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Greetings And Pleasantries With HENRY ROLLINS

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Setbacks and complete failure are part of trying to do something extraordinary. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” This might be the single line that sums up my life.

Henry Rollins

Legendary performer Henry Rollins will be returning to Australia in June and July for an 18-date spoken word run of shows dubbed the Good To See You Tour.

Rollins is, of course, known more for his role as frontman for Black Flag and the Rollins Band, but to capture the man in his element on the spoken word trail is another beast altogether.

The great man has an uncanny knack for relating stories in a humerous and informative way that takes you with him for every step there and back. It is enthralling, funny, touching, enlightening, and most of all fun and a great way to gain greater insight into the enigma that is Henry Rollins.

Unfortunately, Rollins current tour schedule only allowed us the opportunity for a Q & A session (for now), but any word from Mr. Rollins is a good word, as I am sure many of you will agree.

HEAVY: You return to Australia in June for the Good To See You Tour which features 18 shows across the country. For the two or three people out there who are unfamiliar with your spoken word performances, give us an insight into what to expect?

ROLLINS: It’s basically me, onstage, armed only with a microphone. It’s like a stand-up routine but far more like someone telling stories than one funny line after another. There’s certainly a lot of humor as that’s how much of life occurs to me, but it’s not necessarily funny all the time. I’m about 120 shows in so far.

The tour covers capital cities as well as regional areas such as Margaret River, Ballarat and Bendigo plus out-of-the-way places like Alice Springs and Cairns. Not many touring artists take in places like that, so it’s commendable when someone like yourself does. What do you like about going to these places in AU?

I think it’s an amazing country and just because some of the locations are somewhat off the beaten path, I have no less enthusiasm to go to them. You don’t necessarily get a ton of people at these shows but believe it or not, that’s not what it’s all about for me. It’s cool to go to places where they might not get every touring act going across the country. I started doing this kind of thing in the United States many years ago and whenever I could, anywhere else possible.

I know when you travel you like to visit the less tourist-orientated places like Siberia, Iran and Sri Lanka, so is that part of the appeal when booking runs of shows in overseas countries?

I think when you go to the less populated places, it shows you’re actually trying to get across to people. As I said, it’s probably not going to be a “big night” but it will be cool in its own way and to me at least, always worth it. I think people get what you’re trying to do and they appreciate it. Bob Dylan said something many years ago, I’m at best getting within ten miles of it at best, but he said if you have the songs, it is your duty to go out and play them. While I’m not trying to compare myself, and I’m not doing music, I like the idea of a sense of duty to all this.

You were last out here in 2016. What has changed in the life of Henry Rollins in that period?

COVID would probably be the biggest change, It cancelled tours and has sidelined me for quite a while. I’m not trying to come off like I was the only person affected by this, but you specified me, so it took my usual event-filled schedule and stopped it immediately. I don’t think I’ll be back to that same velocity of travel again. I think the world has changed enough to where that’s over with. I’m finding other things to do. I’m not the type who sits still and despairs. When something’s over, and everything ends eventually, I throw myself into something else.

You first visited Australia 34 years ago. What was it about the country that keeps you coming back?

I don’t know all of the daily grindings of the country and that which might send an Australian around the bend, so in that, I might have a “rose tinted view” of the country and might not be seeing things for what they are completely, but I think it’s an amazing patch of land with truly memorable and extraordinarily charismatic people, great bands and an interesting way of life. In a way, Australians seem to be on a permanent adventure/vacation in Australia. In the USA we dodge bullets.

Australian’s are well known for our off-beat sense of humour. Do you find we perhaps relate to your own sense of humour more than some other places?

Australian humor, as far as I can tell, is subtle, very dry and sharp. I think I get it and perhaps Australians get me. I’m not of the brand who has to keep myself from saying something really out of line. I don’t think I think in that way, but Australians are not easily bruised, so you can perhaps breathe a little easier up there. Again, I don’t think I say anything that pushes any imagined line.

I see you are also doing All Ages shows which is fantastic. Do you have to modify them at all to suit underage patrons or is it the same show regardless?

Believe it or not, no. I don’t curse onstage, my humor, when I use it, doesn’t involve the gross. It’s not some family-oriented show in that I might say I think a lot of parents shouldn’t have ever had children, and I’m quite sure I’m right about that, but I don’t think that’s at all controversial. I was just onstage in Kraków Poland a few hours ago. I’d do that same show in front of high school students right now.

You always tell the stories with conviction, humility and excitement. How difficult is it for you as a performer to keep yourself interested first and foremost?

Perhaps I’m one of those performer types that’s the right person for the job. When I’m on the stage telling a story that has been in the tour for several weeks, it seems as fun to tell as three weeks before. I guess you just have to be really into it. I don’t think this is a unique quality. I bet if you asked any number of performers, they’d tell you they’d pay to do a show. I have always been this way and more so the older I get. I think it’s a certain kind of person. There’s a lot I go through to do this. I’m sitting on a bus right now. One guy is driving, another is outside on a cell phone, giving the driver instructions on getting the bus out of this insane parking structure we’re kind of stuck in. The bus is rocking all over and all we’re trying to do is get on the road to drive eight hours to the next place. There’s no way anyone’s asleep on this thing. They’ll figure it out, but it’s going to take a while. I think one of them just got out a tape measure. I detect movement, I think we’re finally getting out of here.

I love the way you veer off on many different tangents during your shows but somehow manage to thread everything back together. Is that something you do naturally when telling people your life stories and adventures or is it something you worked on specifically for your show?

Unfortunately, it’s how my mind works. I think in main body plus lots of footnotes. Often, the footnote becomes more captivating than the main body. You can’t leave your audience on some off-ramp, you have to get them back onto the main road. It’s gotten to the point where I’m three exits off and in some nature reserve and have to talk my way back to civilization, but I get there. I reckon it’s some kind of attention deficit disorder.

I am loath to bring up the COVID period during interviews, but I am interested to know how you handled the situation personally. Each person the world over was affected differently and found their own means of dealing with it, but you are an extremely creative person that thrives on the ability to travel and engage with different people, situations and cultures. Did you find during the lockdown periods that you immersed yourself in past experiences or did you find a way to fill your creative outlet by other means?

It’s not for me to allow prevailing circumstances to shut me down. It is for me to innovate my way out of a bad situation, or at least make the best of it. My pre-COVID life was pretty cool. I lived all over the world. I spent months of the year living in Hanoi, Taipei, Cusco, Manila, all over. I’d do my editing and writing work in these locations and lived a very eventful and highly customized life. COVID ended that in the time it takes to clap your hands. Faced with being stuck in one location, which was my house, I figured I’d just have to find things to do there. I went into writing/editing/research mode and got a lot of writing projects started, finished and embarked on a project I predicted (correctly) that would take at least a few years to finish and when it was ready to present, the world would be in a different place. Since it’s not done it’s not the right thing to talk about, but I can say it eclipses anything else I’ve ever tried to do, and I’m a good way along, and I really think myself and the team we’ve assembled are going to get it done. I can’t explain how excited I am about this. I can’t think about it when trying to sleep because I just stay up.

Your whole life has been spent entertaining others by way of music, acting, writing, performing and much more. Is there anything left that you as a person need to fulfil from a personal perspective to satiate your needs from this life?

Yes, It’s the aforementioned project. It brings the entire thing around and lands it. As my manager and I have said to each other many times: it’s not how you start but how you finish.

One day when you decide to stop sharing yourself with the world at large, what do you hope to leave as the legacy of Henry Rollins?

I honestly don’t think in that way, but at this point, I don’t think it’s avoidable. Hopefully, it will be understood I tried to do good things and the mistakes were obvious but of high aspiration. Sometimes you have good ideas but not the talent to get them across. There’s so many ways things can go wrong. Things you bring out for people take a lot more than good intentions to get over the wall. There’s a lot to being successful. It sometimes veers into the unexplainable. Often someone who is successful isn’t successful always. Setbacks and complete failure are part of trying to do something extraordinary. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” This might be the single line that sums up my life.

Tickets to the Good To See You Tour on sale now: www.frontiertouring.com/henryrollins

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