Henry Rollins HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Stephen Sackur.

We tend to pigeonhole creative types: writer, musician, actor -

I talk to a guest who defies simple description - punk is perhaps

the only word that captures the spirit of Henry Rollins.

He first found success in the punk band Black Flag back

Since then he's variously made a name as a non-conforming writer,

broadcaster, actor and intrepid traveller.

How hard is it to swim against the cultural tide in the United States?

Henry Rollins, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you sir. I want to talk about

punk. Can you still have a punk sensibility in your 50s wishing

yellow I think so. For me punk rock is different for everyone you asked

to define it. It was always the idea of questioning authority and cutting

through it getting to the what is it of the things. The older I get, the

more importantly becomes Jimmy. The early days of punk rock I think of

the sex pistols, and I think of anger and rebellion against what was

and the status quo. Were you full of anger as a kid? Full of anger then

and full of anger now. Angry about what? I live in America because a

lot of people get angry if real and toured gets angry. Do you mean the

gay marriage issue and the way they have responded to it? If we have to

get all the way to the Supreme Court to argue about this. Fine, shut up,

move on. The fact that we argue about these things and the fact that

we have so much racism, homophobia and misogyny. This is four-year-old

kids in the sandbox stuff. Why can we not lose the gills. What made you

angry as a teenager? You were raised in Washington, what was burning you

up then? I come from a completely comfortable and middle-class

lifestyle. I never missed a meal on lifestyle. I never missed a meal

in. -- missed a meal in my life. I was a horrible student. Life was

frustrating. I could not talk to girls and could not throw the ball

straight. I kept not being able to figure things out. By the time I was

17 I was a ball of anger and then punk rock happened. And one of the

extraordinary things about you was that you were floating around and it

was the beginnings of a real scene in New York,

day he went to see a band that you liked. Yeah. Black flag and

something change your life in that crowd. I sort of news I looked at

cream is. You know that song that you have about going to work, we

will play it. And they asked me to sing it. I helped onstage and I kind

of knew the song. And the singer asked them to jump on stage. I sang

it and I will never forget that I looked around like a quarterback for

the snap and the band was like that was cool. And the audience thought I

was cool. And I gave the microphone back after 90 seconds. And a day

later they called me and asked because they were looking for a

singer and he wanted to be the rhythm guitar player. I was looking

at my apron and ice cream scoop and said I have nothing to lose. I went

back up there on the train and I auditioned and I got it. A week

later I am in the van with them with my duffle bag and everything has

been downhill ever since. One of the classic out of titles, of course you

were in black flag for quite a while, and one of the outcomes you

released was called hard volume. There is something about your

music, and you call it in tents, it is beyond intense. It is

earthshattering and allowed. That is what I've gone for because I'm not

the brightest bulb. Hard to be max volume, we were in Belgium, and

someone showed me a sheet that we were getting airplay and we were in

the category of high-volume music. And I said that was a album title.

Letters give people a sense of the musical style that you are

inhabiting. This was from 20 years ago -- let us. I have been waiting

indicator. The theories in their eyes. I am all blood. No regrets

here no last words. On my way to the cage is the lyric. Just tell me, it

is you are an older man. When you look at that version of yourself, do

you still feel he is inside you? Absolutely. Except if I did that

song now I would be on the floor trying to give out. That is a tame

version of what you used to do because you used to be stripped off

from the torso. And your body is a display cabinet of tattoos. The

reason I only used to wear a pair of shorts was function because I'm

going to sweat half a litre on the stage. Usually I would go back to a

van and do the washing up a restaurant. It did not pay to go

jeans because they were the only pants that I had. No shoes because

they would get sweated out. I would get gym shorts and on that day I was

very lavished. I wonder when you think about your music, would it

have made a big difference if you had become something more than an

alternative cult band, because you did get a top 40 hit with the Henry

Rollins man. At one point you were actually voted desired on details

magazine as man of the year. You were on the cusp of becoming more

than an alternative guy and almost going mainstream. I wonder if you

ever disappointed that she did not fulfil their journey into

mainstream? No. Because you have to do your own thing. We wrote the

songs that we wrote and freakishly, the one that we were even going to

put on a record, became the single. The record Company called and said

that as a single. We said that was a joke. We don't even have a chord

structure for. Is this thing we do at it is. -- it is this thing that

we do at concerts. All of a sudden I'm on the cover of some interesting

magazine. I know that all of a sudden in six weeks it might be

over. And that is all I ever thought about it. Did you want to be famous?

Know I did not want it. Believe it or not. Any notoriety that I have it

is only a hindrance. In that I am walking and talking to this guy, an

outstanding in the middle of a airplay doing a photo who has been

waiting for me outside with his phone. Can we do a photo? Yes. It is

not too weird. Let us do that. Otherwise I just do my work. I've

always been very utilitarian in all of this stuff. And that is what

coming from punk rock gave to me. I don't feel like I anybody. Is so

won't be the something I will say sure. I don't think I am anything.

Maybe because you were scooping ice cream not too long ago and maybe

there is an element of insecurity in you that unless you keep working and

keep striving you could end up back there. I figure that that is

eventual. I move forward because I've nothing to lose. I am nobody

from nowhere. I'm from the minimum wage working world countries years

ago. I don't ever have in my head that that is any more than one tour

away from coming back. And so I like to work. It is not a money or fame

thing. It is about activity and challenge. The other thing that is

in my head now and maybe that has in to do with the death of David Bowie

and all of the response that has come with that and what an

extraordinary artist he was. As I was saying, there are a lot of

artists in contemporary culture that are very hard to pigeonhole. David

Bowie was one that was like that. And you are another. And he was very

big in the 70s and 80s when you are making your way. Was he an

inspiration to you with his multiple identities, his determination to

forge his own path, break conventional wisdom is? He inspired

me from hearing his single. As stupidly as a teenager I never

bought the hour-long. 20 songs would come radio and one lyric grabs you

and you think that someone gets you. That song gets it. It is an anthem

for that. And I don't know why I didn't go right to the record store

for $4.99 and by that record. Frankly I got into his records in my

early 20s. Summer game music is Stardust -- someone gave me Ziggy

Stardust. As far as inspiration goes, I am in awe of him. And now

that he has departed, he leaves his music but he takes with him a

universe in that he is not genre specific. He is a sovereign nation.

And that is why everyone is so affected because you lose part of

yourself when he goes. He was into design, into clothing, into the look

and of course he was into his music, but he did acting to. He did

film and art. I met him once. He walked by me at a festival and I was

like shocked. I asked him if he wanted to have lunch. He started

quoting me from interviews. And last year you said this, and he is

quoting me again. So when is your next book out. I've read a few of

them, not all of them and I was thinking I was going numb. And I had

this amazing conversation with him at lunch. It was one of the biggest

moments of my life. He took his art in different directions but he was

never hugely political. You chose to be very political. As you branched

out from the music you did your speaking tours, your spoken word

records and clearly, when we talk about burning with anger earlier,

were a lot of things on your mind, political things that you are

determined to say. But that, in America, has been tough you because

you are saying many things that Americans regard as toxic. In my

opinion, just my opinion, I've never said anything controversial in my

life. I don't advocate murder or destruction. I advocate literacy,

empty battlefields, empty prisons and bathrooms swelling with

potential. And I will take it. Some of the feedback of what your workers

produce, some feel that you despise your own country. I love it so much

I feel the need to critique it in order to make it better. At new say

you are an exceptional country when you go online and see all these

people say Michelle Obama is an ape and her children look like the

standings for the planet of the eighth and her husband is a

socialist Kenyon, insert a very horrible words, that is regressive.

And I'm not going to point that out? I come from a country that starts

fake wars. One that has gone out of their way to keep people from better

education and when you finally have equality in America, which will

never happen, everything changes. Wall Street changes, neighbourhoods

change. And to say that and if someone gets mad at me for that, so

what? Did you feel you are warrior in

America's culture wars? Is not necessarily. The United States of

America today is a deeply polarised race. Use it there, a metropolitan

American, coastal American... Yes. I wonder when you talk in the way you

just have to me how that goes down in what they call flyover America,

middle America? Those communities where frankly you sound like an

alien. Some people say there is able to waiting for you next time you

come to St Louis. I have got the e-mail, yes. I don't think I'm

advocating anything except what the institution is... But what I'm

getting at is whether when you go on tour, do you feel it is important to

reach out to those Americans who come from a very different sort of

intellectual and cultural tradition? Do you want to build bridges or burn

bridges? No, build, build, build. But sadly, as a performer, you are

preaching to the perverted, as I call it. People do not pay $30 to

endure you. You are talking to people who are already on your side

anyway. And I realise with adults, you cannot convince me of things

that I don't... If you say there is no such thing as global climate

change, I don't care what you bring with you, I'm still on the side of

the scientists. If somebody thinks they need 80 guns in the bedroom

because here comes Obama, I cannot divorce someone of that notion, I

cannot disabuse them of their paranoia and I don't want to get a

broken nose trying to do it. Because adults, and you are on, you cannot

be changed. At some point you have to go, OK, that is you will stop and

at a certain point, I just let it go. One thing that you do, which

interest me, is you travel extensively. You go to places that

let alone most Americans, you go to places most people around the world

would not go to. Have been to North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria...

You have been to all these places. Yes. You do it alone. You don't go

with a film crew and a bunch of other people, you go alone. With a

backpack and a personal camera. What is the point of those visits? You

can fall in love with humanity over and over again because you meet

people with nothing but a bowl and a T-shirt and they are so gentle and

generous and they live their lives and all they want is a day without

war, day without a minefield, and just some clean water. All they want

is just a moment to breathe, which you and I enjoy, we count on it. I

was in northern Uganda on my way to South Sudan and I had a translator.

I was speaking with some local people and I said, what about the

idea of retirement. They don't know what I'm talking about. I said, you

get old. They said, your kids take care of you. Your wives and

husbands. It said a vacation and they did not know. Life insurance.

There are parts of the world where every day is immediate. There is no

20 miles up the road or in four years I'm going to be here. They are

thinking, tomorrow I'm hoping for that bowl of rice. And when you

encounter that and you get on an aeroplane and a day and a half later

you are driving down Sunset Boulevard with the dust of that

country still on your Boots and you can look down and see it, it is a

lot to walk around with and I live for that. I wonder what you make of

the way in which people in those sorts of places on Syria to

Afghanistan to South Sudan, the way they perceive America today. I don't

know if they are people just trying to make nice with me but when I say

I'm from America, it is almost like this, both, America! Obama!

Taxidrivers -- taxidrivers all over the world love Obama. Right now we

are in political season in the US. Right, sure. Perhaps the one

candidate that have sucked up more of the oxygen of publicity or than

anyone else is, and you know I'm going to see it, Donald Trump. A guy

like you on the progressive, liberal left of American politics, when you

look at the traction Donald Trump is getting full views which too many

outside of America would see as ego driven and bizarre, how does that

make you feel? It speaks of an America with a systematic dumbing

down of late people who do not question, who are not scientifically

inclined, who do not travel. They don't have a passport. They would go

to India and see how a different culture does its thing. And they

want the information on bumper sticker sized pieces of

information. I'm not putting these people down. Why do they need only

little bit of news? Because they are working two jobs. They're getting up

at four o'clock in the morning, feeding the kids, getting into a

cubicle Orica that they hoped will not break down. And someone says

they will build a wall and there will be no more of those down

Muslims, and it is a way of getting people to your site with tough talk

when economic times go about. Historically, that is how you get

people to do unspeakable things. Can the American mindset be changed? You

are talking about a lack of knowledge and a lack of curiosity

about the rest of the world. Kenny changed? Sure! You can be an agent

of change? All I can do is shoot my mouth off and speak what I think is

the truth. If America really wanted to, if you took the money that you

put into defence and put it into education, in about 100 years, you

might have less crime, more middle class mobility, because more people

would have the option. They would have more intellect, more stuff in

there, and maybe there would be some options. I was raised with options.

I'm a white male raise middle-class. The nature of the colour of my skin

and gender in America, sadly, opens doors for me. It should not be that

we. I should be judged on what I do but that is not how it works. I

wanted and, if I may, with some personal reflection. You are pretty

extraordinary because from the punk rock to the one-man shows to

travelling the world, you are constantly mixing with the public,

and putting yourself on show to sit next to it. You have described

yourself as a deeply solitary person. You have said he would be

happy to bring all of the time because you not -- you would not be

beholden to anyone except for yourself. They would not want the

kids or partner at home to the tying you down. Are you truly that lonely?

I'm not lonely. I'm solitary. It is a lonely mindset. I'm not lonely. I

don't miss anybody. I miss the audience. But that is not a true

intimate relationship. Not at all. Do you not want intimate

relationships? I tried. I'm just not worried -- wired for it. I have been

into girls and I have been into them and they have been momentarily into

me but not so much because I'm always looking at my schedule and

then it is like, I can hang out with you for a day and then I'm leaving.

Everybody sees my priority for it I was lonely in my 20s. I was way more

analogue. When you had a girlfriend, you would write her a letter. I'm 55

and I now does want to go and do stuff. I want to work vigorously,

travel had and have a crazy itinerary that demands that I get up

at eight o'clock in the morning and do this and don't be late and

prepare for this thing that I'm really not that good doing but I

signed up for anyway. It keeps the blood thin. That is the life I lead.

It is essential but there are things I go without. I don't go home to

anybody. Most of the friendships I have either pay a commission of

salary to these people. I like them and I hope they respect me and I

respect them but we don't hang out on the weekends. I see them Monday

to Friday. Unless it is the road manager. Then we will be good

together for the next year. You are probably the most self-contained

guest I have had on the show. I don't know what else to do. This is

how I am. You are not ready to animal. When you are an adult, you

find out who you are and I guess that is who I am full of Henry

Rollins, it has been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.