Henry Rollins — The Interview: Part Two

Hey! If you are just joining us, this is Part II of the Rollins Interview. We are talking about Rollins’ publishing company, 213.61, books and music. And in this segment, we will be covering movies, a little Ted Nugent, a little Black Sabbath and a little John Coltrane and Miles Davis. So grab a cold whatever it is you drink, kick your feet up and check this out. August is here, the summer is winding down and you’ve got nothing better to do.

SLUG: I know you’ve got a lot of stuff going on, but do you have time to read books or magazines?

Henry Rollins: I don’t really read magazines. I only subscribe to two magazines. But I read books, yea. I’ve been on this movie shoot recently and that’s been kinda keeping me from reading, except on the set because the hours are kind of weird, and I’ve been in the studio here and there, be it working on somebody’s record, or one of my own. So I’m not knockin’ down titles as quickly as I usually do. I just finished this book called Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe. It’s not a real page turner, it’s brilliant, but it’s like reading Dostoevsky or Kafka, it takes awhile. You’ve gotta kinda hack through it, but it’s worth it though. So I’ve been reading some meaty stuff, which usually takes me a while because I want to put the book down and think about what he said and wrote.

SLUG: Yea, that’s usually the best stuff. I tend to go towards that side anyway. I don’t read too many fiction novels. I read mostly stuff that’s just compiled essays.

HR: That’s the way to go, but there are some really great novels that have been written over the years. I prefer the older guys, you know the F. Scott Fitzgeralds and the Hemingways. Not a whole lot of contemporary writers do I keep track of. Jack Womack, that guy on Grove Press, I’ll read anything he does. Jack’s awesome, yea, he’s really something else. It’s kinda, very apocalyptic, very wry humor stuff. If you’re interested you should check out Random Acts of Senseless Violence, that is a great place to start. That’s just a great book. He’s a good guy too. William Gibson turned me on to him.

SLUG: Cool. Thanks for the information. What’s this movie you’ve been working on?

HR: It’s this movie called Frost, they might be calling it Jack Frost now. It’s a kids film, Warner Bros. is doing it and it’s coming out around Thanksgiving. It stars Michael Keaton and Kelly… Preston? Travolta’s wife, whatever her name is. There’s a snowman in it that is built by the Jim Henson Muppet people which is utterly mind-blowing. It’s got all these motors in its head and Michael Keaton is doing the voice and to look at this thing up close, it blows your mind because it can mimic his facial expressions. It’s not like some corny robot, it’s all done with this intense software that the Henson people developed. Those guys walked me through it the other day.

SLUG: Sounds cool.

HR: Yea, they told me, “You’re going to be doing this film, you will be this Hockey Coach to these 10-year-old kids, you can be totally insane and over the top.” I said Great! These kids are really cool. It’s interesting working with these 12-year-old kids who are at times, utterly professional, I mean they’ve all done NBC network stuff, they’ve all done movies, they are total pros. You know, they cry on film, they can do anything. And they go from being 40 years old, talking about their contracts and their turnaround time and everything and then they lapse into talking about South Park and, you know, “You’re a dick! No, you’re a dick!” You know, they go back to hitting each other. They go back and forth from adult to child. The Director will say something like, “Act like kids.” And they are like, ‘Aaah-haa, yea, I do a great kid!’”

SLUG: (Me, laughing and snickering…)

HR: It’s just weird, you know, it’s just that Hollywood thing. The moms are all there and the agents. The movie thing is very strange.

SLUG: Do you find it refreshing to work with kids, though?

HR: I’ve never really worked with kids this much. I’ve never really played with kids very much, it took a little getting used to, but they are really nice to me. I was nervous, I thought they were going to mess with me. 

SLUG: Really?

HR: Well, you know, when you get to be my age it’s hard to accept change or challenges. I was like, Oh, I hope these kids aren’t mean to me.

SLUG: (Me, totally busting out with laughter now…) I can’t imagine Henry Rollins being nervous about working with kids.

HR: Well, you know, they’re all like stone cold pros, and I’m no actor. I was just like, Oh, they’re all just going to run rough shots over me, and they were great! But they are wicked funny and they are really good actors. That’s the thing that kinda made you have to be on point because they have their shit together. Like when they say stuff you believe it, and like they throw you lines and their timing is great. You’re like, “Wow, where did you learn how to do that?” So it’s been cool. The movie thing for me is like, I feel like an imposter like tiptoeing through somebody else’s job, I’m just hoping I don’t get caught, so it’s fun.

SLUG:  Do you find you’re going to be doing more of this? Could this evolve, taking up more of your time?

HR: No. There’s no demand for me in Hollywood. You’re not going to see me landing big parts, or a lot of parts. I’m not that good. There are lots of really talented people in this town who can do anything and they really want the job badly, way more than I do. I go for parts every once in a while. I do the audition, I totally suck and I don’t get the part. Once in a while, there’s a small part where I really don’t have to act, like I can do this guy easy. When I met the director I said, “I can do this in my sleep, do you want me to do these lines right now?” The guy said “No, I’m a fan. All of Zappa’s kids are in this film. I know you can do it, I’ll see you on the set.” I was outta there in 20 minutes with a job, it was great.

SLUG: I was flippin’ through the channels on Saturday afternoon and I came across Johnny Mnemonic on cable.

HR: (Rollins chuckling) Oh yea. The script was cool, but it didn’t end up being a very good movie… also you know, casting Dolph Lundgren in anything is the kiss of death.

SLUG: Yea. You seem pretty comfortable in that part, though.

HR: Oh, a good guy who’s a nerd, hey that was me! I didn’t even have to stretch.

SLUG: Ha-ha-ha, I don’t know about that. What other movies have you seen lately that you think are worthwhile, something that you think has carried some weight?

HR: Um, the last time I was in a movie theater was last summer. I saw Sling Blade. Someone lent me a promo copy of Boogie Nights, so I saw that and liked it.

SLUG: Did you like Sling Blade?

HR: Oh yea, I like it. The most impressive thing for me was how well Dwight Yoakam did. I didn’t even know that was him.

SLUG: I didn’t know that was him either until after the credits rolled.

HR: Yea, we had a night off so everyone went to the movies. Everyone went to go see something and I hadn’t seen Sling Blade yet, so I went by myself. After, we met in the parking lot and Chris (Hasket), our guitar player, said what did you think of Dwight Yoakam? And I said which one was he? And he said, “The boyfriend.” And I went holy shit man, he was awesome. Everyone else was fantastic too, it’s just that you can always notice the musician in a movie. Those are the ones who are really bad, myself included. You can look at any movie I’ve ever been in and go, “Which one of these people is the musician?” It’s just like, “That guy!” It’s the guy whose mouth doesn’t move when he talks. Dwight gives off nothing of that. No ego, he just really went for it. And that to me was brilliant. I saw Wag the Dog on some airplane flight, and I loved that. Dustin Hoffman was the shit, well, they’re all good actually.

SLUG: All right, let me switch gears here, so do you still listen to Ted Nugent?

HR: Yea, yea. In fact, last weekend some girl was over at my place and I played her the lead off the live version of Stormtroopin’. I said, ‘Now there’s some guitar playing.’

SLUG Off Double Live Gonzo?

HR: Yea. I did an interview with Ted last year.

SLUG: Are you going to print it up?

HR: No, it was for a radio show. I hung out with him for an hour and a half, (huh-hu-hu) it was something.

SLUG: Is he pretty funny?

HR: Yea. I’ve said it many times, but talking to him is like talking to this funny guy with a 9-foot spear through his head. There’s just a few things you don’t ask him about, like why did you thank Rush Limbaugh on your last record? Why are you this conservative, militiaman, quasi-racist? Ya, know? And we didn’t go there.

SLUG: (laughing) Is he a quasi-racist, really?

HR: He’s just kind of a tough American. He just has one of those extremely to the right opinions. He can be kind of abrupt. But the interview went great because during the commercial breaks, he would whip out his guitar and start jammin’ and say “What do you think about this?” And he would be just blazin! I was like, Damn man, this is great! A private Nugent concert!

SLUG: Oh yea, you don’t get that too often.

HR: Nah. A big deal for me!

SLUG: Let me ask you one question. I know from reading your interviews you don’t really like hanging around people or your fans.

HR: Well, it depends. If they act weird, I’m like anyone else, ya know, if they act weird it’s kind of creepy. But I’m not anti-human. I like people, they’re very nice to me. I’m very fortunate, people are really cool to me about 99.9% of the time. But if you want to get work done, creatively for me it’s never been a positive thing to hang out with a lot of people.

SLUG: Well, I can understand also, the fine line between bullshit becomes fiction in a sense because sometimes you don’t know when people are telling the truth or lying. But I also know that you are a fan of a lot of people. And because of what you do, you’ve asked a lot of people to sign books, or sign this or that. Well, like when you met Selby because his books blew you away, right?

HR: Oh yea. I just sang with Tony Iommi of Sabbath. I just did a track for his album. I wrote the lyrics and he liked them, and I sang on this track and I made him autograph my lyric sheet on my way out. He looked at me like, what? ‘Cause I’ve known the guy for a while, he and I are buddies and I go, “No, you’ve got to sign this.” And he’s like why? “Because you are the MAN!” And he’s like alright, he played along with it. He was cool about it. Yea, I get some pretty cool opportunities like that.

SLUG: You’ve got a great band, as you know. Your band is killer, but if you had a chance to go up on the stage with anybody, dead or alive who would it be?

HR: Ummm. I did it.

SLUG:  Really?

HR: Yea, I sang with Sabbath last year; the original line-up. That to me was great. Of course I would love to play with Coltrane, I would love to play with Hendrix, but what would you do, except stand there and go aah-oooooo and shake. It was in England and I was out there doing their video press kit for their reunion shows and I’m on stage and Ozzy’s taking a breather cause he has to rest his voice and they said ”Hey, you want to do a song?” I’m like, “Yeah!” So I went up and did “Paranoid” with them and it was fun.

SLUG: What’s your favorite Coltrane album?

HR: Ummm. I probably couldn’t limit it to one, just because his work was never done. Each album was like a transition to another idea. So I really like basically, his late ‘64 going into ‘65 time. I really think that was my favorite era, the albums Transition, A Love Supreme, John Coltrane Quartet Play Chim Chim Cheree, Nature Born Basilia. ‘65 to me is just when that band peaked.

SLUG: What about Miles Davis, who obviously has a huge catalog?

HR: Miles Davis turned so many corners. I played The Birth of the Cool twice last night, in my room. There’s a new remastered version out there that sounds really nice. I like when Miles was more traditional. His year with Trane was great and all the records he did with Wayne Shorter, there’s a handful of those records that are just amazing, like Miles Smiles and Seven Steps to Heaven. So, I don’t know, there’s just so much good Miles. He was so brave musically, he always took chances. Even that stuff he did with Parker was great, he was really brilliant.

SLUG: Yea, well, he was one of the original true artists. Doing what he wants to do, regardless.

HR: Yea, he really told a lot of people to go fuck themselves in his time. There’s a record you can only get on import, unfortunately. It’s called Big Fun. It’s only on a Japanese import and if you ever see it and you can afford it, you should get it. I think it was done right after Bitches Brew. He got into an Indian vibe, sort of thing. It’s one of my favorite Miles records and it’s just so intense. I’ve never really seen people talk about it, like in articles when they are talking about Miles records, it’s never one of the records they list. But in the Rollins Band, we play that record all the time. It’s an awesome cool-out record, ya know? Post gig. It’s really, really awesome. Put it this way, it’s probably the Miles record I play the most. And I have pretty much every Miles record I’ve ever seen, I’ve got all the bootlegs, all the radio broadcasts.

That sounds like a pretty good note to end things on. Rollins will be in town at the end of October for a spoken word show, so make sure you keep your eyes opened for that. For dates and events you can call the 213.61 Publications hotline number that will give you all the updated information. 

That number is 213.969.8043. Keep reading SLUG because we will be doing more book reviews from Rollins and other writers with 213.61. Once again, shout outs go to 213.61 Publications, Henry Rollins for his time and that wonderful woman Heidi for making all this go down without a problem. Later. —Royce

Read more interviews from the SLUG archives:
Henry Rollins — The Interview: Part One
The Reverend Horton Heat

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