During a recent interview with WHPC, former Black Flag frontman, author, actor and activist Henry Rollins talked about his decision to permanently retire from his music career. Rollins said that once music stopped being a means for his creative expression, he didn’t want to pimp Black Flag songs on any kind of nostalgia tour. He also relayed a story of a 2019 holiday show with Cyndi Lauper where he was having a hard time onstage. Rollins said: “I will tell you right now what I was thinking on the last like seven seconds of my performance with Cyndi Lauper when we’re singing ‘Rise Above’ [at her 2019 ‘Home for the Holiday’s benefit concert] — ‘We’re gonna rise above, we’re gonna rise above‘ — I was thinking, ‘I think I am dying. I need five more lungs. I think my heart has never hurt this much in my life. Have I just run up K2?’ Oh, my God, the agony. And I’m in pretty good shape. And you know, I’m not 21 anymore. It is what it is.”
Rollins said a Black Flag tour at this point would just be a money grab. “I don’t want to be a human jukebox up there.’ Like, ‘Hey, kids remember this?’ And [they’d be] like, ‘No, my grandfather does. … And so, I think the only reason for someone of my age and stature would get together with people he doesn’t necessarily communicate with besides lawyers and go do a tour would just be for the money and it would be so nakedly for the money. You wouldn’t say, ‘Boy, it’s great that we’re able to dust these songs off and bring smiles to faces’ — dude, you’re doing it for the money.”
“And I know, that’s a dollar that I can’t spend — some money smells better than other money, and that money would stink. When my bandmates and I took the Black Flag music out, you know, for the Rise Above tour, you know, all the money got given to lawyers to benefit the West Memphis Three. The making of the record, the benefit album — I paid for [it, it was] my idea. That cost me over $70,000 to make that record, you know, we had to fly people around it, you know, just costs were incurred.”
Rollins fronted Black Flag from 1981 to 1986. Following the band’s breakup he established a record label and publishing company to release his spoken word albums. He formed the Rollins Band and performed with various lineups from 1987 to 2006.
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