Riffs, Rants & Rumors: Henry Rollins Hits 50

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For Henry Rollins, 2.13.61 is a loaded number. Being his birthdate, it means he’s about to hit the half-century mark. It’s also the name of the indie operation he started back when he was fronting Black Flag to release his writings and recordings. Since then, he’s reinvented himself many times over, as the leader of the Rollins Band, and as a multi-media madman adept at everything from acting to helming talk shows and documentaries. Leading up to 2.13.11, the punishingly prolific Rollins will be (what else) working”unleashing his manic monologues in a series of one-man performances.

So how did 2.13.61 go from a day on the calendar to a symbol of indie entrepreneurism? I was going to make a fold-and-staple chapbook, explains Rollins. This was 1983, and I was advised by someone that I needed to make a DBA [business name]. I just figured ˜That’s kind of funny. It’s gonna be one book, so it might as well be me, and that’s kind of a cool way not to say your name but to kind of give some information of yourself.’ And that was it. And then one book let do another and to another¦an old girlfriend actually made a rubber stamp, which is to this day the logo of the label. I said ˜Well I’ll just do my own thing, like Black Flag makes their own records. I was on tour with a band and I could put my two-dollar chapbook out there next to the T-shirts. I managed to make enough money from the first run to make a second, and I took that money and made my first little paperback¦as soon as you see your stuff in typeset in a small paperback, you really think you’re something. And then it’s off to the races.

Even beyond his output via 2.13.61, Rollins keeps up a death-defying pace, between his work onstage and in movies, television, and more. I don’t take myself seriously, he explains. I take the work with overwhelming seriousness. I actually say no to stuff, which is against everything I know, but I’m only one guy, I can only do so much. I’m working with National Geographic; last year I was in a big, crazy TV show, Sons of Anarchy. I do speaking dates all over the world, and I’ve written 27 books that actually sell all over the place, [and done] voice-overs for a bunch of different people.

Rollins’ new National Geographic duties include playing host in a couple of documentaries made for the Nat Geo channel, one about snakes and the people who love them, and another about the violence-inducing Warrior Gene, which Rollins says gives more fuel to the fire of the nature-versus-nurture argument, but this time it’s saying that there’s more nature involved in human behavior than previously thought. Personally, I would like to think that the way I am is derived from where I come from¦that I’m a product of all those tours and all those hard knocks that I survived, and that which didn’t kill me made me stronger, smarter, and hopefully with a good sense of humor. I’d rather that than ˜Well the way you are is because of that crazy gene.’ I don’t want any excuses for the way I am. ˜Oh he’s an asshole, it’s that gene.’ I don’t want that, I want ˜Well he’s a dick, that’s that.’

At the center of the birthday shows that Rollins dubbed his 50 tour, he’ll be playing his native Washington, DC on the big day. That’s where I come from, he says, and I thought it would be a nice way to kind of close the circle on five decades. The theater’s a few blocks away from one of the first apartments my mom and I lived in, and the National Geographic building was there when I was a kid, so I think it’s pretty cool. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to be for my 5oth birthday show but my hometown. It made sense. And how does the man who’s already been self-deprecatingly describing himself as an aging alternative icon for a few years now feel he’s changed with age? [I’m] horribly more mature, he assesses, and due to lots of travel and the perspective derived, perhaps a bit more sensible, less judgmental¦a bit more careful as far as ˜Well, let’s look at this, before we leap into it and see that we’ve made an awful mistake that’ll cost two fingers to extract oneself from.’

At this point in his life, Rollins is also definitively retired from music-making. I don’t want to be 50 onstage playing 30-year-old music, he explains. So I took a step that was fairly terrifying to me, I walked away from music. And I miss it all the time¦it sounds like I’m putting down people in their 50s who play music”I wouldn’t dare. I just don’t want to. There’s not a lot you could tell me about writing, touring, recording or performing that I can’t say ˜Yeah, I know.’ And life is short, I don’t want to have that ˜I know’ experience for two months every summer. Between writing regular columns for the L.A. Weekly and VanityFair.com, and his work for Nat Geo, Rollins is keeping his calendar full of fresh experiences, even without any rock & roll on the agenda. I feel like I’m just kind of starting out on things, he confirms, and that’s a good feeling.

Check out Rollins’ 50 tour dates:

2/8                    New York, NY                            Joe’s Pub

2/9                    New York, NY                            Joe’s Pub

2/10                  New York, NY                            Joe’s Pub

2/11                  New York, NY                            Joe’s Pub

2/12                  New York, NY                            Joe’s Pub

2/13                  Washington, DC                       National Geographic Live (2 shows)

2/16                  Los Angeles, CA                       Largo at the Coronet

2/17                  Los Angeles, CA                       Largo at the Coronet

2/18                  Los Angeles, CA                       Largo at the Coronet

2/19                  Los Angeles, CA                       Largo at the Coronet

2/20                  Los Angeles, CA                       Largo at the Coronet

3/17                  Harrisburg, PA                          Whitaker Center

3/18                  Philadelphia, PA                        World Café Live

3/19                  Pawtucket, RI                            The Met

View the full list of dates here.