It’s been a long and eventful career path for the one-time Häagen-Dazs ice-cream store manager you and I know as Henry Rollins. While his time as the iconic frontman of Black Flag and Rollins Band slips ever further into the past, professed workaholic Rollins remains as active and on-the-move as ever.
Well, so it was until COVID came along. Rollins suddenly found himself unable to leave the U.S.—be it for work or his regular journeys to the corners of the globe that most people never choose to visit.
Walking out on stage to an appreciative crowd at Berlin’s Theater am Potsdamer Platz on the evening of Saturday, March 4, Rollins wastes no time getting down to business. Having performed in Hamburg on his Good to See You tour a few days earlier, he’s quick to tell the audience how glad he is to be back in Germany.
Rollins goes on to show his gratitude in the form of a two-and-a-half hour show where he barely seems to take breath, certainly doesn’t need a single sip of water, and absolutely doesn’t care for applause breaks. If you thought he might be slowing down at 62, come see him on tour. You may find quite the opposite.
So what’s on the mind of Henry Rollins in 2023? Well, for sure there’s COVID; there’s the current state of the U.S. and where it’s going; there’s even some thoughtful reflection on gender identity and the youth of today.
The core of the show, however, revolves around two set-piece stories. Without giving too much away, one involves his mother and ducks, the other a “driven” traveler from Finland. Repeatedly leaning into the farcical aspects of what could be harrowing material in other hands, Rollins entertains from start to finish.
A few weeks prior to the show, Rollins shared his thoughts with New Noise. You can get a taste below of what’s on the great man’s mind, but to really experience Rollins in 2023, you have to see (and hear) him on stage.
English goes a long way around the world, but after all these years traveling, how are your foreign language skills? Could you talk your way into and out of trouble in German?
I’m afraid not. Languages have never stuck with me, and I also have a hard time understanding English when it’s spoken with even the slightest accent. Homo sapiens americanus.
Does any part of the airport process still make you feel like you’re being murdered with tiny knives?
As far as I can tell, there have been two major changes to commercial flying, dealing with airports, etc. The first was the attack on the Twin Trade Towers, and the other was COVID. Before the pandemic, I bounced all over the world. I’d have a book to edit, so I’d work on it in Manila and Taipei, or I’d go stay in the Peruvian Andes for a while and work on things from there. This was me trying to account for the shortness of life and trying to make it eventful.
COVID put an end to that. Since then, I’ve flown in North America only. I’ve noticed smaller seats, longer wait times, more hassle. Flying, for me at least, was never all that great, as I’m usually in economy, but these days, it seems that airline staff are overworked, and there’s a lot of tension.
If all goes according to plan, I should be flying a lot this year. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I don’t think I’ll be traveling like I used to. I think that kind of mobility is over with. The world is a different place now. Maybe this was an eventuality.
Now that Discogs is just a click away, how much time do you have for the old record stores when you’re on the road?
My road manager and I are both record fans. He’s the smart one, so by the time we get to any city, he’s got the record stores staked out. I’ve found the ones in Europe to be the best. I go to as many as I can. Now and then, I find some things, but it’s not like it used to be. It’s still worth going, I think. I hope I get to go to a lot (of stores) this year.
Discogs is very good, but some of the sellers don’t know what they’re selling and will list an item incorrectly. I now write the seller, ask for a photo, and often have to tell the seller he’s not actually selling what he’s listing. Discogs is a great servic,e but you need to be careful.
Back in the Rollins Band days, you used Iggy Pop as a benchmark and pushed yourself to outdo him on stage. As a spoken-word performer who are you measuring yourself against and do you ever finish a show delighting in the taste of their blood on your lips?
Iggy, for me anyway, is ultimate. I call him the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of Rock n’n Roll. No one took it further. He’s always been an inspiration to me as he is completely extraordinary, and I am dependably ordinary, so there’s a lot to look up to.
The whole “outdoing Iggy” thing, you hopefully understand, was all in good fun and had absolutely not one note of seriousness to it. It made for a funny story onstage, which Iggy actually liked. I don’t know the man but I’ve met him a bunch of times and he’s always very nice to me, which means a lot. There are some performers who are in a class of their own. Who in their right mind would want to go on after Nick Cave?
As far as me and the talking shows, I live alone, work alone, and know very few people. I don’t have a television set. I’m quite sure I’m missing out on a lot of things. I come up with my own material and do my show. I’m not trying to be in any peer group whatsoever. I don’t want “allies.” I just want to go on a stage at 2000 hours and do the thing.
There is no one I compare myself to. The idea of that holds no interest to me whatsoever. I am in no way trying to imply that I’m in any way unique. I just intensely stay in my lane.
According to Henry Miller, “We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul.” What’s the last book you read that had this impact on you?
Many years ago, when I was young, Henry Miller’s writing from France impacted me, as did Rimbaud, Artaud, and Baudelaire. Later, Hubert Selby Jr. made me see the need to be brave with writing and not spare yourself. After that, Thomas Wolfe’s first two books, Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time And The River resonated with me. The exquisite fragility of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing had a big impact on me.
This was all a long time ago, and at a certain age, I just stopped reading literature. I wanted to learn more about Abraham Lincoln, the CIA’s role in the Soviet-Afghan War, the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the origins of the Taliban, Stalin-era Russia, and things like that. So, my interests turned to reading the work of historians and journalists, people like Eric Foner, Ryszard Kapuscinski, and Robert Fisk. Amazing work.
I think I understand the Miller quote but being someone who has no belief in the concept of “soul” and who’s quite sure that if you shoot someone in the head from inches away, you’ll probably kill them and there could possibly be brain matter on the ground that someone might have to clean up, I wouldn’t take what Mr. Miller said as a directive, but I appreciate his passion.
The last book that impacted me, where I thought the author was a standalone, ultimate force was We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates. American democracy was an idea, a concept doomed to fail, and Mr. Coates lays it out. I don’t think you can have a president who owns slaves and think the future of the country will be all that bright.
Catch Henry Rollins on his European spoken-word tour.
Photo by Ross Halfin
