#AOTW Legend Series: Henry Rollins

This past week I got to see one of my idols at the Largo Theater here in Los Angeles. I have been following him since I was fifteen years old. To some he is merely the former front man for the iconic 80’s punk band Black Flag. If that’s the case, then you are simply ill-informed. This week’s AOTW Legend: Henry Rollins.

As a kid I loved Limewire. It was a program that allowed the user to illegally download any song their little heart desired. I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for Limewire. Growing up, my Mom was never keen on Parental Advisory Stickers. Any album that had that damn logo emblazed on the front cover was off limits to me through much of my youth. She watched a lot of news and had come under the impression that it was music that was going to ruin the children. I tried to be sneaky, buying albums and stashing them in my room. More often than not, she would find them and toss them out. The most memorable moment was when I was given the Slim Shady LP for my twelfth birthday. When I undid the wrapping I could see the maddening horror on her face. Knowing she would make me return the record, I quickly took the disc out of the wrapping. Her horror then quickly turned to anger, anger at me, for destroying the packaging thus negated her ability to return it for Target store credit. I went upstairs to get a quick listen and no more than thirty seconds in struts Mom. She took said CD out of the player and left $15 on the dresser, reparations for the atrocity she had committed. The joke was on her. The album only cost $13.50, so not only did I buy it again, but I got a pack of Starburst as well. Love you Ma.

But Limewire changed everything for me. There was no longer a hard copy to hide. I had the entire world’s catalog at my fingertips, all to be saved on nothing more than a hard drive. It was a safe haven. I began to create an epic archive, spending nights in my parents basement chipping away listening. Soaking it all in. Anything I read about or heard of around school, I downloaded. I wanted to hear it all. So I spent countless sleepless nights, sitting in front of the computer with enormous over-sized headphones strapped to my head, in my own little world.

Reading that back I realize that this makes me sound like an antisocial hermit. And at that time of my life, that’s exactly what I was. I didn’t have friends, I was depressed, and most importantly, I was angry. Much of this time was spent seeking out music that identified with those feelings; lots of Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Manson, and even Limp Bizkit. That’s right…I blasted those bastards for hours on end thinking to myself, “why did it take so long to combine metal and rap?” I think about making statements like that in my youth, and I KNOW that I was an idiot.

As I got more depressed I got angrier, so I got deeper and deeper into heavy, loud, aggressive music. To think, in my depression I could have just as easily picked up The Smiths or Joni Mitchell, and really mellowed out. Instead I stayed with angry, so it was only a matter of time before I found punk.

A name that kept coming up in my reading about punk was Black Flag. I was already familiar with The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and The Dead Kennedy’s, but Black Flag for some reason had escaped me. I went online searching around and before I ever even heard a Black Flag song, I found an audio copy of the book Get In The Van: On The Road With Black Flag as read by their former front man Henry Rollins. Rollins’ voice burst through the speakers and although he was only reading, I was intimidated. His tone and cadence were of a man who took things seriously. This book is more or less a journal that Rollins was writing in, just as Black Flag became a part of his life. If you are a fan of music at all, and I’m not saying “fan of punk music”, just the medium of music; you will go find this book. It pulls the back veil on punk rock. In a genre where so much of what hit the mainstream was due to a “look”, Get In The Van is a tale of a man/ band obsessed with the music. Here’s a taste. If you listen to this you can skip the next two paragraphs.

Prior to joining The Flag, Rollins was a High School graduate with no ambition for college. He worked as a manger of an ice cream store around metropolitan DC where he made enough to get by. But this was not what he wanted from life. His passion was music and Punk was the genre that spoke to him. It was pure, unfiltered, and loud. Punk was everything Henry stood for. It was about the little guy making enough noise to force all within earshot to take notice.

Rollins was a fan of The Flag before anything else. He had been to their shows a few times and soon he and the band were friendly. After going to see them in New York City, just prior to leaving the venue, Black Flag dedicated their a song to him. In the book, Henry say’s he didn’t know what came over him, but upon hearing the first few chords, he jumped on the stage, took the mic, and sang every single word. Weeks later his world would change when Black Flag asked him to join their ranks. Rollins quit his job, sublet his apartment, and parted ways with most of his worldly possessions to join the band as their new lead singer for their North American tour. The road for Black Flag was long, exhausting, and for the most part a drag, but they were out there living how they wanted to live, doing what they wanted to do, and playing the music that they held close.

This story changed my entire outlook on music. Sure, I love music. But some people, some people live for it. They need it like I need air. Rollins is one of these people. That initial tour led up to the recording and release of the Damaged LP, Black Flag’s debut, released on Black Flag’s label SST. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for me to track it down. What stunned me at was that the album had fifteen tracks on it, but clocked in at a mere thirty-four minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Then the first song kicked in.

I was taken aback. The album is pure aggression. It kicks you in the face. The instrumentation is relentless. The guitars squeal and screech, the drums pound and bang, all while Rollins’ voice barks, growls, and screams at the listener. It’s hard to imagine this coming out at in the early 80’s when most of mainstream music was just killing off the last of disco and transitioning into pop songs that had people coked out and dancing the night away. But for every Yin there is a Yang. Black Flag was that Yang. While I dug the album, it was the story that stuck with me. I listened to it constantly His openness, his candor, I was inspired by this man. He had given up everything to follow what those around him considered a pipedream. I began looking for more of his stuff. Lucky for me, Rollins’ was and still is, a workaholic.

He has been churning out material at an ungodly pace for nearly thirty years. By the time Black Flag had broken up in 1986, Rollins had already released solo records and toured as a spoken word performer. After the disbanding of Black Flag, Rollins kept on going, forming Rollins Band in 1987. Through the years Rollins has been an actor, a talk show host, an author, a music producer, and a record label owner. He, like Black Flag, embodied “relentlessness”. Rollins had his first tour in 1981, since then he has performed over 100 shows a year. Every. Single. Year. The man does not stop. Currently he is on a speaking tour. If you haven’t seen him, I highly suggest you do. It is an experience. The show is different every night, there is no set and there is no telling how long the show will go. He grips the mic like a vice, and doesn’t stop making jokes, telling stories, and spouting advice, until he can’t go any longer. To call him a captivating would be underselling him.

All while his tours are going on, he is a constant contributor to the LA Weekly, and hosts a Saturday night radio show on KCRW. It’s this type of show that makes Rollins a true legend. While he may be known as an aging punk icon, his true title should be Ambassador of Music. The man’s knowledge of the medium spans into realms that I can’t begin to comprehend and KCRW gives him free reign, once a week. If you tune in you will be introduced to things that you will have never heard before. I guarantee that.

While I understand this is a music site and column, and I haven’t touched on much music at all, what makes Rollins a legend isn’t just his music. Unlike most of the Legends covered here, Rollins is a true renaissance man. He does everything and is everywhere, because of music and wanting to share it with other people. That’s what I want to do here. Share things that might go unheard or unnoticed. Even though he is aging, there doesn’t seem to be an end to what he will do. Even though he speaks openly about being on the down hill slope of life, hurtling towards his death, with a body of work like his, Rollins will never die. He has touched so many aspects of our culture and has inspired millions to follow their passion. Henry Rollins changed not only the way I think about music, but my entire outlook on life. Maybe he will change yours as well.

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