Henry Rollins: On Record

Henry Rollins: With bootlegs and the internet and Cramps fans being as intense as they are, it's amazing the Gravest Gravy tracks didn't find themselves on the internet. It's just the fact that Lux and Ivy are very private people and kept stuff to themselves. And Alex Chilton didn't exactly trust people, so he's not sending out cassettes to people. Pretty intense guy. And that's kind of the reason you have that. Stephanie Chernikowski, the great photographer who did the cover for Gravest Gravy, she introduced The Cramps to Alex Chilton. And from all reports, he saw them and was immediately obsessed. He just went, "Wow, that's the band." And I could see how someone would come to that conclusion after seeing The Cramps. They both had a lot of heroes in common, rockabilly, Sun Records. Alex Chilton knows a thing or two about Memphis. So I'm sure the conversation between he, Ivy and Lux were probably pretty animated immediately. Charlie Feathers and Hazel Adkins, and on and on and on. They probably all speak that patois. When he said, "Let's go to Memphis and record," they probably all went, "We just won the lottery." So it came together. What The Cramps probably didn't know, that maybe no one knew, maybe Alex knew, was how damn good it was going to work. 

Public Record: In The Cramps, you almost see the fulfillment of the Alex Chilton idea in a really unique way that you don't get that a lot with other artists. You know what I mean? 

Henry Rollins: Yeah. He probably couldn't even make his own records sound so WHAT WAS THAT?!

Public Record: How do you make sense of punk's role in the cultural moment? What is it that makes this such an area of interest for people to this day? 

Henry Rollins: The music is good. Some of these bands, they got it right. It's not that rare. I mean, there's a lot of good bands. That's why a lot of people have a lot of records in their record collection. It's just not just The Beatles and three other bands. There's a bunch of good music. If a young person said to me, "Ah, you're old and I don't care about the music you like," I would just say, "Rumble young man rumble." I couldn't argue that point. Why not? Why not just leave it behind? I think he's missing out, but I can't argue with youth. But as far as young people being interested in these bands, I go two ways on that. I think a young person should be hearing everything from The Bad Brains to Bob Dylan to Duke Ellington. They're young, they have the time, they should put their phones down and listen to music and hear this great stuff. 

Other hand, why not "no Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones" and just get on with bands that you can go see in the summer at a show and put them up at your house and have friends for life? It's hard to not be young anymore. And you're not old, but you're not 18. I'm old. Some days everything hurts and you're like, everything takes longer and you get those envelopes in the mail like, "Welcome to Medicare." It is what it is. I mean, it's just here comes death. And I can understand a person not necessarily feeling old. I listen to the music I grew up with. It still sounds good to me. I'm still an angry person, but I think to go back and retread, as I once said to Ian [MacKaye], I said a lot of these bands, they become battle reenactors, where they go out and do music and everyone's like, "Yay." Well, the first time we went out and did it, we all got beat up and now we do it and everyone has their girlfriends on their shoulders and everyone's waving their arms and it's all kumbaya because you're reenacting the Civil War. No one's going to get hurt, but it was wartime music. And so now you're in a way making fun out of it and everyone's play acting. We're showing up for the thing from back in the day and the artists are getting paid. And I don't mind that because maybe no one paid him the first time around. It's just something that I wouldn't want to do and I wouldn't want to necessarily go see it. 

Public Record: I know what you mean. I wanted to return back to the topic, the subject of Alex Chilton, because you put out one of my favorite Chilton detours, which is his Cubist Blues record with Ben Vaughn and Alan Vega. That's such a killer, one of a kind fucked up record. And I would just love to hear you talk about what Alex was like as a creator. 

Henry Rollins: Well, there's moments on that record, the song "Freedom," his guitar playing on that'll make you cry. I mean, it's just some of his best work I think is on that record. Ben and Alex, they love Alan Vega. And it was, I think Ben's idea, he told me this years ago, they just said, "We're going to reserve the studio time." I think they were at in New York. And they said, "We're just going to call up Alan to just drag him in here."Alan is ready to go do an improv or an art thing at the drop of a hat. He just already has lyrics in his head. He just goes. He was really something. He was the real thing. And I think they just said, "Hey, we're down here, so jump in a cab." And Alan Vega shows up and they do this one of a kind bunch of improvs and they all land on their feet. Every track lands on its feet beautifully. And I think you just have three really original artists who are just in simpatico on that evening because all three of them could probably be pretty argumentative in a different environment, especially Alex Chilton. And so Alan and his wife Liz played me that record. I was at their apartment and they said, "What do you reckon?" I went, "Whoa, who's putting it?" "Well, it's a small label in Europe, but what about America? "Well, no one seems to care. I go," I'll put that out right now. "And so I had to get into it with Chilton about publishing. How do we pay you? We have to do all that kind of un-fun legalese. You got to do it right. 

So Liz gave me his phone number. She basically said," Good luck. I don't know the... I know of him. "And so she said, "He's not Mr. Warmth." So I called him and I said," Hello, sir. It's Henry. I need to get this information. "And it was like a big pain in his neck that I wanted to pay him. And he goes," So what are you doing? "And why he asked me? I don't know. I said," I'm in New York City. I'm trying to write lyrics for an album. "And he goes," That'll take at least an hour, not for me. "And I went," Yeah, I guess. "And he went," Is there anything else? "I went," No. "And he just hung up. And then a year or so later, I'm on tour at some European festival. Thing's over. Next morning, we're all in the hotel lobby, all these bands waiting to leave. And there's Alex Chilton in the lobby. And I know what he looks like. He probably doesn't know what I look like. And so I sit down at a couch adjacent from him and I'm thinking, do I approach? "Hey, I'm Alan's friend. I'm the guy we talked on the phone," but every pore of his body seemed to radiate: do not approach. So I said, I don't need the aggravation. I have enough going on. And I just left him alone. He was like a rattlesnake coiled on a couch. 

Henry Rollins: Yeah, in a while. 

Public Record: I wanted to ask you a little bit about that tension because certainly you must have some great bootleg LPs at the very least. 

Henry Rollins: Yeah. And I've written about it and I've thought about it. I draw the line at cloth. Don't make fake t-shirts of a band. Just you'll get a job because I can get a real t-shirt from the band or in the case of The Cramps, not for a while. Thankfully, that's been rectified. And they've done a great job and apparently everyone's happy. People dig the merch and that's great. Ivy's getting what she deserves. I buy a lot of bootleg vinyl, like Joy Division, The Cramps, both bands. There's a lot of bootlegs out there and I hope I have them all. It's not for lack of trying. I'm two ways about that. The bands aren't getting paid for those specific records, but if you're a fan of The Cramps or Joy Division, you have all of the record records anyway. You just want more and why not? And so The Cramps, someone puts out the two radio broadcast as a double album, I'm in. It sounds great. And maybe some band's management might say, "Well, let's talk to that broadcasting company, do a licensing deal and put the real version out and tell the bootleggers to go pound sand." And so with The Cramps, they're just a fiercely loved band. 

You hear "Human Fly" and someone says, "There's 10 more songs." Well then stop talking and put the record on. You want more. And I'm one of those people. I want to hear all of it. And so I understand why a bootlegger would heed the call. I think there's two kinds of bootlegs. One's made by fans for fans, and that's where you see great liner notes. They went for the best quality playback. They stole a really good photo. It would look like Gravest Gravy. It would just look like someone cared. 

Then there's the people who are just trying to make money. They get dates wrong, song titles wrong, songs are cut off. And you just came from my money? I'm at the altar of rock and roll and you're burning me? Whoa, I though we're all friendly because that's just outright theft. 

The only t-shirts I've bought recently was one of the band Sleep. I buy Sleep shirts and I bought, it was Volume IV, Sabbath, but it was "LAMF,"  Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. So it's a bit of a mashup. I saw it on eBay, like 18 bucks. I wear blank shirts so people don't look at me because I don't want to attract attention to myself, but I couldn't because I love that album and I love Johnny Thunders and it's a bootleg, so I fed the beast. I'm so sorry. 

Public Record: Do you dig the new Sleep album? 

Henry Rollins: Yes. I wrote the press release. Al texted me not 10 minutes before you and I got together. They're on tour. He's sending me photos. It was his birthday yesterday. So he sent me photos of the birthday cake the band made him with an image of Tony Iommi on it. I said, "It's too good to eat, but eat it anyway. It's cake." 

He wrote me months and months ago, he said, "I've changed the lineup." And he told me and he said, "Keep it to yourself." And I did, of course. I'm good at keeping secrets, but I talked to Ian MacKaye every Sunday and we grew up with Bubba and the fact that I couldn't tell Ian, because he would be like, "Wow, from Void is in Sleep." I just was like, "What are the coolest ideas?"That's usually written on the back of a bar napkin, like dream lineup of sleep if you can't have... And you would be like, "Get Bubba. No way. Do it." And it happened. And the records, I liked the record very much, and they got a ton of tour dates, man. They're really going forward. And it was kind of gutsy to bring in two new members and keep calling it Sleep. 

And online, people push back and all those people have their say. But the Sleep name, it was just a lot of years in the making, and I guess Al just wanted to, that's the decision he made. And I don't know how much the band is talking about the old lineup and why things changed. I'll let them speak to that. I've been told everything. It's not my band. And so whatever's out there is what should be, and I'm not sure what's out there. So I'll just let the band speak for themselves. A Gutsy move, an amazing choice with Bubba. Dale's a no-brainer. 

Public Record: It's Dale Crover. 

Henry Rollins: I mean... Well, that's done. That's fine. And Bubba is just this fascinating choice. I never would've come up with that in a million years. Get out of it. That's nuts. I love Sleep. I love that band. 

Public Record: Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you, we're doing an event here on October 13th. Flipper is going to play and they're going to do an art exhibit. 

Henry Rollins: It's one of the best bands ever. Many years ago, I was in the band Black Flag, and we would play San Francisco a lot because it's right up the coast. We played there almost like we were a local band. We were up there all the time, always a great audience, and we would always see if Flipper wanted to open. We liked Flipper and Flipper was to us like Flipper is to everybody. Kind of cool, kind of not. 

And so we put them on the bill, they're getting paid, and they would go out on stage like, "Yeah, Black Flag coming on after us. What a bunch of rock stars. All they play is heavy metal now." We're on the side of the stage laughing because we're there watching the show and they're just ripping us. We're like, "Okay." Or they're like, "Hey, we just found this guy, he plays saxophone" and suddenly there's a guy on stage blowing into the microphone, driving everyone out of the venue." One night I think they played "I Am The Wheel" for 45 minutes and the crowd's like, "Okay, because you can." After the show's over, "We'll see you guys next time." We're like, "Yeah, I guess." 

And one time we were in front of Target Studio. I think we overnighted there. We slept on the sound stage. And for some reason, Flipper was there and Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowski, they are SST Records, and they're trying to see if Flipper wants to sign to SST. And I forget who was just ripping on him. Maybe it was Bruce Loose. "Why would we want to be on SST with all..." And he just ripped into... It's just brutal. And at the same time, it's funny. We want to be on a band with a label, some heavy metal band. Are you kidding? We're all laughing as they're just slicing and dicing Greg and Chuck. We're just taking it. It's just part of the, "You dared to speak to Flipper. What did you think was going to happen?" 

Public Record: It makes the Chilton situation sound positively peachy. 

Henry Rollins: Yeah, it's funny because they mean it, but the way they're doing it, you can't get angry. I got to see Flipper a bunch of times. I saw Flipper when I was fresh out of high school when the Teen Idols, Ian's band was in San Francisco. We saw Flipper when we only had heard one song of theirs, Earthworm, on that subterranean seven-inch compilation. They have more songs? You didn't know what it was. It was incredible. And then the singles started coming out and you're like, "Okay." And then we met Jello Biafra, who's their biggest fan. And he said, "Just whenever you can see them, go see Flipper." 

Of course we did. I've never seen a bad Flipper show. Even when they're trying to break the audience into pieces, there's just nothing like them. They're amazing. That's Flipper.  

Public Record: Oh, that's great. That's great. Well, Henry, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about record collecting and all this other stuff, and it's always been cool to get to pick your mind. Thanks for doing it. 

Henry Rollins: Oh, no problem. I'll see you down the road, I hope. 

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