September 12, 2007 Music » Music Features

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Anger management 

There may not be music, but Henry Rollins still has plenty of motivation

By
click to enlarge HANK OF ALL TRADES: Henry Rollins.

  • HANK OF ALL TRADES: Henry Rollins.

Page 8 of 10

Right. You know, thank you for that because I still remember it 15 years later.

"Well, thank you."

Is that kind of the motivation for you doing shows and spoken word — or what do you hope the audience gets out of your show — music or spoken word?

"Well, hopefully, it's riveting in a way. Hopefully, it's compelling. With a talking show, I've had people come up to me and say, 'Look, my wife dragged me to this thing. She loves you. I'm a Bush Republican so for a lot of what you said my knuckles were turning white, but I see that you're a good guy. We'd probably disagree on everything, but you're really not part of the problem, and well, OK.' And they'll kind of grimly shake my hand. Or he says, 'I don't agree with your politics or whatever. You're a liberal douchebag, but that travel story was hilarious and you always make me laugh and think.' Well, fair enough. That's hopefully what happens — that you walk out of there going, 'That was cool. It made me think. I got off on that.' That's what I hope to inspire."

I've taken more than enough of your time, but I just have one more for you.

"Sure."

With all of these things you've done — all of the traveling and everything else — what's still sitting on your to-do list at this point?

"Uh, nothing really. I mean, I don't think I'm a director in waiting. I don't paint or I don't aspire to. I'm kind of in the present tense trying to fire on all cylinders, but there's nothing I'm gearing up to do or wanting. I don't want to climb K2 or something. There's actually a short to-do list, but it's countries I want to see. A lot of them — a good handful of them — I'll be getting to next year."

What are some of those?

"I want to do like those two weeks in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. I've never just been there. I've been in the area — Thailand — but I've never been to those three specific countries. And I'll be in Australia, I might be there fairly early in the year with a period of time off afterwards. I'll be able to go straight north and into those places. I want to go to Laos and go to the Plain of Jars and see that. I want to go to Phnom Penh. I want to go to the war museums and just go to these hot, sticky places. I'll be in Europe — I'll finish out my tour in February there. I think I might just stay and go to Moscow and do the Trans-Siberian Express or the Trans-Mongolian Express. I think the Trans-Manchurian ends you up in Beijing and I would go to Beijing and then to Shanghai and check that out. I've done the Trans-Siberian a few years ago, from Moscow to Vladivistok. It's like seven days on a train. It's pretty wild."

I did the Moscow to Leningrad one once.

"Oh, nice."

Years ago. It was an experience in itself. This was back in the late '80s when it was still a communist country.

"Yeah, yeah. I only got to Russia by '94 when it was like the wild, wild West mafia. I've been there five times and you know, a couple of winters ago I thought, 'Trans-Siberian Express. I'm doing this.' And I flew over there and I did."

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