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Henry Rollins

Rollins was born Henry Lawrence Garfield in Washington, D.C., on February 13, 1961, the only child of Iris and Paul Garfield.[4][5][6][7] His mother is of Irish descent.[8] His father was of Jewish descent. Rollins' paternal great-grandfather, Henach Luban, fled to the U.S. from Rēzekne, Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire) and changed his first name to Henry.[9] When Rollins was three years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in the Washington neighborhood of Glover Park.[4][10][11][12] As a child and teenager, Rollins was sexually assaulted,[13] and he suffered from depression and low self-esteem.[14] In fourth grade, he was diagnosed with hyperactivity and took Ritalin for several years to focus during school.

Rollins attended The Bullis School, then an all-male preparatory school in Potomac, Maryland.According to Rollins, the school helped him to develop a sense of discipline and a strong work ethic.It was at Bullis that he began writing. After high school, he attended American University in Washington for one semester, but dropped out in December 1979.[5][16] He began working minimum-wage jobs, including a job as a courier for kidney samples at the National Institutes of Health.[17] In 1987, he said that he had not seen his father since the age of 18,[5] and, in 2019, wrote, "What my father thinks of me, or if he is still alive, I have no idea."

Initially into bands like Van Hale and Ted Nugent[] Rollins soon developed an interest in punk rock with his friend Ian MacKaye.

"We wanted something that just kicked ass," he says. "Then one of us, probably Ian, got the Sex Pistols record. I remember hearing that and thinking 'Well, that's something. This guy is pissed off, those guitars are rude.' What a revelation!

From 1979 to 1980, Rollins was working as a roadie for D.C. bands, including Teen Idles. When the band's singer Nathan Strejcek failed to appear for practice sessions, Rollins convinced the Teen Idles to let him sing. Word of Rollins' ability spread around the punk rock scene in Washington D.C.; Bad Brains singer H.R. would sometimes get Rollins on stage to sing with him.] In 1980, the Washington punk band the Extorts lost their frontman Lyle Preslar to Minor Threat. Rollins joined the other members of the band and formed State of Alert (S.O.A.) and became its frontman and vocalist. He put words to the band's five songs and wrote several more. S.O.A. recorded their sole EP, No Policy, and released it in 1981 on MacKaye's Dischord Records.

Around April 1981, drummer Simon Jacobsen was replaced by Ivor Hanson. At the time, Hanson's father was a top admiral in the U.S. Navy and his family shared living quarters with the U.S. Vice President in the Naval Observatory. The band held their practices there and would have to be let in by Secret Service agents.

S.O.A. disbanded after a total of a dozen concerts and one EP. Rollins had enjoyed being the band's frontman, and had earned a reputation for fighting in shows. He later said, "I was like nineteen and a young man all full of steam and loved to get in the dust-ups." By this time, Rollins had become the assistant manager of the Georgetown Häagen-Dazs ice cream store; his steady employment had helped to finance the S.O.A.

Before Black Flag disbanded in August 1986, Rollins had already toured as a solo spoken word artist.[37] He released two solo records in 1987, Hot Animal Machine, a collaboration with guitarist Chris Haskett, and Drive by Shooting, recorded as "Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters";[38] Rollins also released his second spoken word album, Big Ugly Mouth in the same year. Along with Haskett, Rollins soon added Andrew Weiss and Sim Cain, both former members of Ginn's side-project Gone, and called the new group Rollins Band. The band toured relentlessly,[39] and their 1987 debut album, Life Time, was quickly followed by the outtakes and live collection Do It. The band continued to tour throughout 1988; in 1989 another Rollins Band album, Hard Volume was released.[40] Another live album, Turned On, and another spoken word release, Live at McCabe's, followed in 1990.

In 1991, the Rollins Band signed a distribution deal with Imago Records and appeared at the Lollapalooza festival; both improved the band's presence. However, in December 1991, Rollins and his best friend Joe Cole were accosted by two armed robbers outside Rollins' home. Cole was murdered by a gunshot to the head, Rollins escaped without injury but police suspected him in the murder and detained him for ten hours.[41] Although traumatized by Cole's death, as chronicled in his book Now Watch Him Die, Rollins continued to release new material; the spoken-word album Human Butt appeared in 1992 on his own record label, 2.13.61. The Rollins Band released The End of Silence, Rollins' first charting album.

The following year, Rollins released a spoken-word double album, The Boxed Life.[42] The Rollins Band embarked upon the End of Silence tour; bassist Weiss was fired toward its end, and replaced by funk and jazz bassist Melvin Gibbs. According to critic Steve Huey, 1994 was Rollins' "breakout year".[40] The Rollins Band appeared at Woodstock 94 and released Weight, which ranked on the Billboard Top 40. Rollins released Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag, a double-disc set of him reading from his Black Flag tour diary of the same name; he won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording as a result. Rollins was named 1994's "Man of the Year" by the American men's magazine Details and became a contributing columnist to the magazine. With the increased exposure, Rollins made several appearances on American music channels MTV and VH1 around this time, and made his Hollywood film debut in 1994 in The Chase playing a police officer.

In 1995, the Rollins Band's record label, Imago Records, declared itself bankrupt. Rollins began focusing on his spoken word career. He released Everything, a recording of a chapter of his book Eye Scream with free jazz backing, in 1996. He continued to appear in various films, including Heat, Johnny Mnemonic and Lost Highway. The Rollins Band signed to Dreamworks Records in 1997 and soon released Come In and Burn, but it did not receive as much critical acclaim as their previous material. Rollins continued to release spoken-word book readings, releasing Black Coffee Blues in the same year. In 1998, Rollins released Think Tank, his first set of non-book-related spoken material in five years.

By 1998, Rollins felt that the relationship with his backing band had run its course, and the line-up disbanded. He had produced a Los Angeles hard rock band called Mother Superior, and invited them to form a new incarnation of the Rollins Band. Their first album, Get Some Go Again, was released two years later. The Rollins Band released several more albums, including 2001's Nice and 2003's Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three. After 2003, the band became inactive as Rollins focused on radio and television work. During a 2006 appearance on Tom Green Live!, Rollins stated that he "may never do music again",[44] a feeling which he reiterated in 2011 when talking to Trebuchet magazine.[45] In an interview with Culture Brats, Rollins admitted he had sworn off music for good – "... and I must say that I miss it every day. I just don't know honestly what I could do with it that's different."

Musical style

As a vocalist, Rollins has adopted a number of styles through the years. He was noted in the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene for what journalist Michael Azerrad described as a "compelling, raspy howl".[21] With State of Alert, Rollins "spat out the lyrics like a bellicose auctioneer."[24] He adopted a similar style after joining Black Flag in 1981. By their album Damaged, however, Black Flag began to incorporate a swing beat into their style. Rollins then abandoned his State of Alert "bark" and adopted the band's swing.[48] Rollins later explained: "What I was doing kind of matched the vibe of the music. The music was intense and, well, I was as intense as you needed."

In both incarnations of the Rollins Band, Rollins combined spoken word with his traditional vocal style in songs such as "Liar" (the song begins with a one-minute spoken diatribe by Rollins), barked his way through songs (such as "Tearing" and "Starve"), and employed the loud-quiet dynamic. Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis names Rollins a "screeching hate machine" and his "hallmark" as "the sheets-of-sound assault".

With the Rollins Band, his lyrics focused "almost exclusively on issues relating to personal integrity", according to critic Geoffrey Welchman.

As producer

In the 1980s, Rollins produced an album of acoustic songs for convict Charles Manson titled Completion. The record was supposed to be released by SST Records, but the project was canceled because the label received death threats for working with Manson. Only five test presses of Completion were pressed, two of which remain in Rollins' possession.

In 1995, Rollins produced Australian hard rock band the Mark of Cain's third full-length album Ill at Ease.

Courtesy--wikipedia
- Henry Rollins

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