Does Henry Rollins have a lot of money?

Johnny Mnemonic: "I've always respected Robert Longo as an artist. And William Gibson was on the set every day hanging out, it was great. I played a good guy nerd. It was fun, I'd rather play good guys. That's closer to what I am, a boy scout trapped in the body of a hulk-necked maniac."

Heat: "What can you say when you get the opportunity to be on the same set as Pacino. It was great."

Lost Highway: "I'm a huge fan of David Lynch. We knew each other because we would send each other books. They wanted me to be in the movie but he said he had no money left. I was like: 'I'm happy to take out the trash.' Most of the scenes I was in were cut out. Most of the experience was just hanging out with David Lynch. He's a great artist. When you are around someone you so admire, you listen to what the man has to say."

Jack Frost: "I got the role of a Sgt. Rock type psycho hockey coach of a little kids team. John Rocker played Santa Claus. The kids all thought I was funny. After shooting they'd come into my set and ask me about music."

Desperate But Not Serious: "I don't know if it will ever come out in theaters but it was a lighter movie. I played a bartender. The movie was about these pretty girls trying to help one girl find the love of her life at some club. I had the funniest lines in the movie. I was the loose-nut bartender, getting kind of typecast here. I had the wildest lines. The set was eight blocks from where I live. I showed up in jeans and T-shirt and they were like 'ok, fine you're the bartender alright."

Morgan's Ferry: "Billy Zane was in the film. He wanted me in the movie, he's a fan. There was no audition and I went right to where they were filming in Cape Fear, North Carolina. The part was a redneck, psychopath badguy, one of three prison inmates who escape and take over a house and threaten Kelly McGillis. The director wasn't sure if I could pull it off. He was a little dubious. But about five days into it he pulled me aside and said I did a good job. I had to get naked in it and assault Kelly. That was tough. I'm a gentleman, and I was nervous before the scene where I assault her. I went over to her and said 'are you going to be all right.' She said 'we're actors, do what you have to do.' It was a stretch for me. I was shaking after it and she was like 'anyone have a cigarette.' She was great. I really inhabited the character. I didn't want the shooting to end. I think it was my best role."

House On The Hill: "I worked one day. The movie was about an architect, kind of a 'Fountainhead' theme. A guy who is 65 and says 'fuck 'em.' I played his artist friend who is in awe of him. It was fun because the character was a rich, megabucks, successful artist. It was one day but I worked every bit of it."

He didn't seem to have this problem when he was whomping on Lydia Lunch in The Right Side Of My Brain.

Colleen, thanks for the letter. Those days were intense but interesting to say the least. It is interesting to where and how the whole thing ended up being so embarrassing to see if you know what I know. I read interviews with these bands and they seem so soft and well adjusted, I can't see wanting to hear anything they have to say and when I do, it's exactly how I thought it was going to sound. I am, however, grateful for my place in history, which at this point, is all it is.

One of my mottos is: knowledge without mileage doesn't mean much. That is to say, book smart is nice but there's nothing like getting out into what Mark Twain called "The Territory" That's why I travel the way I do. Smarts to me is like pull-ups. I force myself to read things that are over my head and out of my reach. They aren't by the time I'm done with them, that's for sure. Look up the word autodidact if you don't know it already. It's one of my favorite words.

Have a great year.

Henry

I don't think these are in print anymore. I just looked at a T&G/1/4stick catalog the other day, and the only thing left by him on the label is the live Rollins Band record (however, oddly, T&G now distros 2.13.61). He is selling leftover 1/4stick stock for $5 a piece on his website, though.

Not always, obviously, but enough to be irritating.

Wait, what's wrong with my website?

I did, in fact, get kicked out of the brand new (& half filled!) House Of Blues featuring a KISS cover band called Mr. Speed in Cleveland on NYE. So, I've been like, doing that.

Was just there over the holidays. It totally rocks!

the thing that pisses me off more is that def poetry jams stuff...all the slam poets have this kinda canned cadence....sort of rappy but with big, portentious pauses and streeeetching out somesyllablesthenspeedingupagainfor a...biiiiig.....pause.

100% feedback, but then who'd be stupid enough to neg him.

Oh, thanks a lot. This place kind of gives me a headache sometimes. It certainly beats having a boss, fer shur.

I know Rollins was shelling out big money on eBay for Fall singles & Buzzcocks promo posters sometime last year. He also came into a store that I used to work at and bought a Fall bootleg video (which was sitting next to a Black Flag bootleg video) and said he really liked the Slates era. Later that day Biz Markie stuck his head in the door and loudly asked if we had any XXL t-shirts and then left when I told him that the only one bore the image of Bob Marley. My life is awesomely dumb.

The June 7th show has a fantastic Mark E. Smith anecdote.

Would you consider someone prepared to spend over $200 on a Lurkers 7" to have a lot of money?

My immediate reaction was FUCK ME, £112 ON A 7" BY THE LURKERS!, which led me to conclude that compare to me Rollins had A SHITLOAD OF MONEY.

Ha ha. This should be an article/byline in The Onion

I don’t follow LA real estate prices but I’m shocked that it’s not even doubled in value over the last decade.

It's mostly ugly as sin imho, but I never had any clue he lived in such a place. I thought he lived in that workaday one storey bungalow that you see in documentaries or on Heidi's video clips with wall to wall posters, vinyl and cassette tapes. I guess that's his office.

Great house. How did he afford it?

That eBay shop must bring in more than you’d think (and why everyone keeps seeing him at the post office)

XP Major Label advances in the '90s, man...

That is such an ugly house. Was that really the decor and furniture he owned? It’s so lifeless.

Great house. How did he afford it?

Hasn't said no to a gig since 1981.

That is such an ugly house. Was that really the decor and furniture he owned? It’s so lifeless.

I have a friend who describes her job as a “life and business coach” and she makes upwards of 15,000 a month.

Henry Rollins is also a motivational speaker of sorts and he’s pretty famous. Wouldn’t surprise me if he makes 50,000 a month or more just from doing speeches.

I just checked one date of his:

Huxleys Neu Welt at Berlin on Jan 22. The place can seat 1,600 people and tickets are €65. I don’t know how much the venue gets but that’s €104,000 for one date and he has booked 6 dates in Jan and 4 in Feb. I didn’t check the prices and seats for the other 9 venues but if it’s similar he’s selling 1M euros worth of tickets in 10 dates. Even if he only gets 25% of that - which I doubt - - he’s still making a lot of money.

gotta be staged bc the 'workout room' just has an elliptical and a stationary bike, and im gonna assume henry rollins' in-home workout setup is a bit more intense than that

If staged whoever he hired to do it has terrible taste. I think it would look better empty tbh.

(x-post)

...and he's taken away the 360 degree wraparound mirrors that enabled him to check the progress of each muscle as he works out.

I like the "drumming room"

There was a profile in Entertainment Weekly some 25 years ago of the star of "Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher," which was at the time the lowest rated show on TV (in fact that was the peg of the article, iirc). The piece featured him lounging at his pool at his LA house more or less saying "if this is what life is like on the bottom, I'm happy to be there."

No matter how much money the lad has he will always be Rollins innit. (do you see)

sold him a grouper record on discogs a few years ago but the address was a mailboxes etc

I don't begrudge him a cent of what he's earned, but that's a fugly house. When I picture him flipping records over, doing push-ups, it's in a garret surrounded by records not a wipe-clean chrome hell!

I don’t follow LA real estate prices but I’m shocked that it’s not even doubled in value over the last decade.

I don't think prices have necessarily doubled since '99... $3.89mm for that place feels OTM for me (not that I'm any real estate guru).

Am I the only person who watched his history TV show?

He has this anecdote about playing a show in DC with Black Flag and they were loading out in an alley and he's like HEY GUYS DIDJA KNOW THIS WAS WHERE JOHN WILKES BOOTH HID HIS HORSE or whatev.

Classic

> Most likely staged is my guess

Two exercise bikes as the sum of his gym equipment!

Doesn't he own about 7 million CDs?

homes for sale in la are almost always staged. it's dome kind of real estate agent truism. they all seem ugly but i guess it levels the playing field in a way.

I did not know Rollins was still filling 1000 seats for a performance in 2021

I need to start my real estate firm then, the bar seems awfully low. I promise my broke-ass student flat was more lively than that and that’s what this looks like to me. A 3M house that has the interior look of being rented by a group of broke students.

xp I saw him do what is basically standup maybe ten years ago and laughed my ass off, I'd totally go see him again

The house itself is not terrible, but that garage access (I’m guessing that’s the front?) with that huge concrete wall is really ugly and could probably look twice as expensive with some paint and probably some vines and wall lights on that ugly concrete wall.

Right now it looks like the entrance to some sketchy motel.

The kitchen and curtains of the living room are also fugly so I don’t think this is 100% the real estate to blame on the bad taste. I’d never guess this is the house of a celebrity or a mildly rich person by looking at that kitchen.

Surprising because Henry Rollins himself looks like he takes care of his appearance. My conclusion is that he doesn’t give a fuck about interior design.

Anyone able to id any of the artworks? One looks like a Ralph Steadman work from The Wall.

He has this anecdote about playing a show in DC with Black Flag and they were loading out in an alley and he's like HEY GUYS DIDJA KNOW THIS WAS WHERE JOHN WILKES BOOTH HID HIS HORSE or whatev.

That must have been at the original 9:30 club on F St. It was right around the corner from Ford's Theatre.

I watched his history show a couple of times. A couple years ago, I was buying weed from a co-op that operated out of a hotel room in the Washington Hilton and thanks to Rollins' show, I recognized it as the place where Hinckley shot Reagan.

Pretty sure at least one scene from Succession was filmed in this house

Lol well it could fit with Succession, considering the interior design makes wealth look miserable:

https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/succession/2021/11/11/22775852/succession-set-design-costumes-clothes-cinematography

A couple years ago, I was buying weed from a co-op that operated out of a hotel room in the Washington Hilton and thanks to Rollins' show, I recognized it as the place where Hinckley shot Reagan.

Well, it was a floating co-op. Customer would send them a text message with an order and they would send you a hotel room somewhere in the city to pick it up. For a while it was the Hilton. Since Covid, they'll just meet you on a street corner though.

I do like his KCRW show when I hear it, spinning punk 45s and so on.

xp I saw him do what is basically standup maybe ten years ago and laughed my ass off, I'd totally go see him again

same. total entertainment. i have been away the last couple of times he rolled through town, selling out 1500+ seat theatres.

i have seen him do spoken word 3 or 4 times, in SF and in Melbourne, always excellent

also staging aside, i think the aesthetic of the house is “Hank writ large”, open plan, concrete & minimalism … like if a factory loft was a house. would have loved to see how it looked w his stuff on the shelves since he’s such a book/music nerd

(in his old books he talks about how he just sort of lived v monastically in cinderblock rooms with just a bed & a weight bench, so this house is like what happens if that guy can afford to live somewhere bigger/nicer)

First thing they do to stage your house is empty it out and get rid of literally everything personal - books, ornaments, clothes, records. They replace all your stuff with a tiny sprinkling of their own stuff.
Here's a before and after:
https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2020/08/14/11/5.-henry-rollins-and-beatie-wolfe-by-ross-harris.jpg?width=640&auto=webp&quality=75&crop=1075%3A1613%2Csmart
https://www.dirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/HenryRollins_NC6.jpg?w=1024

:(

Where’s he moving to?

First thing they do to stage your house is empty it out and get rid of literally everything personal - books, ornaments, clothes, records. They replace all your stuff with a tiny sprinkling of their own stuff.
Here's a before and after:
https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2020/08/14/11/5.-henry-rollins-and-beatie-wolfe-by-ross-harris.jpg?width=640&auto=webp&quality=75&crop=1075%3A1613%2Csmart
https://www.dirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/HenryRollins_NC6.jpg?w=1024

― everything

Ok, it does looks way sexier as an actual bookshelf.

First thing they do to stage your house is empty it out and get rid of literally everything personal - books, ornaments, clothes, records. They replace all your stuff with a tiny sprinkling of their own stuff.
Here's a before and after:
https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2020/08/14/11/5.-henry-rollins-and-beatie-wolfe-by-ross-harris.jpg?width=640&auto=webp&quality=75&crop=1075%3A1613%2Csmart
https://www.dirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/HenryRollins_NC6.jpg?w=1024

― everything

Ok, it does looks way sexier as an actual bookshelf.

What do you do with all your stuff while the staging is happening, assuming you don’t have a new place yet? Put it in a warehouse or something?

(Storage facility, I mean. He’d need a double-wide, probably…)

We’ve probably had this discussion before on ILE somewhere, but:

“Get In The Van” is among my favorite books. If I dug that, what other of his books would I like?

He has several volumes of travel diaries that you might like.

(One of his many personal-essay-type books contains journals of the Rollins Band reunion tour, but I do not recommend this as a follow-up to Get In The Van - he just seems miserable about the experience in every possible way.)

Looks like literally all his books bar GITV and the latest (2020) of five volumes of notes and memories and thoughts about the records he plays on the radio are out of print, though. So try Stay Fanatic! Vol. 2, probably.

Great house. How did he afford it?

Aside from the spoken word tours, he's got a pretty healthy IMDB page and does a lot of cable voiceover work.