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April 4, 2006
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enry Rollins is busting on me for asking a stupid question. "Dude," he laughs, "did you just ask if the show would reflect my tastes, or be more eclectic?" Point taken. He may have started out in the '80s as the frontman for punk legends Black Flag, but the highly visible singer-writer-actor-performance-artist is the poster boy for eclecticism. To wit: The show in question is the new Henry Rollins Show, debuting April 1 st at 10 pm on IFC, a new weekly variety program that has grown out of Rollins' previous hosting gig, the monthly Henry's Film Corner, also on IFC. Now, Rollins now gets to bring in celebrity guests from film and other realms (guests lined up include Ozzy Osbourne, Oliver Stone, and Chuck D) as well as live music and a hearty dose of commentary from Rollins himself. (He's already written fake letters to Ann Coulter and Laura Bush.) In a way, this should have happened years ago. With his absurdly muscular physique, intense gaze, and boyish enthusiasm, Rollins is one of the hardest public figures to pigeonhole. As the owner of his own record label (called 2.13.61), he's released albums by free jazz artists like Matthew Shipp as well as his own successful punk act Rollins Band, not to mention spoken-word albums featuring himself, and a benefit CD with performances from the likes of Ice-T and Hank Willams III. As a musician, he's performed with William Shatner and Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. He's appeared as a bodyguard in Michael Mann's Heat and a narc squad leader in Bad Boys 2, along with supporting parts in countless indie films. (He also showed up driving a jeep in Jackass: The Movie.) He's even published a number of books, from his own Black Flag tour diaries Get in the Van, to the Nick Cave novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, to poetry, non-fiction, and more.
Yes, it was pretty stupid to ask if his show would be eclectic. Luckily, Rollins was up for all other questions. — Bilge Ebiri
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So whose idea was it to have you do a variety show?
Believe it or not, it was IFC's idea. Last year, my show Henry's Film Corner was obviously more film-specific. This year, they wanted to give more of a spectrum of what I do — music, film, books, commentary, all sorts of stuff. Which is a hell of an endorsement; it's cool when other people's money says, "Hey, we like you."
You're used to being your own boss. Is it weird to be working for a big company?
It's destabilizing at first, for sure. I'm used to doing everything myself. I put out books. Why? Cause I'm a good writer? No, 'cause I own a book company! Nobody says no to me around my office. And I put out records, cause I have a record company. So when IFC came back and said, "Hey, here's another season, with four shows a month instead of one show a month, and here's more leash to run with," I found it quite shocking.
Do you ever get any interference?
Some of the bands I want, someone in the food chain will say, "No, that will alienate people." Like I give a fuck. And a couple of bands in there, I wasn't exactly minding the store, and either management or producers or IFC slipped them in. Bands that I actually have no records of.
I guess you can't name the bands.
No. They're still nice people. When I heard they were confirmed and had already taped, I was just like, "Oh? Oh, well." But I've got a lot of people I'm excited about to come in. Dinosaur Jr is coming in — I'm so happy about that. Frank Black has recorded. John Doe came in and played. I just talked to Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. I want him to come in and do something. The trick is to get people who I want, who happen to be in L.A. when we happen to be taping.
I read recently that one of the people you most wanted to interview was Werner Herzog. Did you get to?
I did. He's going to be on the show. It was so cool. He said stuff I'm using now as rhetoric. I said, "As far as Hollywood is concerned, you're kind of an outsider." He just nodded his head and said, [In a German accent] "No. They are the outsiders." Thank you! New tattoo, please! We talked about when he was shot recently. He was doing an interview and someone shot him. [In a German accent] "Yes, but it was a small bullet in the abdomen; it did not perforate the intestine. I finished the interview. It was not a serious bullet." And I'm like, "You know, Werner, there's a lot of people out there, myself included, who think every bullet is a pretty fucking serious bullet!" So he goes into this long story about all the times he's been shot at, and what a rush it is for a guy his age to have someone attempt to kill him and be unsuccessful. I would follow that man anywhere.
When you do interviews like that, do you ever worry you won't be taken seriously?
I don't strive to be taken seriously. I'm coming at it as a fan of film. I'm not looking to be Ebert or Roeper. I'm trying to impart my passion and enthusiasm. I'm doing an interview and all I can think is, I have fucking Werner Herzog on my show! Look at him! He's here! I'm not an expert on things. I haven't seen all the films in the world that I should have seen. But I think I'm conversant enough to talk about a movie I like for seven minutes a week on TV and have it not be boring. There's something to be said for enthusiasm.
You've acted, you've written. Have you ever thought of going into directing yourself?
No. When you meet a real director, you realize how differently they see and think than most people — how they're able to encapsulate a story. Great directors like Kubrick or Herzog see things. I don't. I'm very mediocre. My mind works in a very pedestrian way — I'm Barney Rubble. I'm better off going to see the movie. You know what I'd be really good at? Loading in. Even with music. I'd be a better roadie than a guy in a band, cause I can pick it up and I can work for fourteen hours without a problem. And I know that. I'm really just a fan who snuck in over the wall.
I heard once that you'd been thinking of moving back to Washington, D.C., where you grew up.
I'd love to get back there and live. I just miss the East Coast. I miss my old neighborhoods — you know, deciduous trees and people who read.
I was also surprised to find out you'd graduated from the Bullis School in D.C., which is a very selective prep school. I went to Landon, which was one of your rivals.
Oh! You fucking Landon guys always got the cool chicks, and you always beat me in every game I ever played. I'd try to take my dumb scrawny painter-pants-covered ass to their parties, and they smelled you. "You're not from Landon, are you? Get out of here, or we'll kick your ass, you fag." Bullis was not fun either. It was all boys. They had a very accelerated academic program, and I was a victim of the D.C. public school system. And when you go from years of that into the prep school curriculum, you're basically running with a backpack full of cinderblocks. I also played intramural sports with all the other nosebleeding spazzes. So you'd be playing flag football in front of a bored history teacher, and the real football guys would run by yelling, "Hey, you fuckin' faggots!" Meanwhile you're there in your Bullis gym shorts pulled up to your armpits. All you learned was that you sucked and that you were never going to touch a female breast — ever.
Have you been back since?
I've been asked to speak at that school. I'm one of the guys who went there and made good. They've got young students who admire me, and they write and ask me to come and speak. I write back and I say, "That's so cool of you. But I have no fond memories of that place. I hope you're enjoying your time." And I politely decline. I haven't been back since 1979 when I graduated. Never even driven by it. It was a weird time. I'd wake up in the pre-dawn hours, travel an hour plus out to school. My peers there were basically proto-George W. Bushes, soft handed children of privilege. These were teenage kids who got Trans Ams on their birthday and credit cards. Then I'd come back to my neighborhood at night, and I didn't know anyone there. So I'd get hazed by the suburban kids, then hazed again by the kids in my own neighborhood. Thankfully punk rock came, and that was the most edifying thing in my young life at the time. Suddenly, I had Joe Strummer. I'm like, "Oh, thank you." Punk rock also gave me friends. Cause you'd go to a gig, and you had all these fellow weirdos, who were local.
Speaking of friends, what was it like dueting with William Shatner?
Ben Folds called me and told me he's producing Bill Shatner's record and wants me to be on it. I thought, that sounds like it could be great or a total disaster. And I love that kind of risk. I flew straight out of Doha, Qatar, where I was doing the USO, to Heathrow, then to Nashville via New Jersey, and right to the studio, and met the man. Bill says, "I need a guitar for this track." He makes a call. And in walks Adrian Belew! Are you fucking kidding me? I have every King Crimson record he's on, all his solo stuff, the Bowie stuff he's on. I got to be on this record with Bill Shatner and Ben Folds and Adrian Belew all in one night. After that Shatner's assistant calls and says Bill had a really good time, and asks if I'd like to come over for Monday Night Football at his house. So I've been to his house a few times, for Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl. I bring dessert and stuff. It takes you aback a little that he's such a nice guy. When people laugh at him, he's laughing too. But when you laugh, you go to the couch; when he laughs, he goes to the bank. He's laughing to the tune of about $4 million a year. So, you know, I like going to his place. He can really lay it on. Go hungry, leave happy, as they say at my house.
You've done a lot of USO tours recently. Have your anti-war views caused any problems?
I'm anti-war, but I'm pro-troop. The soldiers are good boys and girls doing what they're told. It's not their war — they're just fighting it. I don't have a beef with them. It's Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney I have questions for. But a guy in the army? A twenty-one-year-old kid from Illinois? He could vote for Bush all day long. I have no argument with this guy. And I've also met a lot of soldiers who said, "This war's bullshit, but I'm fighting it." All these Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly types who claim to be the only ones who're patriotic and who think that if you want to question the government you're a Taliban sympathizer or a commie spy — it offends me. And it also offends me that if you say you're patriotic someone on the other side might say you're a psycho conservative, Fox News-loving jerk. I think America's great. I mean, how could it not be? The Ramones come from here. n°
©2006 Bilge Ebiri and Nerve.com.
Commentarium (3 Comments)
I saw Henry Rollins speak at SUNY Buffalo in 1995. While he wa sspeaking, some spittle flew from his mouth and into my eye. I have never since cried from that eye. It is immune to cop-strength Mace. It can see through women's clothing. Henry Rollins is not a man. He is more like a messiah. With tatoos.
What did you say----"The Ramones come from here".
GENIUS!
If you actually watch the show, you'll see that Hank is probably the worst interviewer in the world. Manages to be be sycophantic, un-incisive and generally dull. Stick to singing, big guy.
Now you say something