Posted in: Rock by Chris Schwarzkopf on April 16th, 2007 | 0 Comments
This is a by-no-means comprehensive account of Henry Rollin’s experiences from his formative years in the emerging punk rock scene to his current status as an alternative icon and the host of his own show. I’ve tried to highlight major events in his life.
Henry Rollins has done a lot in his life. It’s a safe bet to say that he didn’t have the slightest idea how far he would go one early summer night back in 1980 when he jumped up on stage at a Washington D.C. club to sing alongside the band, Black Flag. They were impressed by his impromptu performance and called him up a few days later to ask him to come to New York City to sit in with them at practice. They were looking for a new vocalist and wanted to test Rollins’s mettle in this capacity. After running through their entire play-list they knew he was the one and offered him the job. He accepted without hesitation.
So began what would turn out to be one of the most turbulent times in Rollins’s life. He had just crossed over into his twenties and abruptly severed all his ties in the D.C. area. He sold his car, his possessions, quit his job and moved out of his apartment to join Black Flag on the road. It was now summer of 1981. For the next five years the band ripped along at a manic pace, jumping from one end of the country to the other and back again, playing anywhere that would let them set up. They would leap across the Atlantic to tour in the U.K. and Europe and then back to the States again for more shows, performing in front of audiences that were occasionally receptive, but mainly abusive and sometimes downright hostile.
During this time Black Flag played shows with some of the premier punk and metal bands of the era, opening for the likes of the Misfits and the Ramones, meeting and hanging out with the members of these bands and more, like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the Bad Brains.
In winter of 1984 the band completed their tour for the year and Rollins retreated from the outside world almost entirely, spending the first five months of “85 living in a shed in a friend”s backyard, doing nothing but reading, writing and listening to music. Around this time he began doing spoken word performances. And he would emerge from time to time to go to a local tattoo parlor to have work done on a large design on his back: an ornate sun with a glowering face and above this, across his shoulders, in bold, black lettering, the words SEARCH AND DESTROY. A hard upbringing, teenage years spent working low paying jobs and now the harsh realities of a dirt poor punk rock band on tour had brought out the warrior in Rollins. There would be no more backing down for him. This phrase on his back had become his life’s philosophy. Search for what you want out of life and destroy any obstacle that gets in your way. In May of that year he emerged ready to go back out on tour.
