Anyone who knows me, knows I go batshit for Henry Rollins. Issue one of No Pictures was practically all Rollins so its an obvious thrill to be able to include words from someone, in my opinion, so great. Briefly: he started out in Washington DC coming from the same scene as Bad Brains, the Teen Idles and Minor Threat. His first band was State Of Alert (aka SOA). They put out one 10 song seven inch on Dischord. Next port of call was the legendary Black Flag from LA. His first release with them was on the devastating album Damaged. He was a Flag member from 81 to 86. The band changed regularly over that period and it is all covered in the award winning book Get In The Van. The Rollins Band formed shortly after Black Flag's demise. The new band consisted of guitarist Chris Haskett and the rhythm section Greg Ginn's other band Gone, bassist Andrew Weiss and drummer Sim Cain. Around 1993 Andrew Weiss left the band and later ended up joining Ween. His replacement was Melvin Gibbs formerly of New York No Wave bands The Decoding Society and Defunkt. In early 1999 Rollins disbanded the Rollins Band and is now recording musically with the band Mother Superior, who he has previously worked with in the producer capacity. The Rollins Band has released Hot Animal Machine, Lifetime, Do It, Hard Volume, Turned On, The End Of Silence, Weight and Come In And Burn. Spoken word wise Rollins has released the live CDs: Big Ugly Mouth, Sweat Box, Live At McCabe's, Human Butt, The Boxed Life, Think Tank and a video Talking From The Box. Other spoken CDs are the Black Flag tour diary Get In The Van and the Howl-esque Everything as well as a CD of Black Coffee Blues readings. The recommended Black Flag records are Damaged and The First Four Years compilation, which Henry isn't on but he still says is probably the best Black Flag album. Also essential is the Henrietta Collins And The Wifebeating Childhaters EP, Drive By Shooting which comes on the Hot Animal Machine CD. Additionally there was a music project featuring himself and Andrew Weiss called Wartime and Rollins has contributed vocals with various acts ranging from Tool, the Bad Brains and Goldie. To date he has appeared in the movies: The Chase, Heat, Johnny Mnemonic and Lost Highway. Heres an "activity interview" conducted by e-mail: How are you
and where are you? What have been
up to with the band this year? Have any of
the other guys in the band been involved in any other projects? What's planned
for 2.13.61? Also what's
coming up on 2.13CD? What happened
to Infinite Zero? When will you
be returning to England again? Have your feelings
towards this jolly ol' isle changed? Are further
live spoken releases planned? I've heard
you praise Lenny Bruce in the past. Have you ever caught any Bill
Hicks albums? And if so, what did you think? Have you done
any production work since the Mark Of Cain record? Similarly have
you worked with Modi recently? There is word
of future motion work, have you anything planned? What bands
are you currently into? Who's your
favourite Simpsons character? Do/did you
like the music of Slint? What good books
have you read lately? Do you like
John Peel? Have you seen
James Parker's biography on yourself? Anything else?
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