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Written by Jason Green Sunday, 14 October 2007 04:43

Singer. Speaker. Author. Actor. TV personality. Talk show host. Heavy metal hero. Punk rock icon. Henry Rollins brings his unique brand of spoken word performance to St. Louis.

First coming to prominence as front man for seminal California punk band Black Flag, Henry Rollins exploded into the public consciousness with "Liar," a song from the 1994 Rollins Band album Weight, whose video helped launch the singer as an omnipresent MTV personality. His newfound fame opened a chance for small roles in films like The Chase and Heat. Rollins also began writing books and publishing them under his own 2.13.61 banner, including his essential Black Flag memoir Get in the Van. In recent years, Rollins has appeared on the Independent Film Channel, first as host of Henry's Film Corner and later of The Henry Rollins Show, a topical talkfest that IFC recently renewed for a third season.

 

Throughout all the various stages of his career, Rollins has also toured as a spoken word artist. His spoken word shows offer him a chance to speak on a wide range of topics, from observational humor to intense social and political commentary, all filtered through Rollins' unique world view. As a man who makes a living through his words, Rollins is understandably chatty, and in this lengthy interview he touches on several wide-ranging subjects, including the origins of his IFC show, the reason he still goes out on spoken word tours, the future of the Rollins Band, his latest acting turn in the horror film Wrong Turn 2, and the current political climate of the United States.

 

Rollins appears at 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 20 at The Pageant in St. Louis. Tickets are $22, and the show is open to all ages. The rest of Rollins' tour itinerary is at the end of this article; to find out more about Rollins, visit his website at www.21361.com.

 

How did you first hook up with the guys at the Independent Film Channel, and what lead to the show changing from the movie format to the weekly talk show format that you're doing now?

 

It was their idea. [Swift River, the show's production team] called my management, they said, "We have this idea for—"—what became the Film Corner show—"we like Henry for it." Rick, my manager, called and said, "These guys seem pretty on the level, do you want to meet these people?" I said, "Sure." It just sounded interesting; I had never thought of being on TV.

 

I met them and they were go-getters. They weren't messing around, they were young and...champing at the bit, as they say, and I liked that. So I threw in with them and we made a demo, a 15-minute version, and we shopped it around and went on some of those excruciating pitch meetings where you try and pawn yourself off as, you know, "Hey, here's this show that's going to change your station." And these people have seen everything before, so they kind of go, "Uh huh...get out." It was just really weird.

 

We gave the demo to the Independent Film Channel. They said, "We like this, we like Henry, can we sit down with you all?" So we sat down with them—very cool people. They said "Here's some money, can you make a broadcast-ready, half-hour version?" We did that, and they got back to us a few weeks later and said "Okay, can you make a season?" And all of a sudden, we had a show.

 

Then they said, "The new plan: We like you, we want you back, but we see that people really respond to you when you're just being yourself, so let's forget the film aspect and let you do what you want. And let's call it The Henry Rollins Show, just so it doesn't have to be film all the time." All of a sudden, I've got this big-ass job. It takes a quite a bit of time and consideration, and it's been a very growing experience because I'm used to doing things on my own. I've got a band, and you work with the band guys, and I've got my talking shows...it's just me up there. But the TV show is a very collaborative effort. Also, it's not my money, so IFC wants to hear what we're doing, they want a say. There's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. It's cool, thankfully...everyone is really great and none of their ideas are awful, where you cringe. We don't always agree on everything because there are a lot of different minds in the room, but by and large, what you see is what we wanted to show you.

 

That's been the evolution of it. The time from the first little demo to actually putting the show on was well over a year. The Swift River guys would go away for a few months, and I'm very busy so a few months [goes by] for me and I've kind of forgotten them because I'm deeply into the next project I'm struggling to complete. Then my manager would call and say "Ah, the Swift River guys called again," and I'm like "Oh, yeah, that TV show. Yeah, like that's going to happen..." We've been dealing with the Swift River guys for years now, and hopefully more good work next year.

 

I saw that your show just got picked up for season 3. Did you have any big plans for next year when you pitched to IFC to continue the show?

 

We just flew out to New York for meetings with them, so we're going to start storyboarding ideas now, but there won't be any shooting until '08. That's not that far away. With the way I'm booked, with the way I schedule myself, 3 or 4 months is like 3 weeks, it's like it's around the corner. So we're kind of scrambling now for next year, because unless you start really nailing it down now, you don't get to do anything you want even by spring of next year because you didn't plan in the summer of the year before.

 

That I look forward to, I always like the planning stuff. Y'know, it's exciting.

Were there any moments of the season that just ended that you particularly enjoyed, particularly anything that was unexpected, that you didn't plan for?

 

We had a lot of really good bands on this year, and the interviews went exceedingly well. It was really great to interview Gore Vidal, who I think is a great American man of letters, and he might not be around for that many more years—I mean, he's in his 80s—so it was great to have met the man. The Larry Flynt interview was really interesting. We didn't talk about Hustler; I don't care about Hustler magazine, really. Jerry Falwell had just passed away, and they had a very interesting relationship. He's very articulate.

 

We just interviewed Steven Tyler the other day, of Aerosmith. Very sincere, very intense guy. He lives right at the surface of himself, so you ask him a question and he's just right there with it.

I talked to him the day before on the phone, he had said, "I want Henry to call me. I don't want to hear from managers, I just want the two of us to talk." So I got his number and I called him on this Sunday afternoon, and we ended up having this really cool conversation about everything from music to being in a band and the frustrations contained therein. I mean, the guy's been in the same band since the 70s, and in that time, there's probably a bunch of ups and downs. So that was a really cool interview, very intense.

And we just interviewed Shepard Fairey, who does all the "Obey Giant" stuff. The art is great, but the reason he does the art is, to me, just as interesting. There's a message behind it. Those were all really substantive interviews.

And, the bands: Sinead O'Connor, Billy Bragg...[the list of artists] we had on there...it was fairly staggering. I mean, there's nothing like walking into the studio to see the Good, the Bad, and the Queen, which means you have Paul Simonon of the Clash standing in front of you—that was pretty large for me—and Tony Allen, who drummed with Fela Kuti, so you're like, "That's Tony Allen...wow." Because I'm a fan of all these people. I'm not one who's too cool to be a fan of someone else, so when they come in, I have to contain myself.

We had the Stooges come in this year. Forget it. I'm like, [nervously] "So, uh, hey guys..."—you know, trying to hide the fact that I'm jumping up and down inside -- and they were great. Iggy [Pop] said, "Do you mind if we warm up with a few songs before we play?" I'm like [meekly] "Yeah, that'll be okay..." and they played half the new album in front of like 10 people. It wasn't the worst day of my life.

Yeah, when I saw that the Stooges had played this year, I knew that had to be one of your personal highlights...

 

You know, Iggy's a hero to me, he fascinates me. I've been very lucky, I've met the guy over the years. I can't say I know the dude, but, y'know, I've shook the hand on a number of occasions in the last 24 years.

 

It's a great opportunity. We all walk out of there at the end of the day—cast, crew, everyone—saying "This is really cool. This is a good job."

[Continue to page 2 to read what Rollins feels he gets from spoken word shows, as well as the future of the Rollins Band.]

{mospagebreak}

You're about to head out on yet another spoken word tour. What do you get creatively from those tours that you don't get necessarily from the TV show or the radio show?

 

It's such a long time to spend onstage, and it's such an involving experience in that I'm going to live for two months on a tour bus with shows 6 to 7 nights a week—there's no week that's below 6 shows. It just goes on and on. A few shows in, you kind of forget that there's anything else, which I really like. I like that obsessive focusing that you go through to really make this thing go, where you live for the shows.

 

When I'm finishing a book, when we're in final edit, I'll do two shifts at my office: come in, do the day, go home, eat, come back and do the 7 to 12 shift—what Fitzgerald called "living in the book." And that's why I like going out on long tours. It becomes more than just, "Oh, here's this thing I'm doing." It's your life. And where some people get worn down and they miss home, for me it becomes this opportunity to really give more and more onstage.

 

I'm looking forward to that, and that leads to more creativity, for me at least, because a large part of the day there's nothing else to do. You're either in the tour bus, or backstage at the venue. It's kind of like when you're waiting for an airplane and you get a lot of reading done: when I'm on tour, I get a lot of work done, because there's not the distraction of "Oh, here's all my records. Here's all my books. I'm home, here's my stuff." I'm on the road. I'm living out of a DeWalt tool bag and a backpack, and I've got a gig that night which hangs over my head like a Damoclidian dagger.

 

So I just have this very focused, albeit somewhat narrow, day. Because it's all about 8 PM. That's what it's all about—hitting the stage—and so the day is basically a funnel, getting me to that moment, so by 6 o'clock I'm done with work and I'm now focusing on the show. And I like living that way, because you strive for excellence every night. It suits me.

 

Do you notice a difference in the crowds at your spoken word shows as opposed to your rock shows, and has the difference become more pronounced since the IFC show has established you as a talk show personality?

 

Well, the talk shows draw a very large audience, and a very divergent demographic...50/50 men/women, as far as I can tell. I mean, I really don't study the crowd much. I'm trying to concentrate on what I'm saying because I'm really trying not to let the ball hit the ground. I've noticed the age group is very wide in the talking shows, whereas it's somewhat more narrow in the band shows.

 

But as far as getting a bigger audience because of the TV show: I wish that happened. I mean, I wish the thing fairly exploded because of the TV show. Like, "My God, it sold out?!" But that did not happen. There has not seemed to be any kind of, "Well, I watched his show, I never knew the guy before, and he's coming to town? By golly, let's go!" I really would have liked for that to have been the case, but it's not.

The shows do fine. No town ever says, "Sorry, you didn't draw enough, we don't want you back"...quite the opposite, so I'm lucky there. But I can't see any perceptible bounce in attendance because of, really, anything I do. I can gauge it by the mail order that we do here, the books and what not, and you figure all these people would say "Ah, let's go to his website!" Nah. We've done very well this year, mail order, but it's not been, like, five times [as much]. We did a little better in the summer months, when everyone's usually out having fun and no one bothers to buy a book. It doesn't change a lot, but usually we're usually fairly dead, [and] it's been fairly lively, but not where we're looking at each other going "What the hell's going on?"

 

And I don't know what that's due to. Apparently, the TV show rates fairly well; IFC says every year, more people watch, and they're very happy with the amount of people who are watching, hence another season of work. But I don't know if there will be any crossover. It very well could be we'll see something like that happen this year, I don't know.

 

It's been six years since the last full Rollins Band record. Do you see that part of your career as still going and just on a break?

 

No, I really don't look at it in that way. I've done a lot of records and a lot of touring, and I don't really think anyone is really waiting with baited breath for me to do anything musical. And that doesn't necessarily determine my action. I don't wait around for enough letters to come in. I get the odd letter every day or every other day, "Hey man, I'm in Germany, you guys haven't shown up in a while! Hurry up!"

 

We went out last summer, me and the group, and did a lot of shows in late July, all of August, and a few days in early September, like five and a half, six weeks. And the shows went well, very well-received, and we played well, so we get the gold star. But I came back from it and I didn't want to just jump right into the practice room and start writing songs. Which would be the ritual, where you tour all summer, then everyone takes a week to visit friends and family, and then you throw into the practice room and practice ‘til Christmas and work on songs, which was a great ritual for many years of my life.

I didn't feel it this time, and I think you should go in honestly knowing you respond to that and that if anything feels forced, and the art will show it. You can always tell. You've probably been to a few shows in your time; you can always tell when a performer is dialing it in. No one fools anyone, it's like trying to fool a dog. Hey, now! A horse knows when you're scared. And audiences have that, they have a collective instinct. If one guy's not getting it, the guy next to him, just the way the person's standing, it rubs off. So if you're not going to do something that you're desperate to do, then don't do it.

 

And with a band, you're talking 4 or 5 guys, over a number of weeks, at great personal, emotional, and financial expense, and I didn't know if we'd have all 5 people wagging their tails vigorously, waiting to get into the practice room, and I looked at my own tail and it wasn't that way. So I said, "I'll see you guys around the university" and I went home. The last show was in LA, I literally hopped into my mighty Subaru Outback and drove back to my house, and I haven't seen those guys since, and that was about a year ago.

 

I just haven't really thought about it. I've been more working on the TV show, the radio show, gearing up for this tour—which is pretty ambitious—and doing a lot of traveling. A lot of learning, a lot of note taking and reading. I think where I admire Mick Jagger, and a lot of these people, that they go out and they do it, and they do it very well. I mean, Mick Jagger's what, 60-something? And there's no slack in his act, and he's out there singing "Brown Sugar" and "Satisfaction," 30 year old songs. They are effectively a ceremonial ritual outfit that supplies old music to medium-to-old people. That's kind of a vaudeville act, it may as well be a cover band. There's nothing new happening, and the band knows full well that if they play more than one or two songs from the new album, everyone starts looking at their watch.

 

I don't want to do that. I understand the ethic - "Put on the show, it'll be great!" But I don't want to be one of those acts. Basically, it's nothing Miles Davis or John Coltrane ever would have done. They would move on to some new thing, and they'd suffer the slings and arrows both critically and attendance-wise. Miles especially, because he was out there for so many years. He'd get a new line-up-"Whoa, whoa, what're you doing? There's a wah-wah pedal onstage? I don't think so!" And Miles would say, "Well, then don't show up." Never look back. So many other bands, at this point, that's kind of all they do, and that's what we did last summer, we just played songs that we knew because we hadn't written anything. And that's okay for one tour, that's okay for 40 American dates, but if we went out this year and did that? Shame on us for ripping off the audience.

 

Until I come up with something I'm burning to do, losing sleep over, musically, I'm going to do the stuff that I am losing sleep over.

 

[Continue to page 3 to read Rollins' thoughts on acting in horror movies, as well as his thoughts on the upcoming U.S. presidential election.]

 

{mospagebreak}

One other thing that you recently squeezed into your schedule was the movie Wrong Turn 2, and you did Feast not long before that. Do you enjoy acting in horror movies?

 

Well, we wrapped Wrong Turn 2 about a year ago, so know that. It's kind of "long done."

 

I enjoy getting the work that I get. I'm not in a position where I can say "I want that, I don't want that." I get what I can get, film-wise. And to me, [with] film, while I work very hard when I'm there, I don't consider myself an actor.

 

When you look at Feast, it's cool, but it's not Citizen Kane. But I gladly took the role. I went in, auditioned, and he's a funny guy—I liked that character in Feast -- and they said "Great, you've got it, do you want to do this?" And I said "Absolutely." Whereas some people would look at it and go, "What the hell did you do that for?" Well, because it was a job, and I liked it. It was interesting to do.

I thought it was brilliant, personally. I loved you in that movie.

Oh, thank you. A lot of people really liked that film. I liked it because it was so out of how people think I'm going to be, but as a film, it's not going to change your life. It's not Apocalypse Now. Nor should I be in something of that weight, because I couldn't handle it.

 

That being said, the last couple of films I did were scary movies. They were fun, because there is a lot of "funny" on the set. [Things like] "Here comes a rubber monster with a small man inside it...and cut!" "How are you doing in there?" "It's hot!" There's moments of light and levity.

 

Wrong Turn 2 was far more ambitious. A lot of fight scenes, we shot it outside in Vancouver. Shooting and lighting an outdoor scene is a lot of work, we were doing 14 hour days, [getting] mosquito bites and whatnot. It was really a hell of an experience, and a really good cast. It comes out in October, straight to DVD.

 

But for me, I can't tell you how to be, but I think one should be gainfully employed pretty much all the time. I'm happy when I'm working, I'd rather be working. And if it's a movie for four weeks, I feel nothing but fortunate to have the opportunity to go work. If they throw three more scary movies at me, I'd say "Thank you, thank you, thank you." I'd be happy to do it.

 

Politically, I know you're a very opinionated guy. Where do you see the country heading politically as we head into an election cycle next year?

 

That's a good question. I think America is very confused. I don't think anybody likes the war. No matter who you voted for, you don't like reading the news about your countrymen coming home dead, mutilated. And no one, be you conservatives, liberals, what have you, like the idea of hemorrhaging money—unless you're Bill Bechtel, or Kellogg, Brown, or Root, or James Halliburton, if there is such a person. Maybe then, war's a good thing. But for the rest of us, looking at the carnage, none of us are into it. Even if you have a Bush tattoo on your arm you're not happy about this.  

 

So I think as we head into this next election, I think Iraq is going to be the topic, because it's eating people up, it's eating resources, and our good standing in the world. And we'll see which side shows a way out, or shows a plan B. I think you might have a lot of people who are Democrats who are angry with their party because Nancy Pelosi is not moving fast enough for them or vigorously enough. And you might have Republicans and conservatives saying "I can't stand Democrats or liberals, but right now Republicans and conservatives are not being Republicans and conservatives." The conservatives aren't conserving, they're spending more money than ever in the history of America.

 

I think these candidates really need to define themselves, because I think the country is in a state right now where push is really coming to shove and the rubber is meeting the road. The middle class has taken quite a hit in the last few years, and it's visible, you can't say it doesn't exist. And when the President says more people are buying houses than ever, he leaves out the part about all the foreclosures.

 

I think America's got a lot of work to do, but I think we'll be okay because we're America. We're very resilient people, very strong. We'll be alright; we've just got some tough times ahead because we have to undo a lot of things that have been done. I don't know how that's going to mete out at the polls.

 

I'll take the one who wins, in that if it's an honest election and the guy I didn't vote for wins, I'll say "OK, fair enough. You won fair, you're my president." I don't know if the last couple of elections were honest, and I don't have 100% confidence that the next one will be. If you can hack into a voting machine, what good is it? And why would you ever defend that? How could anyone ever defend a machine that can be hacked? I don't care which side you're voting on.

 

Yeah, it is pretty mind-boggling.

 

It should be pretty distressing that democracy can be hacked. That's pretty terrifying. If you think about it, that's the end of the world as you know it, as far as America [goes]. I like democracy, personally. One guy wrote me and said "It's nothing but mob rule," some Ayn Rand disciple. I went, "Ok, whatever, pal." I'll go with mob rule over anything else: communism, Buddhism, whatevah.

 

I think America's got its work cut out for it until the '08 elections. How these [candidates] define themselves in the events that come up in the next several months in Iraq will be very determinate.

HENRY ROLLINS SPOKEN WORD TOUR DATES 2007

Mon. 10/15 - Minneapolis, MN -First Ave
Tue. 10/16 - Milwaukee, WI - Eagles Ballroom
Wed. 10/17 - Madison, WI - Barrymore Theatre
Fri. 10/19 - Chicago, IL - The Vic
Sat. 10/20 - St. Louis, MO - Pageant
Sun. 10/21 - Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall*
Tue. 10/23 - Denver, CO - Paramount Theatre
Wed. 10/24 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
Fri. 10/26 - Bellingham, WA - Nitelite
Sat. 10/27 - Spokane, WA - Big Easy
Sun. 10/28 - Calgary, AB - Jack Singer
Mon. 10/29 - Edmonton, AB - Winspear
Tue. 10/30 - Vancouver, BC - Centre for the Arts
Wed. 10/31 - Seattle, WA - Moore Theatre
Thu. 11/1 -Portland, OR - Aladdin Theatre
Fri. 11/2 - Reno, NV - Stoney's
Sat. 11/3 - Chico, CA - El Rey Theatre at 230 W. 2nd St. 95928
Sun. 11/4 - Sacramento, CA - The Crest Theatre
Mon. 11/5 - Santa Cruz, CA - The Rio Theatre
Tue. 11/6 - San Francisco, CA - Herbst Theatre
Wed. 11/7 - Columbia, MO - University of Missouri / Jesse Auditorium
Thu. 11/8 - San Diego, CA - 4th & B
Fri. 11/9 - Las Vegas, NV - House of Bl
Sat. 11/10 - Santa Barbara, CA / Soho Restaurant Music Club

HENRY ROLLINS SPOKEN WORD TOUR 2008

Mon. 1/14 Gothenburg, Sweden Lorensbergsteatern
Tues. 1/15 Stockholm, Sweden Rival
Wed. 1/16 Munich, Germany Muffathalle
Thu. 1/17 Zurich, Switzerland Kaufleuten
Sat. 1/19 Frankfurt, Germany Mousonturm
Sun. 1/20 Hamburg, Germany Schauspielhaus
Mon. 1/21 Berlin, Germany Passionskirche
Tue. 1/22 Cologne, Germany Gloria
Wed. 1/23 Amsterdam, Holland Paradiso
Thu. 1/24 Brussel, Belgium AB
Sat. 1/26 London, UK HammersmithApollo
Sun. 1/27 Bristol, UK Colston Hall
Mon. 1/28 Wolverhampton, UK Wulfren Hall
Tue. 1/29 Dublin, Ireland Vicar St
Wed. 1/30 Manchester, UK Academy
Thu. 1/31 Newcastle, UK Academy
Sat. 2/2 Aberdeen, UK Music Hall
Sun. 2/3 Glasgow, UK Theatre Royal