Henry Rollins Report

Henry Rollins was born Hank Garfield on February 13th, 1961, in Washington D.C. After watching several interviews with Henry, I've picked up one thing that is common knowledge if you were born in D.C. And that is that you usually don't live there unless your parents have some sort of government job. And Henry's parents most certainly did.

He never specified what his parents did in Washington, he just said that his parents were very wealthy. When Henry was seven, he was sent to Military school for trying to destroy a tree in his backyard with his bare hands and teeth. His parents divorced soon after his enrollment in a Military school. Military school taught Henry to control his hyper activity by working out and working hard. When Henry was of age he was enrolled into public high school, he was prescribed a drug called Ritalin. This caused Henry to sit very quietly in class and grit his teeth. Henry averaged a 40% in every class except for English which he averaged a 103%. This was because he wrote stories in English class about shooting kids at school and blowing the school up in perfect grammar. His teacher would say it was really good stuff but not to show anyone his writings.

By the time Henry graduated, he was a manager at a local Haagen Daz ice cream store and living in an apartment in Arlington, Virginia. At this time, Henry was heavily involved in the local hardcore punk scene. This is where the legacy of Henry Rollins really begins.

While in high school, Henry met his best friend Ian MacKaye who also worked at the Haagen Daz ice cream store that Henry managed. After high school, Henry and Ian spent a lot of time at punk shows and playing in bands of their own when they weren't working. Ian and Henry were given a record one day by a friend of theirs. The record was the Nervous Breakdown EP by Black Flag.

Black Flag was a notorious legendary hardcore punk band from Redondo Beach, California. The band was formed by guitarist Greg Ginn in 1977. By 1980, they had toured all over the United States, with plenty of stories behind them of their wild shows. Henry and Ian loved the Nervous Breakdown EP. Henry has noted in one of his books that he played it every day. Some time in 1980, Henry and Ian planned a trip from Washington D.C. to New York to see Black Flag. Then they were going to travel back to Washington D.C. and see Black Flag in their home town.

While Black Flag was playing in Washington D.C., Henry made a request to the band. "Hey, can you guys play your song 'Clocked In'? I have to go to work soon." Dez Cadena, the singer at the time, replied with, "Yeah sure. This songs called Clocked In...and uh...Henry's gonna sing it." Dez handed Henry the mic and Henry sang the words. He stormed out of the venue after the song was done and marched straight into work. He did his duties for the day. But before closing up shop, he sat inside the store and had his eyes opened. He had realized that he did not have to be confined to working for someone else, day in and day out. He wanted to be the singer for Black Flag.

A couple days later, Henry received a call from Chuck Dukowski, which was Black Flag's bass player. Chuck explained that Dez would like to move to second guitar and they wanted to audition Henry to sing for them. Chuck asked Henry to come up to New York and audition where they were practicing. Henry sold his car, quit his job, got rid of his apartment, and took a greyhound up to New York. Henry auditioned and was accepted into the band. He moved to California with them. And the rest of Black Flag's history after 1981, has a lot to do with Henry Rollins.

During 1984, Henry had started doing spoken word shows and writing books. In 1986, when Black Flag broke up, Henry had started his own band called the Henry Rollins Band. From 1986 up until now, Henry has been publishing books, touring the world as a spoken word artist, acting in movies, and continues to release music. Refer to the many pictures below and videos to see some of his works.