Rollins Expounds on Four Coming LPs
February 15, 2001 -- Punk legend and workaholic Henry Rollins will be the center of four full-length releases during the first few months of 2001. He apparently wasn't slowed by the expiration of his contract with DreamWorks Records after disappointing commercial sales of last year's Get Some Go Again.
"They lost money on me, and record companies are about money, not about soul," he says. "Nice people, but … when you have a DreamWorksguy come up to you and say, 'Hey, man, are you going to tour on this record?' and you're already 40 shows in … that is record-company speak for 'You're already extinct at this label. No one knows you exist.'"
Rollins explains that the A&R representative at the label never even met the members of his band. "At the end of the day, everyone's happy. They no longer have their money drained and I no longer have a bunch of lazy senior executives."
He says that the label was gracious, however, in allowing the band to keep outtakes from the album's recording session — 65 minutes of which they will release this spring on its Web site as a limited-edition album titled Yellow Blues.
On Tuesday, Touch & Go/Quarterstick Records will also release Rollins in the Rye, a live "talking" album recorded during the spring of 1999 at Cafe Luna in Los Angeles. "I hate that 'spoken word' term," he says. "It just sounds like a gig I would never go to. It sounds like some substitute school teacher reading bullshit."
Also on its Web site, the Rollins Band will release A Clockwork Orange Stage — a live album recorded last year at Roskilde, the night after nine people were crushed to death. Both headliners — Pet Shop Boys and Oasis — had refused to play in honor of the deceased.
"The Pet Shop people and the Oasis people came over with their corny, self-righteous, 'Well, what're you going to do?'" Rollins recalls. "And we told 'em, 'Well, we're going to rock.' They're like, 'Oh my god. How can you?' I was like, 'Man, go back to your bus before you have my big American foot planted up your ass.'
"[That] was a total copout. They should have used that time to rock and uplift. Parents lose a daughter at a show. They will be consoled because four corny British rock stars didn't play? And demanded that they be paid? For some strange reason, there are Oasis fans in the world. And I'm sure there were some 10,000 of these misguided kids at Roskilde. And I'm sure they're not feeling all that great that someone was murdered by the human crush the night before. I can't see anyone feeling any better, like, 'Boy, I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling a little better because Oasis is not going to play.' Don't get me wrong — I felt a lot better that Oasis wasn't going to play."
Finally, the Rollins Band finished the basic tracks for a new studio album on Feb. 3 and plans to finish the album this month.
"So far, the title of the album is Nice because it's everything but nice," he says. "It's going to be extremely brutal. It'll make the other one seem like loping, whereas this one is kind of bearing down upon you and seeing what comes out of your cranium after the force wallops you against the wall."
The band has sealed licensing deals for the Japanese, Australian, and European markets and will look for a licensing-only deal in the United States once it is completed. "A lot of American labels, they only want you if they can own you," he says. "See, I don't need anybody's budget. I record myself."
One American label has already approached Rollins and offered a large advance for the album but only on the terms that it could "acquire" the work. Rollins balked. "I said, 'Well, this is one slave you're not getting a hold of.' And they freaked and they thought I'd back down. And I'm like, 'No, man. Are you kidding? I'll put it out myself.'"