ROLLINS, Henry 1961-

PERSONAL: Born Henry Garfield, February 13, 1961, in Washington, DC; son of Iris Garfield. Education: Attended American University, c. 1979.

ADDRESSES: Office—2.13.61, P.O. Box 1910, Los Angeles, CA 90078. Agent—Imago Recording Co., 152 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3301.

CAREER: Musician, lyricist, and writer. Worked as a pet shop manager and ice cream shop manager, 1979-81; lead singer with State of Alert, until 1981, Black Flag, c. 1981-86, and Rollins Band, c. 1987—; 2.13.61 (publishing company), founder and publisher, 1984—; cofounder, One Records and Infinite Zero. Actor in motion pictures, including The Chase, 1994, Johnny Mnemonic, 1995, and Lost Highway, 1996. Host of Learning Channel's Full Metal Challenge, 2002.

AWARDS, HONORS: Man of the Year, Details, 1994. Grammy Award nomination for best metal performance, 1995, for "Liar"; Grammy Award for best spoken word album, 1995, for Get in the Van.

WRITINGS:

20, 2.13.61 (Los Angeles, CA), 1984.

2.13.61, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1985.

End to End, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1985.

Polio Flesh, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1985.

Hallucination of Grandeur, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1986.

You Can't Run from God, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1986.

Pissing in the Gene Pool, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1987.

Works, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1988.

One Thousand Ways to Die, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1989.

Art to Choke Hearts, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1989.

Knife Street, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1989.

High Adventure in the Great Outdoors (includes 2.13. 61, End to End, and Polio Flesh), 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1990.

Bang! (includes One Thousand Ways to Die and Knife Street), 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1990.

One from None, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1991.

Black Coffee Blues, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1992.

Make a Grown Man Cry, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1992.

Now Watch Him Die, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1993.

Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag, 2.13.61 (Los Angeles, CA), 1994.

Do I Come Here Often, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1996.

Eye Scream, 2.13.61, (Los Angeles, CA), 1996.

The Portable Henry Rollins, Villard Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Solipsist, 2.13.61 (Los Angeles, CA), 1998.

Smile, You're Traveling: Black Coffee Blues, Pt. 3, 2.13.61 (Los Angeles, CA), 2000.

Contributor to periodicals, including Details, Face, Interview, Melody Maker, Sounds, Spin, and Village Voice.

lyricist; recordings with black flag

My War, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1983.

Family Man, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1984.

Live '84, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1984.

Slip It In, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1984.

Loose Nut, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1985.

The Process of Weeding Out, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1985.

In My Head, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1985.

Who's Got the Ten, SST Records, (Long Beach, CA), 1986.

lyricist: recordings with rollins band

Hot Animal Machine, Texas Hotel, 1987.

Drive-By Shooting, Texas Hotel, 1987.

Life Time, Texas Hotel, 1988.

Do It, Texas Hotel, 1989.

Hard Volume, Texas Hotel, 1989.

Turned On, Quarter Stick, 1990.

The End of Silence, Imago, 1992.

Electro Convulsive Therapy, Imago, 1993.

The Weight, Imago, 1994.

Come in and Burn, DreamWorks, 1997.

spoken-word recordings

Short Walk on a Long Pier, Texas Hotel/2.13.61, 1987.

Big Ugly Mouth, Texas Hotel, 1987.

Sweatbox, Texas Hotel, 1989.

Live at McCabe's, QuarterStick, 1992.

Human Butt, QuarterStick/2.13.61, 1992.

Deep Throat, QuarterStick/2.13.61, 1992.

The Boxed Life, Imago, 1993.

Get in the Van, 1995.

ADAPTATIONS: The film Ten Monologues from the Lives of Serial Killers was based on writings by Rollins.

SIDELIGHTS: Henry Rollins is a musician and writer who has drawn particular attention as the lead singer in such bands as Black Flag and the Rollins Band. Rollins was born Henry Garfield in 1961 in Washington, DC. After his parents divorced, Rollins lived with his music-loving mother. They moved regularly, and music, notably jazz and popular soul, remained one of the few constants in his early life.

His unsettled home life scarcely proved stabilizing to the scrawny but nonetheless aggressive Rollins. "I was very loud and obnoxious and hyperactive," Rollins later recalled for Alan Prendergast in the Los Angeles Times. As a consequence of his radical behavior, Rollins was eventually enrolled at a military academy. There he was branded a failure by his teachers and was the subject of torment from cruel classmates. "I was there," Rollins later confessed to Pat Blashill in an interview in Details, "to be antagonized."

Rollins eventually tired of being physically intimidated and took to lifting weights to gain strength. The strict regimen he adhered to made him muscular, which spiked his self-esteem. Rollins recounted how the added muscle made him feel in Details: "I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself." He also indulged his enthusiasm for music by becoming an active figure in Washington, DC's punk-rock subculture. The increasingly muscular Rollins took to slamming, a particularly violent form of dancing in which dancers pound into one another. "I lived for the shows," he explained to Prendergast, "Violence was my girl."

As a further means of self-expression, Rollins established his own punk band, State of Alert. But he continued to patronize other bands, notably Black Flag. Rollins was a staunch supporter of Black Flag, and he eventually met the band members. A few months later, he attended a Black Flag concert in New York City and was invited onstage to sing briefly. Following that appearance, Rollins was asked to join the band and replace its lead singer, who had decided to instead play guitar. Rollins readily accepted Black Flag's offer, and for the next few years he toured and recorded regularly with the band.

Black Flag was hardly among the more widely known bands of the early 1980s, and recordings such as Family Man, My War, Loose Nut, and The Process of Weeding Out could scarcely be regarded as commercial product. "I know I'm not going to sell millions of records," Rollins told Prendergast. "I don't write for the Everyman. I write for one man—me. If other people dig it, that's cool." The band's followers, however, were intensely loyal, and they sustained the group through an often exhausting multi-year stint of touring and recording. In one two-year period, for instance, Black Flag produced the recordings Family Man, Live '84, Slip It In, Loose Nut, The Process of Weeding Out, and In My Head. During this period, the band's music evolved from simple punk tunes to aggressive but more complex songs incorporating the extended instrumental interludes prominent in jazz. Rollins's lyrics, meanwhile, expressed his outrage at social conventions and revealed his interest in the work of writers such as Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. Blashill explained, Rollins "doesn't intend his music or his words to be a catharsis or a kind of sonic obliteration. When Henry talks about his life—that is, when he performs—he says it's all about choices. You choose your path, then you steam down it….And that's inspirational stuff for [Rollins's] audience."

With Black Flag, Rollins developed a reputation as a poet who employed music as one means of expressing himself. Indeed, by the time that Black Flag broke up in 1986, Rollins had established himself independently as a writer. He continued to remain active as a musician after Black Flag and in 1987 established the Rollins Band, another group that produced loud, aggressive music. The band provided adequate musical support for Rollins, who proved an imposing spectacle with his hardened physique, severe hairstyle, colorful tattoos, and screaming delivery. Among the Rollins Band's recordings are Hot Animal Machine, Drive-By Shooting, Life Time, Do It, Turned On, The End of Silence, Electro Convulsive Therapy, and The Weight. As the band's popularity grew, Rollins used his recognition to open other doors. He appeared on numerous talk shows and performed stand-up comedy.

In 1987, the same year that he founded the Rollins Band, Rollins began making spoken-word recordings. His recordings include Short Walk on a Long Pier, Big Ugly Mouth, Sweatbox, Human Butt, and The Boxed Life. He has also remained active as a writer of volatile prose works such as Black Coffee Blues, Make a Grown Man Cry, and Now Watch Him Die. Rollins also gave spoken-word performances in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, England, Germany, Belgium, and Holland. In 1995, he won a Grammy Award for best spoken word album for his recording Get in the Van. Rollins commented to Blashill in Details that his written work has changed slightly. "These days I can use less words and say what I need to quicker. Like a smart bomb."

Through his own publishing company, 2.13.61, Rollins published such works as 20, End to End, and Polio Flesh. The name of the company comes from Rollins's birth date. "In his self-published books, he is obsessed with spilling his guts," commented Blashill. "But writing like this isn't a hostile conversation that [Rollins is] having with himself….It's [Rollins] getting straight with himself, securing his own perimeters," noted Blashill. Rollins explained his writing to Prendergast: "There's no method to the madness; I don't even know if there's madness. It's just expression—random and real…. I just want to get to it better, to get more concise, to pinpoint things in my head."

The book Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag, published in 1994, chronicles the band's touring experiences from 1981 to 1986 through journal entries kept by Rollins. Blashill described Black Flag as "an incendiary monster truck of a band that defined American hardcore punk rock. Black Flag was ugly: They fought with each other, lived in a filthy tour van, and more than occasionally took it all out on people who thought they understood punk." Rollins's diary excerpts in Get in the Van reveal exactly how rough this lifestyle was and how it influenced him. Times Literary Supplement contributor Alex Truscott commented on Rollins's "intensity," and noted that "Rollins is painfully honest about his insecurities."

Now Watch Him Die is Rollins's tribute to his best friend whom he saw shot to death. Louis Collonge, a reviewer for Whole Earth Review, was so impressed with the book that he told readers to "bum your entire pop psychology library and leap into the work of Henry Rollins." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found that the "simple, staccato prose and verse" in The Portable Henry Rollins "suit the voice in which he writes," and remarked that "his gifts of honesty and observation shine through in accounts of life on the road." In Booklist, Mike Tribby observed that "for those on his wavelength, this intense collection, full of tough-minded attitude and imagery, will be a trusty companion."

Not all of Rollins's writing has been well received by critics. Frank Diller of the Baltimore City Paper criticized The Portable Henry Rollins, because "the selections demonstrate how little Rollins has matured as both a writer and a human being." Diller also remarked, "Rollins's rants might be tolerable if they were presented in a fresh perspective or stylistic innovation, but his constant barrage of one simple sentence after another is unbearable." Rollins released his next book, Solipsist, without sending any copies to the press. In an interview with Stephen Thompson for the Onion AV Club, an online news organization, Rollins stated, "I'm tired of critics and their opinions of me." He defined Solipsist as "a three-year struggle with these very strange essays and these characters, some of whom are very tragic."

Rollins has also promoted the music of other artists. With prominent record producer Rich Rubin, Rollins established Infinite Zero, a recording label for rereleasing work from artists such as Tom Verlaine, Devo, and Gang of Four. "The goal of this label is basically to seduce a bunch of people who have thirsty ears," Rollins told a reviewer in the Boston Globe. He wants listeners to hear "good things besides the good things they're listening to now." A man of many talents, Rollins is a musician, lyricist, poet, publisher, and actor. Despite his success and large number of fans, Rollins does not understand his own appeal or staying power.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Hochman, Steve, editor, Popular Musicians, Salem Press (Pasadena, CA), 1999, pp. 98-100.

periodicals

Advocate, May 13, 1997, p. 62.

Booklist, September 15, 1997, Mike Tribby, review of The Portable Henry Rollins, p. 199.

Boston Globe, February 10, 1995.

Creem, May, 1992.

Details, January, 1993; January, 1994, pp. 64-69, 127.

Detroit Free Press, April 17, 1992.

Detroit News, May 1, 1993.

Down Beat, December, 1994.

Entertainment Weekly, March 12, 1993; February 18, 1994, p. 72.

Library Journal, September 15, 1997, David P. Szatmary, review of The Portable Henry Rollins, pp. 76-77.

Los Angeles Daily News, May 31, 1993.

Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1987.

Melody Maker, February 13, 1993.

Musician, April 13, 1993.

New York Times Magazine, November 6, 1994, p. 38.

Publishers Weekly, October 3, 1994, p. 63; November 7, 1994, review of Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag, p. 32; September 15, 1997, review of The Portable Henry Rollins, p. 65.

Pulse!, April 3, 1992.

Rolling Stone, April 16, 1992; March 18, 1993; December 23, 1993, p. 111.

Spin, May, 1992.

Times Literary Supplement, May 19, 1995, p. 18.

TV Guide, September 26, 1992.

Whole Earth Review, spring, 1995, Louis Collonge, review of Now Watch Him Die, p. 90.

online

All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com/ (June 2, 2003), "Henry Rollins."

Baltimore City Paper Online, http://www.citypaper.com/ (June 2, 2003), "Henry Rollins."

Henry Rollins Official Web site, http://21361.com/ (June 2, 2003).

NYRock, http://www.nyrock.com/ (June 2, 2003), "Have Shorts Will Travel" (interview); "Henry Rollins: A Heavy Weight with Heavy Thoughts" (interview).

Onion AV Club, http://theavclub.com/ (June 2, 2003), "Interview with Henry Rollins."

Pixie Inc, http://www.pixie-inc.demon.co.uk/ (November 18, 2003), Simon Collins, review of The Portable Henry Rollins.

Rolling Stone Online, http://www.rollingstone.com/ (November 18, 2003), "Henry Rollins."

Seattlepi, http://www.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ (June 2, 2003), "Henry Rollins."*