A Session With Henry Rollins: An Exclusive Look Into His Massive World

One of the most surprising interactions I've had the pleasure of experiencing was my interview session with Henry Rollins, with his answers being incredibly striking, informative, and interesting to read. I was sure to ask him unique questions to get insight towards his career and the many experiences within it.

Henry Rollins' career has spanned almost five decades, from music to television to authoring books - he is someone who has done it all and then some. Few celebrities have had the impact that Rollins has created over the years, and he's not anywhere near done creating yet. He is someone that has managed to stay true to himself and his work while always stepping outside of the box and creating things that go outside of artistic normalcy, and it's part of why he's such a legendary musician and artist in every sense of the word. 

He has an extensive catalogue of books, bands, albums, and visual media roles that span multiple decades and various genres and styles - from spoken word to early punk, his discography is something that no one should ever miss out on. There's something for everyone in the world of Henry Rollins, and his career is something that is truly unbelievable to look back on and take in; it's impossible to take every piece in, and some of his accomplishments are truly striking. 

Rollins has been a longtime advocate against war and for LGBTQ+ rights amongst other incredible causes, and it's important that we have his kind of activism in a time of turmoil around the world. For years, he has been a highly important activist that has done a massive amount of work for LGBTQ+ people through charity and various forms of activism. He has also been heavily outspoken against war and advocates for human rights on all fronts.

Currently, Rollins hosts a weekly radio show with KCRW, and he is the type to interact with all fans that reach out to him. It's incredibly refreshing and heartwarming to know that one of the most important figures in all of punk music is so down to earth and communicative, and I cannot be any more thankful that he took the time out of his schedule to have me conduct an interview with him. 

Rollins was kind enough to give me exclusive information about him and his artistic journey, and you can read his introspective answers below the cut, where you will find unique pieces about his career that you won't see anywhere else. 

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Q: How does it feel to have so many projects that you have worked on? It must be a very cool thing to look back on.

A: For me, work is transitory. I come up with an idea, like a book or a song and I throw myself into it until it is complete. Once it’s done, I start doing something else. I don’t do much looking back. For some years, I had a file in my computer I called “the list” where I attempted to document things I had done, book titles, film titles, albums countries performed in. I forget which year I stopped adding to it. I’ve included it at the end of your questions. When I finish something, the only thing I focus on is what I can do next. Honestly, I don’t think that much about what I’ve done. I’m far more interested in what I’m doing and what I want to do next. Quite often, to complete anything from a tour to a book, it’s a lot of work, a lot of commitment and a lot of the time, it’s an expenditure of months or years. But, yes, it is quite cool to have the opportunity to work creatively again and again, year after year. For this, I am nothing but grateful. Without an audience, none of the things I've done would have any reason to exist. In that, I owe the audience everything, including my life. It’s gratitude that I feel the most.

Q: What is the best live show you have ever played? 

A: I’m not trying to be vague, but I have absolutely no idea. I’ve done literally thousands of performances, all over the world. I don’t know if I was ever any good, but I can say that I gave it everything I had, night after night. There is a price to be paid for this. Wear and tear on the body and psyche can become quite a factor after a certain age. I’ve broken bones, broken teeth, concussions, and quite a few stitches. I think, in 1984, when I was in the band Black Flag, that was a very lean and fierce line-up of the band. I think some of those shows were probably good. In 1992 the Rollins Band played all over the world and I think some of those shows were good. You might find, that a lot of bands, maybe even an overwhelming majority of them, truly go out there to do their best night after night. It means a lot. As far as the best show, maybe there’s a lot of best shows, in that you go out every night trying to be your best. As far as a single show that stands out, I can’t think of one. I do remember some nights, where a few songs in, in great heat, and not a lot of breathable air, I’d look at the drummer and say I think we’re going to die up here tonight. We’d laugh and keep going. I would finish the show, walk backstage, and kind of lie down as I fell down and be out for 30 to 40 minutes, sleeping, I guess. That happened a lot of times. That’s from giving it my best.

Q: Do you miss MTV?

A: The people I met at MTV were very cool to me. They gave me a lot of opportunities to appear, which I think helped the band. I don’t miss it, but I really don’t miss anything like that. If MTV still exists, I imagine it’s quite different than when I was appearing on it. The times I was on it would probably be considered their Stone Age.

Q: What was SNL like performing with the Rollins Band?

A: That was quite unpleasant, actually. The cast and crew were awful to us. We shouldn’t have been on there. It wasn’t a good fit. Pamela Anderson was extremely nice to us. She seemed like a good person. Otherwise, it was a drag and a complete waste of our time. I feel nothing but violence and hostility towards those people.

Q: Who are some of the most unique people you have worked with? 

A: David Lynch, Ozzy Osbourne, Jerry Lee Lewis. They broke the mold on those guys.

Q: If you could describe your life in one word, what would it be?

A: Fascinating.

Q: What was your time on Jackass like? Did anyone stand out to you, and what was it like behind the scenes?

A: It was very brief. I went out to some driving course and drove a few laps around it in a truck with poor Steve-O getting tattooed as we drove over rough terrain. It looked very painful for him. The behind-the-scenes aspect was apparently, Steve-O didn’t like me or doesn’t like me, which absolutely doesn’t matter, but no one told him I was going to be on their set that day. So, when I arrived, it was all about his reaction to seeing me. When I walked up to them, I could tell something was up, but I couldn’t understand what it was. I found all this out later. Other than that, they seemed to be really cool. I’ve always admired those guys. They came up with something to do and they did it and they impacted culture with no compromise. I don’t know any of them and have never seen them again. I probably shouldn’t have been involved with them.

Q: Where did you think your musical direction would go throughout the years? Did it go as you thought, or did your plans change?

A: Honestly, I never really thought about a direction. From the beginning to the end, I would just be in a room with musicians and we would write songs. Whatever we wrote was what we recorded and toured on. There really wasn’t ever a direction. I mean, we tried to make what we thought was good music, but as far as anything genre specific, or trying to get on the radio that was never really in our thoughts.

Q: What can we expect to see from you in the near future?

A: That’s a good question. I’m nearing the end of my life and I don’t make plans that necessarily involve a public display. I’m always busy, but I’m not sure that any of it will be out there to be experienced. I have books in various stages of completion, I reckon all of those will come out. Beyond that, I can’t really say what I’m going to be doing. It very well could end up being nothing that would be observable.

Q: What is your favorite piece of music you have created? 

A: Many years ago, I would hum music to myself going to, and from a supermarket in my neighborhood in Los Angeles. It was my walking to the store riff. Eventually, I hummed the music, if you could call it that to my bandmates. It ended up being a song called Obscene, which I think was pretty good.

Q: What was it like being a guest judge on RuPaul’s drag race?

A: That was really cool. RuPaul is an amazing person. I think history will bear out that RuPaul was a champion for human rights. And extremely intelligent and genuinely good person. It was a interesting bit of work, being on the show. Of course, one of the objectives is to have fun but at the same time you are judging someone, which I took with, perhaps too much seriousness. All the other judges were extremely funny and very good to be around. I highly doubt I’ll ever run into RuPaul again, but I’m grateful to have had the meeting. 

Q: What is one piece of advice you would give to any aspiring artists out there? 

A: I would advise that they work very hard and commit themselves as deeply, and as purely as they possibly can to whatever it is they are doing. The more you put yourself into it, the more you dedicate and sacrifice for your work, the better it’s going to be, the more honest and the more resembling life. Aspiration is a good thing. It keeps you trying. It’s OK to fail. It’s OK to work very hard on something and have it not turn out as you planned it. That’s how it goes sometimes but one must try to pick themselves up and go right back at it as best they can. Working creatively, artistically, it’s not for the gentle. For most people, about 99.9% of them, I would strongly recommend they choose something else.

Henry Rollins' List: 

Discography, etc.

 

Black Flag

Damaged – 1981

TV Party  / I Got To Run (7”)

My War - 1984

Slip It In – 1984

Live '84 - 1985

Family Man - 1985

Loose Nut - 1986

Who's Got the 10 1/2? - 1986

In My Head 1986 - 1987

 

Rollins / Rollins Band

Hot Animal Machine - 1987

Life Time - 1988

Do It - 1989

Hard Volume - 1989

Turned On - 1990

The End of Silence – 1992

The End of Silence Demos

Electro Convulsive Therapy - 1993

Weight - 1994

Come in and Burn - 1997

Get Some Go Again – 2000

Insert Band Here – 2000 (Live in Australia 1989)

A Clockwork Orange Stage – 2000 (Live in Denmark July 01 2000)

Yellow Blues – 2001

Nice – 2001

Nicer Shade of Red – 2001

The Only Way to Know for Sure – 2002

Rise Above; 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three - 2003

Weighting – 2003

Come In And Burn Sessions – 2004

Get Some Go Again Sessions - 2005

 

Books:

20 – 1983

Two Thirteen Sixty One - 1984

End To End - 1985

Polio Flesh - 1985

High Adventure in the Great Outdoors -1987 

Pissing in the Gene Pool - 1988

Art to Choke Hearts – 1989

Knife Street –

1000 Ways To Die -

Bang! - 1990

One From None - 1991

Black Coffee Blues - 1992

See a Grown Man Cry - 1992

Now Watch Him Die - 1993

Get in the Van - 1995

Eye Scream - 1996

Do I Come Here Often? - 1997

The Portable Henry Rollins - 1998

Solipsist - 1998

Smile, You're Traveling – 2000

Unwelcomed Songs – 2002

Broken Summers – 2003

Fanatic! – 2005

Roomanitarian – 2005

A Dull Roar - 2007

Fanatic! Vol. 2 – 2007

Fanatic! Vol. 3 – 2008

A Preferred Blur - 2009

A Mad Dash – 2009

Occupants - 2010

Before The Chop - 2013

A Grim Detail – 2014

Before The Chop II - 2015

Before The Chop III - 20

Before The Chop IV - 20

Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 1

Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 2

Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 3

Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 4

Sic

 

Spoken word releases

Short Walk On A Long Pier - 1986

Big Ugly Mouth - 1987

Sweatbox - 1989

Live at McCabe's - 1990

Human Butt - 1991

The Boxed life - 1993

Get in the Van (audio book) – 1994 (Grammy winner 1995)

Everything (audio book) - 1996

Black Coffee Blues (audio book) - 1997

Think Tank - 1998

Eric the Pilot – 1999

Live at the Westbeth Theater – 2001

A Rollins in the Wry – 2001

Talk is Cheap Vol. 1 – 2002

Talk is Cheap Vol. 2 – 2002

Nights Behind the Tree Line - 2003

Talk is Cheap Vol. 3 – 2004

Talk is Cheap Vol. 4 – 2004

Spoken Word Guy Vol. 1 – 2010

Spoken Word Guy Vol. 2 - 2010

 

 

DVDs

Live in London – 2001 (DVD)

Up for It – 2001 (DVD)

Live at Luna Park – 2004 (DVD)

Shock and Awe – 2005 (DVD)

Live From The Conversation Pit - 2006

Live And Uncut From New York – 2007

Henry Rollins Show Season 1 - 2007

Live In San Francisco 1990 – 2007

Live In Israel - 2010

Live In South Africa - 2010

Live in Northern Ireland - 2010

Henry Rollins Show Season 2 – 2010

50 - 2012

Keep Talking Pal

 

Soundtracks / Compilations

Johnny Mnemonic

Demon Knight

The Crow

Pump Up the Volume

God Money

Encomium

Woodstock

Small Soldiers

Waylon Jennings Tribute

(many more, can’t remember)

 

 

Films

The Chase - 1993

Johnny Mnemonic - 1994

Heat - 1995

Lost Highway - 1996

Jack Frost - 1998

Morgan’s Ferry - 1998

Desperate But Not Serious - 1998

House on a Hill – 1999

Past Tense – 2001

Scenes Of The Crime – 2001

The New Guy – 2002

The Psychic Murders – 2002

Deathdealer - 2003

Jackass: The Movie - 2003

Bad Boys II – 2003

Punk Attitude – 2004

The Alibi – 2005

Feast – 2005

American Hardcore - 2007

Wrong Turn 2 – 2007

Devil’s Tomb – 2009

Suck – 2009

He Never Died – 2013

Dreamland - 2020

 

 

Television Scripted / Unscripted

Night Visions -

Henry’s Film Corner – 2005

Henry Rollins Show – 2006 - 2007

Live/Uncut IFC (3) - 2008

Sons Of Anarchy - 2009

National Geographic – 2010 – 2011

10 Things You Didn’t Know About – 2013 -2014

Drew Carrey (666 get year)

Whitey (pilot) (666 get year)

A History of Radness (pilot) 2015

Stitchers – (1 episode) 2015

 

 

Voice over work:

GMC

The Gap

Batman Beyond

VH-1

Discovery Channel

History Channel

Saturn

Merrill Lynch

Life Cereal

Monster.com

Pearle Vision

Teen Titans

Partnership for a Drug Free America

Disney Cartoon forget title

Mace Griffin video game - 2003

Def Jam Vendetta video game - 2004

Elmore Leonard audio book - 2004

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland

Goodyear Tire - 2005

Twilight Zone audio book - 2005

Smithsonian – 2007

National Geographic – 2007

NASCAR – 2007

Video game (I forget name) – 2007

Batman – 2009

Verizon 2010 - 2011

UFC Primetime 2009 - 2013

Green Lantern – 2010

Infiniti – 2011 - 2015

House of Flies - 2011

Jobriath doc – 2012

Legend of Cool Disco Dan doc – 2012

Benjamin Rush Doc – 2012

Uncle Grandpa (cartoon) - 2014

Fastest Man Doc – 2015 (666 get name)

Last Fast Ride (year)

Sherriff Cali  - 2017 (?)

Adventure Time -

Legend Of Korra - 20__

Guardians Of The Universe - 2021

We Lost Our Human

Work In Progress - 2023

 

 

Countries performed in:

Afghanistan

Argentina

Australia

Austria

Bahrain

Belgium

Brazil

Canada

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Dubai

England

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Holland

Honduras

Hungary

Ireland

Israel

Iraq

Italy

Japan

Luxemburg

Mexico

New Zealand

Northern Ireland

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Scotland

Serbia

Singapore

Slovakia

Slovenia

South Africa

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Russia

Ukraine

United States

Wales