Henry Rollins on defining success | Hacker News Reader

Henry Rollins on defining success

thecreativeindependent.com

203 pointsbastian51 comments

When I was 17 I bought a copy of Rollins book "Get In The Van". I am no exaggerating when I say it changed my life. Before I read it, I was expecting to grow up, work, marry, and die in the small town I lived in. After I read it, I realized there was this whole world out there and it didn't matter if I had talent or even money. I just had to get up and do it. Work hard good things will come. It inspired me to think bigger.

When I turned 18 I moved to Los Angeles with nothing but a phone number in my pocket and the ambition to work in the music business. I landed a job at a recording studio aligning tape machines, setting up mics, and fetching coffee. I worked my way up quickly to being the head recording engineer there. One day I came into work and guess who was slated to be on that session that day? Mr. Henry Rollins. Will forever be one of the coolest days of my life. He was very smart, very kind, and had more energy than anyone I've met since. He took me out to dinner and I got to hear a ton of seriously cool stories about his punk rock days with Black Flag. I didn't tell him how much his writing meant to me. He wouldn't have wanted to hear it anyways.

I have long moved on from that career path (turns out that programming is more lucrative than working in the music business...) but I'll never forgot that day. It showed me that hard work and courage go a long way. Say yes and take chances wherever you can. Your heroes are just people like you and some day you might get a chance to meet them and work with them.

I've been a huge Rollins fan since I was a kid in the 80s/90s. Some unsolicited recommendations:

Favorite spoken word album: Human Butt

Favorite Rollins Band album: Turned On (live)

Favorite book: Black Coffee Blues

Favorite flag with henry singing: My War

All his spoken word albums released on Quarterstick records in the early 90s were great, and I regret losing them.

The great thing about Rollins and Mackaye is that they have always cared deeply about fans. When Fugazi played my hometown, it was 5 bucks, compared to 15-20 for other shows. When I saw Rollins do a spoken word concert at UNC chapel hill, he hung out in the lobby afterwards and talked to every single fan and signed my copy of black coffee blues. When I wrote to dischord to ask them about a dag nasty reissue, they wrote me a letter back. Looking back, how many kids like me were there? must have been a ton. and yet.

Sorry this is kinda rambly but I'm obviously a huge fan still.

Another huge fan here since the Black Flag days.

Rollins did a book of poetry in the 90s called "See a Grown Man Cry"...had a profound impact on me, and I've never run across anyone else who read it.

I've read it! Also "Now Watch Him Die". I still have all the original books from 2.13.61, including a copy of "The Demon" signed by Hubert Selby!

His tour with Selby was the best. Changed my life

Warms my heart to hear that!

"Alien boys, rock steady"

Anyone interested on the topic of creativity and the ways to 'channel' it, should watch this extremely relevant (and funny) video made by one of the members of Monty Python (John Cleese).

The points he makes and the relevance to anything creative makes this worth your time a x100 over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EMj_CFPHYc

Seconded. I actually included a few of his arguments in a talk I gave for writers on preparing for Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) last year. I didn't belabor his point where he said you need time, though, because, well, during Nanowrimo you don't really have time.

We have 30 days of time for NaNoWriMo. That's a lot of time! Can get a lot done in that amount of time, or get nothing done, depending on how the time is occupied.

My favorite things about creativity were Robert Rodriguez's book "Rebel Without a Crew" about making El Mariachi for $7,000. He is a total cheerleader for DOING THAT CREATIVE THING RIGHT NOW.

Also, Kevin Smith really hammered this home in one of his recent Q&As, but I can't remember which one. It was really encouraging and beautiful, though.

re Kevin Smith: this one, maybe? https://youtu.be/U7bGgSfaL9M

That was bloody brilliant, thank you!

So strange to read just one side of what must be an actual interview. It reads like some guy talking about himself constantly, at length.

EDIT: guys, it says "From a conversation with Brandon Stosuy" at the top. There was clearly an interviewer whose words were omitted, this isn't an excerpt from his spoken word or an essay he wrote himself. (it'd be funnier if it was)

It could just be one of his monologues. It sounds like it, actually. My favorite is when he talks about Iggy Pop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL-3wqN_YCE

Edit: Looks like this must come from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIMjkMr3N8M .

Sounds about right. I'm an old Rollins fan from his punk hardcore days in D.C. Some context would be helpful to this article I think. Talking of Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) and such, it's important to note that the scene was very much about positive influence alongside self-empowerment and promotion. Bands in the scene were entrepreneurial both in their songs and their existence.

Henry Rollins has a spoken word presence that is not to be missed, in my opinion. He gets up on stage with a microphone, takes a fairly aggressive and active physical stance, and just goes... for hours. When I saw him for his first stop on one of his tours, there was a bottle of water near the base of the mic stand that remained untouched for the entirety of the show.

While it may seem a bit jarring to read him going on, at length, it's sort of what he does these days.

"Knowledge without mileage equals bullshit."

The guy lives a very interesting lifestyle and a great deal of what he practices and preaches is highly applicable to the entrepreneurial spirit and existence. Pretty stoked to see him on Hacker News.

Also pleased to see Henry Rollins on HN. I've seen his Spoken Word on stage approximately 7 times - once in Norway, the rest in Australia. The intensity of his performances is always up there. Love that water bottle, it rarely gets touched!

"it's important to note that the scene was very much about positive influence alongside self-empowerment and promotion. Bands in the scene were entrepreneurial both in their songs and their existence."

I grew up in the punk/hardcore scene in the D.C. area many years ago and this statement definitely held true. One thing I noticed was that most of the kids I used to hang out with ended up being fairly high-achieving adults. Most everyone has their undergrad degree and many of them actually work in software engineering. Now when we talk, we talk about Linux, Python and C++ in addition to recalling old shows at 9:30 Club, Wust, and the Safari Club.

Don't forget DC Space and Fort Reno...

Is there a definitive history or record of how this scene was created, how those values came to be?

May be only one facet, but "straight edge": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge

I mostly remember the militant (and distinctly not positive) NYHC variant trickling down to Birmingham and Atlanta scenes in the late 80s.

Ugh I HATED Straight Edge! Henry Rollins also doesn't like the term Straight Edge. While I don't drink (Never had the desire and have a disdain of all drugs (Except non-pain prescriptions and caffeine. I know hypocrite) I am not straight edge.

Straight Edge really have a ton of different groups but the Militant Straight Edge ruined the word for me. I would see people light up a cigarette and then people would beat them up. They would smash cans of beers out of people's hands etc. Personally I loved eating a Big Mac and drinking a caffeine soda to see them think about what to do with me, which was nothing. (I was a pretty "Big Dude" physically and number of friends in the local Punk Scene and didn't let people get carried away)

Also NYHC was always violent and stupid. I was a CT Punk kid and we hated the NYHC crap that they would bring. Usually once people started throwing punches we would all walk off the floor and wait till they were done. If they tried to hurt anyone by running into them they usually got thrown to the ground, but not hurt them. They usually got the idea.

Rollins was always about enjoying life and working hard to make a difference.

Although I never read the book, this is Azerrad is often referred to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Band_Could_Be_Your_Life

Edit: only saw now that it is mentioned in another comment.

very much about positive influence alongside self-empowerment and promotion

But also about moral integrity and fostering a community. E.g. Fugazi would reject venues (and a headlining Lollapalooza slot) if ticket prices where higher than $10-$15 (IIRC $5 was the target) or when minors are not allowed. They refused interviews with Rolling Stone unless they agreed to printing an issue without alcohol/tobacco ads.

They took "don't be evil" to their hearts and stuck with it.

The DC scene can be a big inspiration for running your own business without betraying your ideals.

Fugazi is one of my favorites bands, and interviews with Ian are always very interesting. Not as well known as Rollins, but just as full of though-provoking ideas, IMO.

He was on JRE a couple weeks ago, and had a very interesting interview I thought. He talked at length about being put on Ritalin most of his childhood, which is pretty sad. But it explains a lot of how his personality developed, his anger and energy.

It's had me thinking because I've already had people bring up medicating my 4 year old son, and he's not even difficult, just an active boy.

here's the clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOqSQ4xuFdc

His acting also has that level of intensity. Watch He Never Died sometime.

I remember him talking about what he thinks about Hollywood in his spoken word tour. He never thought of himself as an actor, and never took his auditions very seriously. I still think he's a pretty decent actor.

EDIT: HA! Found this clip which is the bit from his spoken word tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlL8k84LNQ

I had a buddy go see one of his shows a month or two ago, same review you gave. Man stood up there and spoke intelligently for hours without pausing, saying um, and made sense while doing it. Never took a pause, never touched his water. Said it was thrilling. Sad I missed it.

That's how he writes. He's a punk musician turned monologue writer. He went on to do spoken word tours.

Great interview. My main touch points for Rollins are his music and some of his spoken word stuff from the 1980s; I did not know he has continued his high rate of creative output to the present time (I had a vague idea he does radio stuff but I don't follow it).

One point of context that's worth mentioning: In the early 1980s he was part of one of the most prolific small teams that ever existed in the music industry: Black Flag (Rollins, guitarist Ginn, drummer Bill Stevenson and bassist Kira Roessler) and their producer "Spot." From 1984-85 they released four full-length albums and toured incessantly. Even after the band broke up the individual members continued to produce, produce, produce. Rollins started Rollins Band and did poetry books and spoken word tours as well. Ginn ran SST records and did some other bands. There's a documentary about Bill Stevenson which shows how he kept up this crazy pace with ALL and Descendents and other recording projects to the present day. Roessler was part of a sound editing team that won an Oscar for their work on Mad Max: Fury Road. These people are incredibly prolific and creative in their own right, and when they came together it was a very intense period of output.

Anyone who is interested in the history of Black Flag and other seminal creative teams of the alternative/underground music scene of the 1980s (Minor Threat, Mission of Burma, The Replacements, Fugazi, Minutemen, Big Black, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Butthole Surfers ...) should read Michael Azzerad's "Our Band Could Be Your Life." He conducted some solid research and got many of the key players to talk to him, and the book is a great read. He made an observation that these bands were in many respects entrepreneurial ventures, albeit operating with only creative capital and bootstrapped energy. Quoting from his interview with The Paris Review (1):

The most lasting significance of the eighties American indie scene might have been the way these bands conducted their careers. The point wasn’t to play loud and fast; the point was to make the music they wanted to make, without compromise, to find and cultivate an audience for it, and to live within their means so they could continue to do exactly what they wanted to do and not be beholden to anyone but themselves. That’s really what the best indie bands today are emulating.

Also, much of what the bands in this book did was to make very unconventional music that attracted unconventional people—or maybe even showed conventional people a different mode of thinking. Not necessarily because of anything in the lyrics, but just because of how challenging and unorthodox the music was.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/05/19/michael-azerr...

His show on KCRW is pretty great https://www.kcrw.com/music/shows/henry-rollins. He has quite eclectic musical tastes, so it's a good way to get out of your musical comfort zone. Rollins has such a great energy and knowledge of the tracks and bands he plays too, it's wonderful to listen to. He is clearly passionate about everything he does.

"You better do it while you still have knees." Truth here.

I respect Rollins but a more useful and informative interview for HN and entrepreneurs would've been Ian Mackaye. That guys is a business legend for me.

Do you know of any good ones with Ian MacKaye? I agree he would be fascinating to read about.

Ian Mackaye was the first interview we did for The Creative Independent:

https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/ian-mackaye-and-br...

(TCI is a side-project launched by Kickstarter)

I'm seeing a few comments where people recommend their favorite Rollins material. I have a question for the group mind: what writings or performances of his stick out to you on the topics of Discipline and Work Ethic.

Those are two themes he touches on repeatedly and I've found a lot of what he says helpful, but his output is so voluminous that I've probably only heard a tenth of what he's published.

It's much easier to beat the 'writer's block' when there's a large,captive audience for your work.

Mercedes Lackey writes a lot about writer's block on Quora. Her position is that there's no such thing as writer's block, what people do is write themselves into a corner and their subconscious won't let them proceed with the story because every available path is silly or stupid.

The cure is to go back to the drawing board and figure out where you screwed the story up. The way forward could be as simple as introducing another character or as difficult as re-outlining the current story arc.

Huh, that's an absolutely brilliant way of describing it. I actually have an example of EXACTLY THAT challenge and solution.

My screenwriting goes in spurts. 7-10 pages a day for a few days, then rest for a day or two, maybe a week. I hit a wall in the screenplay I was basing on Enron + Robin Hood. Just around the Act I to Act II turn.

After two weeks, I got a print out of the last 10 pages, a pen and some highlighters for color coding, and figure out what was wrong. A couple sections in the wrong places. A dangling paragraph or thought. One afternoon, about 2 hours, and then it all felt right again. Went back to the routine and got it wrapped up.

hmm, I wonder if that doesn't explain the lack of a new GoTs book

that GRRM doesn't really like his options from where he is in the story

Citation needed.

If anything, most pop/rock musicians do their best work on their first records, when there's not any audience yet. It's the rarer beasts, like Beatles, etc that improve with later releases (this doesn't usually apply to jazz and classical, where maturity and experience matters more).

Besides, the idea of an artists having a writer's block because they have to follow a large hit, or feel pressured by their huge audience and the demands that entails, is so common it's almost a cliche.

I would agree with that, and it is a rare thing for bands to get better and not fall into that conforming pattern of what the label wants in order to generate money.

Its interesting to note that a lot of people parallel The Beatles with U2. U2 was always ahead of the curve in terms of music they were making. They were using EDM in their music as early as 1993 - years before other bands even began experimenting with it. Their Zooropa album had themes of electronic over stimulation and it was the start of them breaking away from their traditional sound - something they would continue doing until 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind.

Correction, they do their best work on their breakout record. Doesn't have to be their first. And the obvious explanation is regression to the mean, same reason you feel better after visiting a doctor.

This doesn't apply to Rollins and Black Flag. The work they did got better and better, more and more innovative, culminating in 1984 with the release of both "My War" and "Slip it In". Totally innovative records. And that's not to mention the graphic work/cover art of Raymond Pettibon. He's got a huge retrospective up right now at the New Museum in NYC. Amazing output from another creative workaholic from that crew.

J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell, John Kennedy Toole - these are just some of the great novelists who found massive success at their debut and simply couldn't repeat it.

I'm taking more about motivation and perseverance..imho, it's easier to keep producing writing/music/etc if you know there will be a market for it. I would be more inclined to find something new to say if I had 10,000 people waiting to consume it than if I only had 10 or so. But it doesn't mean the quality will be as good as earlier work.

> motivation

All new writers\performers\creatives have 0 people waiting to receive their work.

You don't need motivation, you need discipline. Write\create\whatever. It will be the only way to turn your 10 readers into 10,000 readers.

John Kennedy Toole doesn't really belong on this list. His most successful novel was published after his suicide.

Or, much harder to beat writer's block when there's a large audience waiting for more work. If the grip of "10,000 people are expecting X from me..." freezes you, you're blocked.

It depends on the artist, IMO. Some people are charged up by a large consumer base waiting for more work, some don't care, and some are frozen by it.

Best if you don't care -- per HR's discussion of Miles Davis. Sometimes Miles left his audience behind, but that was OK because he was being true to himself and his vision for his work.

Love seeing this on HN!

This video of him is fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkvEpoqFx6c

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