.
Do you think it is more difficult to make a carreer in publishing
(and
the arts in general) nowadays, or was it just as tough when you started out?
I think it might be easier now with the internet and a more
independent-minded and saavy audience out there but it's still all fairly
uphill.
What are you listening to/reading at the moment?
Reading books on Afghanistan/Mujahideen, Gogol's short stories, Baer's first
book. Baer was the CIA's top man in the middle east for two decades and he
rips the current adminitration and the ones in the past for basically
dropping the ball all the time. Really insane stories of dealing with the
Kurds in northern Iraq.
At what stage in your life did you say to yourself, "yep, this is
it. I'm
going to be a performer, and that's final"?
I never have. It's what I'm doing now. It could all end tomorrow. I knew I
wanted to be in a band when I saw the Bad Brains in 1979 but everyone in the
crowd probably did as well that night. One time HR (lead singer of Bad
Brains) told me I was going to be a singer, that was very inspiring.
There's a parallel universe somewhere where Henry Rollins didn't
jump
onstage and make himself known to the original Black Flag line-up in '81.
How do you think he's faring right now?
I get asked that a lot and I really don't know. Probably one job to the next
one in the more normal working world. I might have gotten it happening in a
band for a little while. It's all just wondering and I don't really see the
point.
The Shock and Awe tour: I caught your show in Leicester this time
last
week. You spoke for three hours solid; you didn't even stop to sip your
water. Do you actually memorise three hours of script, or do you just
remember the key gags and topics before firing away? It was mind-blowing!
I don't memorize anything. I just know what I want to talk about and go for
it. I have been doing those shows for 22 years so I am getting the hang of
it now.
Finally, if you could recommend any one product from
2.13.61, which would
it be?
The Trouble Funk 2CD set.
Interview by Zeke Iddon, (c) tittybiscuits.com, with many thanks to Henry
Rollins.