HENRY ROLLINS interviewed by LOB Henry Rollins has been in Los Angeles for over 15 years now, moving here from Washington DC in the early 1980's.. and in that time he has made quite the name for himself.. as the vocalist for the monumental L.A. punk rock band Black Flag, as an actor appearing in over 10 major films in the last 10 years, as a publisher owning and masterminding 2.13.61 PUBLICATIONS, as as record label president (co-running the Infinite Zero label with producer Rick Rubin), as a drawing spoken word performer (sometimes doing sold out talking gigs to over 1200 people a night), and as a writer.. on the verge of the publishing of his 13th book of stories and thoughts to be called "SOLIPIST" .. my buddy Tom and I drove up to the offices of 2.13.61 Publications and spent an afternoon with Henry...we had a great time.. and I want to thank him and the 2.13.61 staff for letting us have such a fun afternoon. Henry has alot to say about how he got started and what people have moved him as a writer.. but I will let his own words take care of that.. LOB: So.. lets start by me asking these questions.. How did you get involved with spoken word art?.. and where did the notion for starting "2.13.61 Press" come from?.. and how long did it take to make it work? HR: ..well in 1983 I started doing "talking" shows here in Los Angeles, that were basicly me reading things. Harvey Kubernik would have these nights where he would get all these musicians like Jeffery Lee Pierce, D. Boon, Excene Cervenka, Chris D., John Doe..Dave Alvin.. all of these "band types" of people and he would tell them "...you can do whatever you want.. but you just cant play your music..ya know sketch, or sculpting live..ya know.. read poetry, journal entries...anything..but get out of your element.." and the shows were great.. LOB: so this was all Kubernik's idea..? HR: ..yeah...he used to have them down at the Llasa Club.. and I would go to these shows because they were alot of fun...and one night Harvey sees me there and says, ".. you should get on one of these.. your in a band.. you could do this..". and I thought, hmm OKAY, and told him "yeah I'm up for that". And so I went up there one night and read one thing that I had written, and told a story about band practice in Long Beach and how rough it was down there.. and I did my 10 minutes.. and afterwords all these people rushed up to me and said like, "that was great!" and I was like "huh?"..because I was just sorta hangin out on the stage ya know? I feel really at home on the stage, I was really relaxed up there.. I've never really been nervous going up on a stage..so anyways.. this guy say's, "When's your next gig?" ..and I say, "I think that was just it".."How long have you been doing this?"..and I say, "Tonight". And there was this really intense response from all these people, some patting me on the back.. and saying "that was so cool"..and then Harvey said, "Do you wanna be on another show?" and I said YEAH!, I liked the money, I got ten bucks..and I was like "Fuck Yeah!", 'cause that was alot of dough back in the Flag days (laughs)..it was like "I'm gonna eat", & have a real meal..and I think I blew most of that on a full on mexican meal at this place near Black Flag practice..so anyways.. I did another show and then Harvey asked if I wanted to do this a little more regularly.. he said I seemed to like what I was doing and that I was really good at it.. and I said okay. So then I started opening for all these L.A. poets, and then within a few weeks they were all opening for me...and then within a couple of months from the first show, this would be early 1984, I was doing my OWN gigs, by myself. We had them out at this place in Reseda that I cant remember the name of.. and we would have like around 20 paying people to start with.. and then I was selling the place out.. and then I started doing 2 sets.. and remember this was all in a period of time like 3 months or something like that. The venue managers would ask me, "so what are you doing 2 weeks from now?" and I would say "starving",..and they would tell me to come on back..and so I would.. and then a Black Flag tour would happen.. and in the meantime I put together this fold and staple book.. it took me like 6 months of saving money from my touring to be able to put out a fold and staple book from Kinko's..and I hand written all the pieces and the book was called "20" because there was 20 pieces in it..and I had to hand write everything because I didnt know how to type and I didnt have a typewriter. I was living at Richard Pettibone's place so I had him give me some crazy art that we used for the cover (a drawing of some hippies holding up these people in a house with the quote "Your children on summer vacation")..and we did an initial run of 500 copies.. sold them.. did another run of 500, and sold those..well, we gave away alot.. and sold alot at two bucks a pop.. took that money and made a paperback..a little red paperback of that book and 60 other things. So, my friend Harvey says you have to have a D.B.A., a "doing business as"..you have to make up a company name.. and I said "why?".. and he says, "..otherwise you'll end up with trouble regarding copyright infringment.. and I said okay..we'll call it 2.13.61, 'cause that's my birthday, that's me, and there's only gonna be this one little book on this label...and the name just sorta stuck.. and well fast forward thru many years of just really argyous work just trying to keep the label alive.. and we signed Don Baima, an excellent poet from up north, and we signed Nick Cave...I called Nick's manager in England who is a friend of mine.. and told him look, we can't get Nick's book "KINK INK" over here in the US, we are being forced to buy import hardbound copies for $30 each, why don't we bring it out here for like $12 and make it affordable for the fans? And by way of answering they mailed us the artwork..and we were blown away.. I mean we are all friends, I know him and I know Nick..and they were like "Henry wants to do it, great!".. this was a long time ago when legal stress wasn't so stress-filled, but since then we have re-newed Nick's contract regularly.. and we did "KING INK II" and with those releases this thing started to grow.. and it went from my bedroom.. to a small apartment.. to a bigger apartment where I shared living quarters with the office.. and I literally woke up to the Staff for 2.13.61 outside my bedroom door.. and eventually we got a nice space to work in..and the label is doing well.. and that is how it went. The ideology behind it, as far as a bigger thing than just my books, is that I'm intrested in publishing the voices, primarily American voices, that might not otherwise get heard, ya know, because my heroes are like the Hubert Selby's, the Nelson Algrin's..the people that aren't prime time, but are very vital and are kinda the voice of the dissenfranchised, or the people who arent clean and beautiful and racing by in nice cars. I wanted to give them a voice too.. because those are the kind of books I like to read..I mean I like all the F.Scott Fitzgerald too, but my heart is really with the Celine's and the sorta "edgy-er" stuff. The books on the label are decidedly edgy. I mean like the stuff on the label that is funny, is really funny, but sorta giving you an indian burn at the same time..and there's nothing really mainstream on the label.. MY books are certainly not mainstream, nor are Exene's, or Ellen Maybe's, where she is a great poet, but that is not mainstream poetry..she wouldn't be taught at Princeton. Which is too bad, because some writers could really learn from her. But her work IS challenging and does have an edge to it..she is brilliant..she is like a prodigy or something.. she has this wierd radar instict.. this built in "something" that causes her to have almost a "sense" regarding poetry.. it is that "thing" that true artists have.. it is what makes the difference between say The Doors and Door's clone bands...it makes it "the real thing". LOB: okay you mentioned the Doors.. i saw recently that you did the narration for a Door's special on VH1...do you do much voiceover stuff like that? HR: I do voiceovers all the time.. LOB: how many of those have you done? HR: for VH1 or just in general? LOB: i dunno...just in general..? HR: hmm. lemme see.. lately I've doing alot of auditions..I did one for GMC and for Adidas.. and one for Microsoft.. ones I have done already..hmm.. lots for the Gap, I did one last year for Saturn cars, for Nike & Adidas, and a few others I forget.. they like my voice.. I've got an agent for voiceovers..it's a big deal and there's good money there. What I dont do products I cant deal with.. I do the Gap because I wear a Gap jacket everyday, I've had it for years, I like them...I grew up in Nikes and Adidas..so I can rock that...but I was offered $350,000.00 to do an ad for Santori Whiskey in Japan, just in Japan..they probably wouldnt have shown it here.. but I dont drink, and I'm not into drinking so I said no... my manager wasnt happy.. Guinness offered me a ton of money to do some ads and I said no.. and Skoal offered me huge ammounts to tour on that Skoal Rocks tour last year.. and I turned it down because I am not into tobacco..so I have Priorities. LOB: So, let's talk about your new book, what's it called? HR: Solipist. LOB: what's that? HR: ..if you look up the word as an adjective, it's basicly one who thinks the world is an extention of themself...that nothing exsists, it only exsists because you're there...and it's all just a function of your exsistance..which is how I feel when i am living in New York..when I am in a city, or on a subway..like, okay these people are just here to get in my face, or traffic exsists just to piss me off...which makes it easy to get into that headspace..easy to be outside of yourself.. and I took that word, and I wrote a whole book around it...and it took me 3 years. With this book I got really obsessive with alot of things and there are strong re-occuring themes..like women turning into snakes..and those of us who have had any sort of relationship go bad will relate to this this betrayal, the left hanging feeling, the blues. I did a few pieces about me and the audinence.. ya know.. I'll do a talking show.. I'll be on stage for 3 hours, sometimes longer.. come backstage.., I'm just hammered & tired.. and then I have to meet people before I can go to the hotel and get my 5 hours of sleep before my 7am flight...I gotta to meet people for from 70 to 90 minutes after the show..they're all there waiting to meet me...and they get in a line.. and they come by.. and they all have to tell me something special..and I'm thinking.. how come you wont let me go home? Didnt you already get enough from me? I didnt like just rip out all my entrails and just hand them to you from the stage? For $15 bucks you got me for 3 hours, I made you laugh 'til your side ached.. and I mean I dont hate these people.. I actually really love them.. but I'm like WHAT could you possible what from me?.. if you really liked me .. you would get in your car and go home and say "god, that guy must be really tired.. let's leave him the fuck alone." But I will sit there and I will meet every single person until they leave, because they came to the show...and especially if they are younger than me, and at this point nearly the entire audience is younger than me, and so here it is after a show.. and I'm talking and intensly listening to most of the things they have to tell me.. because these people are pumped up.. they're charged.. and they each have thier own thing to share with me.. and by the time this ends.. man, I am superdrained.. and so I wrote this one thing, that I really like, in the book..where they come after the show.. and this guy says "hey, my girlfriend wants to cut your head off, because she cut your head off in '85 when you played here and she wants to have the other head for a bookend, so can you do that?"..and I say "yeah", so she wacks my head off and another head sprouts out...and another guys goes, "man I really like your tattoo's"...and I go oh yeah, here's a cleaver, hack my arm off, you can have them..and another guy wants my intestines and he pulls them all out.. and some guy is like "my girlfriend wants to smash you in the face as hard as she can.." and I am like "oh sure.. " and that is sorta how I feel sometimes after a show.. I wrote this other piece about being in the hotel room after a show, which is hard..because here you were in front of 1000 people that really dig you.. and now your alone in a room with your ears ringing and smelling like cigarette smoke..and sometimes kids will call me.. they will get the number to the hotel room and call.. and so I did this piece where the phone rings.. and I ask the guy.. how was I? and he says, "You were great",.. and I cant fall asleep until that call happens. So there are alot of super distorted views of myself and distorted views on how I look at other people in the new book. It was one of my cooler concepts, for me anyways, as a book.. I felt like "wow I'm on to something here." and it was really fun and really harsh to write, really traumatic at points. And then finnally it was done in the summer of 1996 and for most of 1997 I just let it sit..and I came back to it like 6 or 7 months later and re-read it to see if it was any good at all.. I have alot of different book projects in the works, on file in my commputer, all the time..and I work on them whenever. LOB: Do you have any new audio projects coming soon? HR: ..yeah.. I am editing down talking record right now.. a double CD sceheduled for September 1998 release on the Dreamworks label. Then I want to start doing some other talking records, some really wierd ones..with some reading and some wierd music and some strange recording techniques with different found sounds..I wanna do some really "out there" stuff. I wanna bring some really old projects that I started years ago out and play with them again.. I had this one project where I had a little Walkman tape recorder..and I would turn it on every night before I went to sleep and would record whatever came into my head.. and some of it would be really strange and trippy.. so I wanna take some of the better stuff from those tapes and combine them with other sounds. And I have this tape of me, Don Baima, & Hubert Selby sitting on the floor in my old apartment in Venice, taking turns reading things..it's a really great tape and I wanna put that out someday. LOB: .. that sounds like a really cool tape.. you have mentioned Hubert Selby a couple of times now.. do you wanna talk about him for a few minutes? HR: Sure.. he is a very long time friend of mine.. he is probably one of the closest people to me..I've know him for 11 or 12 years now, we have done alot of shows together..I have a large personal collection of live recordings of him reading both audio and video.. and I have several unreleased stories.. he just makes me copies of everything he writes and I add it to what I have here... LOB: ..my roomate, an OC poet, Charles Ardinger had a gig in Riverside last year with Mr. Selby.. and he was really excited.. and then Selby didnt show up.. HR: Selby didnt show? LOB: No, and then word came back, a few days later, that he had driven out there, to Riverside, and couldnt find a place to park.. and drove home. HR: (laughs) He gets really mad when he is in his car sometimes. That would be him totally, (Henry does his best Hubert Selby impersonation) "I tried to find a fuckin' place to park, I couldn't find a place, so I went home! "..(more laughs) but yeah, that would be totally him... but really he is really great.. he's the man.. it is an honor to read with him..he is like the most wonderful guy you'll ever meet. As soon as you meet him it's like this love affair.. everyone that meets him goes, "Wow! I love that guy!" you just cant help it.. he has this thing about him. I am gonna be reading at his 70th birthday gathering at Beyond Baroque on the 23rd of this month.. you should try to go.. LOB: i think i will..it sounds fun.. HR: yeah I think that he is just one of the great unsung American voices, I mean those who know, KNOW! He gets major respect, you'll see his name in Coltrane liner notes. Let's put it this way, I met David Bowie last summer..we played this festival together..he walked over and said "hey Henry Rollins..", I said "hey, David Bowie!"..and he is a really nice guy..and were talking about stuff.. and he's really friendly.. everyone that was backstage at this festival met him.. you could walk up and say, "hi, are you David Bowie?"..and he would be like, "Yes..Hi, I'm David..what's your name?" and he was really cool.. so I talked to him a couple of times that day..and we had dinner..and we were eating and he's talking to me.. and quoting me out of interviews..saying "so in this magazine you said..blah blah blah..?" and I am like woah!.. and he asks, "So how's the book company?" and I'm like, "You know I have one?" and he is like "oh yeah, I've got a few of the books.."..and so we were talking about something.. and he immediatly switches subjects and turns to me and says, "You know Hubert Selby!", and I go "yeah", and he goes,"god! He's a genius!!"..so I was like, "He'll like to hear YOU say that." (laughs) And he was just really impressed with Selby's work I was just saying to myself "wow!", so I sent him some Selby stuff in the mail. LOB: wow! So,are ya gonna be doing any live spoken word gigs this year? HR: ..In the fall there are a shitload of shows.. starting right around the end of September when the new talking album comes out.. and between the universites and the general admission shows I can do about 100 to 150 shows a year..but that is all over the US, Europe, New Zealand, Austrailia, Canada, all over the place..and at this point I am able to do 8 to 12 countries.. a world tour...Germany, Belgium.. LOB: and this is all JUST spoken word appearances, not with your band? HR: oh yeah..Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Sweeden, Denmark, Norway, Austria, and other places I cant really remember...doing my thing in pretty nice sized venues.. LOB: do you mind if I ask what your gettin' paid these days for a gig? HR: Alot of money, more than anybody at your magazine. LOB: So what would you say to an aspiring young teenage writer, who is just getting into poetry to give them any guidence or inspiration? HR: The most important thing to remember is the one thing that always fucks everybody up...say if you're a young writer and you're just getting started.. your stone is hitting the water..now the rings are emmanating..it's your first shot at writing..since your just getting your foot wet...the toe is in, you're about to put your first foot into it... Find your own writer's voice. Be inspired by other writers, don't be influenced by other writers. Find your own voice from the get go. All the great writers have thier own way of doing it. There is nothing like John Fonte, he write likes nobody. There's nobody like Henry Miller. There's nobody that used language like Hemmingway. There is nobody like Thomas Wolfe. They are great in thier own way, ya know..'cause they had the guts to find thier own writer's voice, and they didn't try to be the next Bukowski. Man, if I had a dime for every manuscript that gets sent in here trying to be me or Bukowski, please. But a guy like Selby..look at his use of grammar..no apostrophe's.. a slash.. no quotation marks..he has his own vocabulary of like 80 words per book that you've never seen before..Shakespeare came up with 1500 words that are "Shakespearian", that he wrote. And if it takes like 3 years of writing and you trash it all to find that thing that's really you...that is the only reason you should be writing, to be original. LOB: Lets come back around to where we started.. do you like any current material being done by any of the old crowd you used to read with at the Llasa Club in Hollywood? HR: Dave Alvin. He just gets better and better. He started as a good singer, now he's a great singer.. and he is a great writer.. he is a bad ass. I pay some attention to the Ringling Gals.. Pleasant will do a book or Iris, and I will read them. Exene I read religiously, as well as John Doe. But alot of those people, from that initial shot, from 1983 and '84, i dont even know.. i think some of them are probably dead. LOB: When you first started doing it, this word art, was there anybody else that was doing it that was just amazing..made you say WOW! Somebody that just blew you away? HR: Yeah, Lydia Lunch. I saw Lydia Lunch in October or November in 1983 at Beyond Baroque..(She) went in there and laid waste to the place...it one the of the best gigs I have ever seen anyone do on a stage in my life. She comes in was like, "okay heres the story of my life, SHUT UP!"..everyone in the room was like "woah! what the fuck?"..and I just went "oh yeah, there's that New York chick, Lydia Lunch"..I was there with Harvey Kubernik. She came in with a can of Coke, and a few notes that she kinda refered to maybe 3 times in a half an hour...and did this like jet stream of words that was like " ..the world is a bunch o'lame ass mother fuckers .. and i know that because i fuck most of them..but anyways.. and blah blah blah..and this is the story of my life..." and on and on it went.. it was all a bunch of catch phrases and they all locked together..and she read at this incredable pace that was really really fast.. you had to listen hard to pay attention to hear everything.. or it would pass by...and it the middle she would be like, AT someone in the crowd, "...and this is my story, hey you, shut up!, that's not funny.. you think that's funny? You're a fuckin idiot, anyways" and she would blaze at this speed delivery without stopping for half an hour to 45 minutes.. and would barley glance at her notes every so often while she was talking. She was stunning. And everyone was just like.."FUCK YEAH!" and she goes "shut up.." and just walked off stage and left us there clapping being like.. "uh sorry.." (big laughs..) At that point I had done about 5 gigs..and I thought I was pretty good..and after that it was like I had just got out of school..I was like "oh..okay..THAT'S how it's done." That's how Bruce Lee would have done it, that was the Muhammed Ali of the spoken word shit. A few days later I got a call at the house I was living at.."hi this is Lydia Lunch, you were at my show the other night.. here is the address.." and I was like, "huh, what address?"..she goes, "you're taking this down" and I say okay, she says, "I'll see you tomorrow night at 7 O'clock, you're coming over.. I'm making you dinner." I had to take 3 busses to get there..she cooked me dinner, a home cooked meal. It was great. Then she asked if my shoulders were tired from working and I said yes..she says "come here.." and leads me to a bedroom, "take off your shirt." and so I did and layed down, she was massaging me and she says "turn over", and she was naked. (laughs) She had taken all of her clothes off and just left her high heels on.. and she fucked the shit out of me..and sent me on my way...it was awsome.. LOB:(more laughs) That is a great story thanks.. HR: yeah..I've told it to more than one magazine before, and with her sitting right next to me.. They ask us how we first met.. and I am like.. "okay.. well.." And she is like that anyways, she holds back nothing. At that time it was just great..she just laid it on me.. and we became friends. But that was one of the best talking gigs I've ever seen, because at that time there was really nobody that was up there really engaging a crowd..it was just people up there reading thier poetry TO an audience...and to this day I have contempt for readers who get up and read with no feeling...and She was just in your face. And I said okay.. I have to engage the crowd more..and I pushed that end more.. not to antaganize a crowd like she does.. I'm not into that.. and that's her thing.. but just more interaction so they can relate better to me and my stories. LOB: What do you think of Jello Biafra's stuff? HR: Jello's cool.. His thing is less creative and more purposeful.. more of a man on a mission.. more like, he got fucked over.. and he had to go out there and explain it and lay young people onto the evils of Censorship, the government, the media.. I am a big fan of Jello's, I just did an interview of him in May up in San Francisco. He is pretty righteous..but his stuff is way more political based than anything else.. and he is reading it...Where I have over 6 hours of working material from just last year.. and I am telling stories.. it is a different style of stuff. I read different stuff every night..I dont repeat myself night after night, so that if someone sees me 2 days in a row, they will hear totally different things each night. LOB: Do you think there is any power for social change with spoken word? HR: No. I mean I am not down on it.. but you are reaching such a small audience.. and on the spoken word circut I speak to more people than most. But look..no poet is drawing 1000 people a night.. you can put across some change.. but it wont do much..people will always be themselves.