E-mail a friendHenry Rollins
original airdate June 10, 2004
Henry Rollins makes music, acts, writes books, does spoken word performances and runs his own record label and book publishing company. After five years as frontman for the hardcore punk band Black Flag, he went his own way with Rollins Band. During the '90s, he toured as a spoken word artist, focusing on social topics and recounting his life experiences. Rollins is set to host a new TV show about movies, Henry's Film Corner, on cable's IFC.
Henry Rollins
Tavis: Henry Rollins is a Grammy-winning artist who was a member of the L.A.-based punk band Black Flag. He later went on to form his own band, the Rollins Band, and won a Grammy for best spoken word record in 1994. He's just back from an extensive U.S.O. tour in Iraq and Kuwait and later this year will release a DVD of his most recent spoken word tour called--get this...'Shock and Awe.' Here's a scene from 'Shock and Awe.'
Henry Rollins: In my time...during 25 years of being onstage, I've been asked to sign quite a few interesting things in my time, but never in my life has a man said to me, "Sir! We'd be honored here at the Bagram Air Base here in sunny Afghanistan, sir, if you would sign my bomb, sir!" That's never happened. So I took the Sharpie from the guy, and I walked towards this bomb, not knowing what the hell I can put on a bomb that's not thoroughly distasteful and disgusting.
Tavis: Ha ha. Henry, nice to see you.
Henry: Good to meet you.
Tavis: How are you?
Henry: Oh, fine, thank you.
Tavis: What did you think when you first heard the term--'cause I'm fascinated that you chose to when you first heard that term, what did you think?
Henry: Well, I thought it was a bit of grandstanding. I was sitting in a parking lot in Columbus, Ohio, watching the news on the bus, and I saw this guy basically do what looked like an ad for a DirecTV sports package. "We're gonna shock and awe the Iraqis, give them a light show the likes of which they've never seen before!" I'm like, it--it's a war. You're gonna have casualties on both sides. You're gonna have innocent life lost. It just happens. It's horrible, but it happens. Can we have a little bit more decorum? Can we not try and sell it like some kind of federated wrestling smack-down event? Can we just say, "We have to go do this," and not go, "Hell, yeah! Rrr! Monster truck Sunday!" And I just thought it's too bad that we're making it such a, you know, like, kick-ass event, where it's just gonna be a really horrible thing. No matter what happens, it's gonna be bad.
Tavis: So you're obviously sending a message here by then titling your DVD 'Shock and Awe.'
Henry: Yeah, well, actually, the title--I guess good taste doesn't allow you to give the whole title to your tender listeners.
Tavis: It's a family show, yeah.
Henry: Yeah, well, it's 'Shock and Awe, My Something Else.' Um...'cause I just thought it was really not the way the American military should be--'cause the world listens to everything we say, and they watch everything we do. And I thought it was not the best way to show the world what we're thinking, have this guy go on television and basically be a yahoo, you know.
Tavis: So tell me what you were thinking on your trip. I've got some photos I want to show here.
Henry: The U.S.O. trip I just did.
Tavis: U.S.o. trip. You just came back from being with the troops.
Henry: I was in Iraq and Kuwait. It's the second U.S.O. tour I've done. Well, I felt the mood of the young men and women I met--and I met several hundred of them in Kuwait and Iraq--their mood, they're just up, upbeat, and just committed, disciplined, focused.
Tavis: Upbeat still?
Henry: Yeah, they're just--they're young! They're not like you and I are. They're young.
Tavis: Hey, hey, speak for yourself!
Henry: They're 22, 20.
Tavis: Like I said, speak for yourself!
Henry: They get up every morning, their knees don't hurt. And they're just--they're ready to do it. You make jokes about the weather. It's like 125 degrees during the day. It's like, kinda warm in the summer camp from hell. They're like, "That's right, sir!" They're just in there, goin' for it. They want to go home, you know. The food's not great, and they'd rather be with their friends like you'd expect them to want to be. But I didn't hear anyone going...
Tavis: You brought some photos back, and I want to show at least 4 of them. Let me run through them one at a time and ask you for--you do the--
Henry: That's me standing in front of 2 crews of young men and women who operate the 2 Black Hawk helicopters that we traveled from base to base with. I'm in the lead Black Hawk riding with the U.S.O. representative and my road manager Mike, and we have a guard Black Hawk behind us kind of covering us. And that's the combined crews of both. And, uh, very capable people.
Tavis: All right.
Henry: That's Saddam's throne, which is now kind of a tourist--
Tavis: This is the actual--
Henry: Yeah. And if you go online and just type in "Saddam's throne," you'll see Marines and army guys sitting in that very throne covered with plaster dust as they came in through the door.
Tavis: So what'd it feel like?
Henry: It's just chintzy furniture. He has horrible taste in furniture. I went to a couple of his houses, and it's the worst furniture you've ever seen. But anyway, that's his throne, and it's in the lobby. And you can just kind of sit in it. It's a photo op now.
Tavis: Wow. All right. Fair enough.
Henry: That is, uh, that's, uh, outside of--
Tavis: That's wreckage.
Henry: Yeah. That's coming out of Kuwait City. That's in Kuwait. We were on our way to the Udari base, I believe, in Kuwait. And that's part of the highway of death. During Desert Storm, as you know, the Iraqis were exiting out of Kuwait City with as much loot as they could grab, and American forces saw this as a threat of them regrouping later, so they said--Schwarzkopf said let's just take out this whole artery of traffic. And that's the wreckage that, over a decade later, is still kind of sitting there blanching in the sun.
Tavis: It's like an outdoor museum.
Henry: It's kind of surreal, 'cause it's dead silent, you can fry an egg on the hood of the car, and there's just acres and acres, tens of thousands of vehicles. It was crazy.
Tavis: This photo here? That was the last one--oh, the same.
Henry: They were just 2 different photos of the same thing. I took a lot of photos of that just knowing people back home would not believe me when I said I saw tens of thousands, like acres of vehicles. They'd go, "Yeah, sure." I'd go, "No, look!" And I just took every photo I could.
Tavis: Tell me how you got so passionate about this U.S.O. tour that you've been on a couple of times now.
Henry: Well, the U.S.O. came to me last year and said would you go out and meet the troops? I said absolutely 'cause I hate the war. I have a lot of disagreements with the current administration. There's a lot of questions I'd like answered by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld--
Tavis: Stop, stop, stop, stop. What do you make of the fact that the U.S.O. would ask someone who is so openly opposed to this war to go and to boost the morale of the troops? You don't even believe in those guys being there.
Henry: Well, I don't believe in them being there, but once they're there, they're my countrymen there.
Tavis: But is U.S.O. scared that since you were opposed to the war, that you might say something that would make Mr. Bush angry?
Henry: Well, I had manager, boy--I said, "you better call the U.S.O. back and you better get someone from the U.S.O. to talk to me," 'cause I don't want them--I want them to know what they're getting. And I met this wonderful woman Tracy, and I said, "Ma'am, I have a lot of problems with the administration." She goes, "what's your take on the troops, though?" I go, "Them--I love them. They're my heroes." She goes, "Then you'll be fine 'cause they dig you, and you dig them." And I said OK because I have a problem with the war, but not the troops. And I have gotten a bit of flak from making a distinction there. Some people say there's no distinction.
Tavis: How do you make that distinction?
Henry: Because the troops go where they're told. The troops would probably all rather be in Miami on a surfboard or having fun with their friends, but they signed up for this job, and this month, the job is Iraq or Djibouti, Africa, or Afghanistan or Pakistan or wherever the employment is, and they have to go. It's not like they can say, "oh, I'd rather--can I just do it from my backyard?" Ya gotta go where they tell ya to go, so they're all there doing their job. I support that bravery. Um, the war in Iraq is not easily discussed in any kind of time frame. There's a lot going on as everyone knows, but my support of the troops is unwavering.
Tavis: Now you're off to Honduras on another one of these--
Henry: Yeah, next month, I'm going to Honduras.
Tavis: Do we still have folk in Honduras?
Henry: We're fighting the drug war down there.
Tavis: We are?
Henry: Yeah, and there's one base down there in the middle of some pretty hostile jungle. Apparently, there's about 500 guys down there. They've had no U.S.O for 2 years. No one will go down there.
Tavis: I was about to say if you hadn't told me we still had folk in Honduras fighting the so-called war on drugs, I would not have even known this.
Henry: Right, well, personally, I hate drugs. I never did 'em. I hate 'em. I hate Americans doin' 'em. I hate America's youth does them--
Tavis: But you're in a rock band.
Henry: Well, I know, and I have tattoos and a mouth like a sailor, but it's just a bad idea. Anyway, I want to go down there and meet people who are trying to stop that traffic, and also the U.S.O. rep said, "No one goes down there." They haven't had U.S.O. down there for 2 years. They're dyin', you know, they're starving for someone to come down and make 'em smile. I went, "Sign me up. I'll do it," and they said, "Really?" I went, "Yeah." They said, "Think about it for a week." I said, "I'm not gonna think about it. Sign me up right now," so I'm leaving July 27, I believe, um, and they apparently have heard that I am coming down. Their tails are wagging.
Tavis: You ever get frightened, particularly on a trip like this? I mean, Honduras, in the middle of a drug war, it ain't Malibu Beach.
Henry: No, I'm not frightened, not 'cause I'm Mr. brave guy, 'cause I'm not, actually, and I'm not armed. I don't have a gun, but I really trust those people. If they say, "Sir, you're safe here," I'm like, "OK." You're also wearing a flak vest and--
Tavis: And all the guys around you have weapons.
Henry: Yeah, and like, every place I went in Iraq, they said, "Sir, you're safe here." I go, "Pal, if you're not freakin' out, I'm not freakin' out."
Tavis: I've got about 15, 20 seconds left. Tell me what the best part is for you of being able to see these troops face to face while they're serving their country.
Henry: They say, "Henry--" they call you "sir," but you beg 'em to call you Henry. They go, "Seeing you has made my month. You made my year. It means so much that you came all the way out here. Thank you," and all I need to hear is that, and I'm signed up for another tour.
Tavis: Well, sir, you made my month, you made my year by coming by to see me.
Henry: Thank you.
Tavis: So thank you for comin' on. Nice to meet you. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio, on National Public Radio, and I will see you back here next time on PBS, and until then, we thank Henry Rollins for coming on, we thank Clifford Alexander for coming on, and thank you for watching. Good night from L.A. And, as always, keep the faith.
Back to June 10, 2004