‘Good to See You,’ Milwaukee: Henry Rollins Is Ready to Travel and Tell His Stories

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Photo: Henry Rollins - henryrollins.com

Henry Rollins

Henry Rollins

When Henry Rollins plans a spoken word tour, a travel component is usually critical to find interesting material to talk about. He goes somewhere in the word and comes back with an interesting story to tell when he’s on stage. That’s included trips to Antarctica, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. The last show he did in 2018 was in Kyiv, Ukraine, which he finds interesting.

“These are all stories I've told on stage, and I went, and I got back,” says Rollins during a recent phone interview.

However, for his current tour, he didn’t have that luxury due to the pandemic lockdowns. His “Good to See You Tour” draws mostly on his experiences during pandemic lockdowns.

“I had to come up with material that I basically generated from a single area code. And that would be the COVID era material,” he says. “Luckily, it had been a couple of years … I also have a couple of years of pre-COVID experiences from which to draw from. There'll be some of that in the show, but mainly it's stuff that happened during COVID.

“The show isn’t a long discourse on COVID or previous presidents. I think that’s kind of boring and well-treaded material. And everyone has an opinion, and they don’t necessarily need mine. And so, I’ve tried to basically hit them where they ain’t, to use a baseball idea.

“And so, I’ve been working very hard on this material. I absolutely had a whole lot of time to prepare it, and so I think I have a good set that keeps things moving. But it was probably the most challenging batch of material I’ve ever had to generate in a long time, because again, not having the travel, the ability to kind of go wherever I wanted.”

Prior to his performance April 15 at Turner Hall Ballroom, the Shepherd Express caught up with Rollins to talk about the tour, his many interests and how he motivates himself before a performance.

How does it feel to be back on tour?

Well, it's been a while. I don’t know what to expect this time around with COVID. This will be—It’s going to be something, that's for sure. I have a lot of shows lined up, and hopefully everything holds, and I can be on stage soon.

What are some things, hobbies, etc. you did to keep busy during lockdown?

I worked on book projects. I did a lot of animation voice work for Netflix, Nickelodeon, worked on my radio show, basically plotted and planned to get back out on the road again at some point.

I imagine it was nice to keep your creativity going like that.

I did the best I could. My life is much different now than it was before COVID, which is probably the same for a lot of people. And so being in one place every day has been a drag. When things were locked down, I was unable to change any of that, and so I just tried to make the best with what I had and tried to make it as productive as possible. And so, in that time, I had book projects, writing projects. And since I had a lot of time, I just threw myself into those. So, one book came out. One is actually out this weekend. It’s at the printer. I have to go pick it up. And one will hopefully be out in December. So, I did get a lot done. Books, at least how I do them, take a long time to finish.

You've done various methods of communication over the years from music to podcasts and written word. How has that variety helped make you better at communicating?

Well going out into the world when you can see how other people live, I have been able to bring more to the stage. The more I travel and see people in places where they’re going to have water and food insecurity for their entire life, where there is always the threat of war, when you see how people put up with that, and then you fly back to your life, my life, which is vastly different than life of someone in Madagascar or life of someone in South Sudan or Northern Uganda. I think it has allowed me to understand the human condition far better than I ever would’ve been able to understand it any other way.

Yeah, I can definitely relate to that, because I just went on a tour of Egypt recently, and that was a pretty eye-opening experience.

I bet. What part did you go to?

Cairo, Aswan, Alexandria. Around that area.

Yeah, I've been there three times. Seeing the Great Pyramid, it’s bigger than I thought it was going to be. And then the Sphinx was smaller than I thought it was going to be because only seeing pictures, nothing really prepared me for those two visuals.

What's one of your favorite early Milwaukee memories?

I think the first time I went to Milwaukee as a performer was 1982. And to my memory, I’ve never had a bad time in Milwaukee. I found Milwaukee types and Wisconsin types in general to be a very friendly, a very honest group of Americans. And as a specific memory, I can’t think of any. I just can’t think of anything bad that happened, which is probably just from doing so many shows. You remember the bad stuff. When your show was good, and the audience was fine, it’s kind of a transitory experience. When you get your tires slashed or you get punched out after the show, those experiences, at least in my life, seem to lodge in the memory more vividly.

But I’ve always had a good time in Milwaukee. Usually, I do Milwaukee and Madison. It’s kind of like a twofer. I do one on one day and the other on the other, and then I’m gone from Wisconsin. Sometimes on music tours I would do La Croix. There’d be like one or two others. Maybe, Kenosha in Wisconsin.

What’s some new music that you've been into lately?

There’s a new Guerrilla Toss album. I think they’re a New York band. Their new album is called Famously Alive. It’s really, really good. There’s a good band called Knifeplay. Their music is really good.

There’s a brand-new album by a band called Beechwood. It’s called Sleeping without Dreaming. And that album just came out. It’s really, really good. There’s a great band from Australia called Romero, and they have a new album called Turn it On. And that's really great. New album by Young Prisms called Drifter. That's a good one. A band called Negative Scanner. They have an album called Nose Picker. I wish they had picked a different title. That record’s really good. Mikey Young, the great producer-musician from Australia, the new solo record called Curtains, which is excellent.

So those are a few bands, new music. Oh, there’s a great band from Australia, Amyl and the Sniffers. Their newish album came out a while ago called Comfort to Me. That’s a really good record. In fact, I would go as far as to say they don’t make anything but good records. Very, very consistent band. Really great band from Memphis, Tennessee called Sweet Knives. They did an album called Spritzerita.

And these all can be found on Bandcamp. It’s all easily found music. And that band is headed up by Alicja Trout, also known as Alicja Pop. And Alicja did a lot of records with the late, great Jay Reatard, also from Memphis. And she’s prolific. She’s very prolific in her own right. And she has two records out this year, one solo record called Howlin', and then this record with her other band Sweet Knives, and both of those are excellent. I think they're both out now.

Do you have any upcoming acting roles that you're looking forward to?

I don't really like acting, so I get out of it as much as I can. I kind of lost my taste for it, but I’ve been doing a lot of voice work for different animation projects. I think I have some more work in Masters of the Universe, and then there’s a thing I just did for Nickelodeon. But since it’s not out yet, I can’t talk about it.

And then there’s another thing, I think for Netflix, and I can’t talk about that either. They make you sign these NDAs, and you really have to stick to them … I signed a contract that says I can’t talk about it, and it’s not cool to screw up a production by putting your cart in front of their horse. But those were fun projects, and I’m looking forward to them coming out. I like doing the voice work. I’d rather do the voice work more than acting work.

It must be satisfying being able to appeal to all ages with all the different things you're doing.

Yeah. It’s been fun so far. I feel like I’m just lucky. And it all ends. I mean, in my line of work, there's a used-by date, and then it's over. But for now, things are okay.

Do you have any plans to restart your podcast?

No. I wouldn’t say that we're never going to do one again. It’s just a matter of having the time to do it. COVID really wiped us out for the podcast. Heidi and I used to be, she’s the one I do the podcast with, we used to be in the office four days a week together. And so, the podcast, we’d come back from lunch, and she goes, “Hey, it's podcast time.” I'm like, “OK.” I'd set up the microphones, and we’d do it.

COVID broke up our office routine quite considerably, and we never really recovered from that. And so, as we’re now kind of getting back into the office swing of things, you never know. But with tour dates coming up, I don’t know the next time I’ll see her. I’m pretty busy till early June, so we'll have to see.

Do you have any music related plans?

No. I stopped doing music many years ago. Once it was over for me, once I decided I was done, I was done.

It seems like you're finding lots to keep you interested these days.

I do my best. I like getting up every day with something to do. Having nothing to do for me is really depressing.

Any future plans that you're looking forward to after this year?

Well, this year is pretty much blocked out with shows, and I’ll be touring ... Well, hopefully if my shows maintain, I’ll be out touring until November. And I have some time off this summer, and I’ll be editing a book which I want to put out at the end of the year. And so, when I get back here in early June, I’ll be doing like six to 10 hours a day working on that book pretty much until we're done with the final draft. And to get that one finished, that’s going to be a ton of work, but I think we can do it. I don’t know if we're going to get the book out for December. That would be pretty amazing. It depends on how much time I can throw at it this summer.

Beyond that, nothing. Two tours that were planned for this year got canceled, so maybe I do them next year. I’ll believe it when I’m walking onto the stage. These days when one tour after another keeps getting canceled, I think this is the second or third attempt at touring America. In one email, three or four months of your life just evaporates when a tour cancels. And you have to call the road manager and go, “Guess what? You’ve got no work with me.” Which is... You’ve got a family, and so there’s lots of bad news you get to call and announce to people. They're so happy about it. And so, I have stopped planning much that depends on other people because I have found other people to be unreliable. So, at this point, I just plan my own little projects because I know I’m showing up. Everyone else? I don't know.

Do you have a favorite pre-show ritual?

Quite often as a focusing exercise I recite parts of the Constitution and tracts from Abraham Lincoln’s speeches.

Why do you like to do that?

It just focuses the mind. It’s almost like a mantra. It just eliminates any other thoughts besides what I’m going to do on stage that night. I like to pace in the hallway of the dressing room area, and a little 1860, 1838 Lincoln. 14th Amendment is nice to pull from. Fourth Amendment is really cool, just to kind of engage that part of the mind. It’s almost like thinking while you're on a treadmill. The body’s engaged, so the mind is free. So, I engage part of the mind so the other part of the mind can focus on the show.