Henry Rollins |
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Mon. June 03.2002 12:42 PM EDT |
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Henry Rollins: Walking on Dry LandHe offered up his take on bigotry past and present... |
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Henry Rollins (Publicity) |
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Henry Rollins learned about racism the hard way, at the knuckles of white supremacists whose idea of a good time in the 80s was disrupting Black Flag shows. Since his early days as the singer with the classic hardcore punk outfit, Rollins has
VH1: What role does music play in recruiting for hate groups? Henry Rollins: Music gets young people together. Back in the 80s, white power groups used to be at Black Flag shows in the Midwest. Theyd hand out their newspapers with horrible drawings of black men with huge lips and Jewish guys with big noses and moneybags. They would come to a lot of punk rock gigs looking for angry young people going, Hey, youre pissed off? You afraid of your sister getting raped? Id be afraid to have my white sister walking down the street without protection. We gotta take care of this. Heres a card. Anytime you wanna hang, come on down, well have a beer. That speaks a lot to a young angry person who might not have a dad around to go, Hey man, you dont wanna go there. Its easy to recruit. VH1: Gigs obviously draw different groups. In the Black Flag days, werent there different types of skinheads? HR: Sure. In Chicago, you would have the S.H.A.R.P. guys - Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice. In the South, there were Budweiser slobs who just wanted to kick some ass and wouldve been better suited to a Lynryd Skynyrd concert. The most terrifying were the people on this nationalist agenda of Were gonna clean this country up and get rid of all the non-whites. They had this zeal that was damn frightening. VH1: How do you tell them apart? HR: They were really big, capable-looking guys, and there were always like five of them. They always wanted to engage me verbally. Those were the scary ones because they were into this thing about how right they are. The other guys who just wanna throw beer cans at your head, thats anywhere on a Saturday night in the 80s for a club band. You could be playing Barry Manilow covers and get that. VH1: These people arent your standard fans, why did they gravitate towards punk music? HR: If they went to go see Judas Priest, they might get their butts kicked in the parking lot by Priest guys who are pretty heavy-duty dudes themselves. If youre a skinhead and go to the Depeche Mode show, youre not going to get any recruits or play with the ladies, because they look at you and go "eek." If you go to a punk rock show, you might meet some people. The music might be aggressive enough. A lot of skinheads thought they liked Black Flag until they met us and saw that we werent into their program. VH1: What would you do if a racist skinhead stepped up to you during a show? HR: These guys would badger us between songs. I would go, Look at the gut on this guy. You wouldnt make it a day in the Marines, much less Hitlers army. Youre gonna have a heart attack if you keep yelling at me. Its like baiting a five year old. The downside of all this merriment is you have to deal with them after the show, and its never one on one. Its five on one, and theyre waiting for you behind a van. Once our soundman was dragged down a flight of stairs by his ankles so his head hit every stair on the way down. VH1: William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, said that he wants kids to use music to target their rage and alienation. Do you think white kids feel alienated? And if so, why? HR: Just because you are living in a middle class or upper class neighborhood, and have that easy income, does not mean that you cannot be alienated. Youre mad at everything: Im not getting enough sex, my mom wont let me do this, I dont have enough money to do that. Its all just mere mortal, young persons blues. To throw, Lets hate that group because of their skin color, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation, in with teenage hormonal rage is a volatile mixture. Youre asking for a Columbine. Thats true evil. VH1: One thing they say on their Web site is that white people are oppressed and need to stand up. HR: White people in this country have no clue as to what oppression is. I do not know what its like to walk into a restaurant and have the staff go, "Okay, skin color - dodgy. Make em pay before they get their order." My whiteness gives me credibility. I can look low rent, but with this white skin, I will get served. I never understood why rap guys wore the gold on the outside until I started hanging out with some of them. I realized they have to externalize their legitimacy. They have to say, see, I can afford my Grand Slam at Dennys because I have enough gold. Im good for the bill. VH1: To someone unfamiliar with punk music, racist bands might seem like a legitimate form of punk. Does it anger you that theyre trying to hijack the genre? HR: Lets not overestimate the sway these corny bands have. Theyre really bad. They got no beats, no chops, and just read text when they sing. Their music is like Jamiroquai. It sucks. At the end of the day, people go for better music, but these guys wont become better musicians. VH1: What about Ian Stewart and his band Skrewdriver? They accrued quite a following. HR: I was buying Skrewdriver records when I was in high school, back when they were just punk records, like the All-Skrewed Up LP. Brilliant album. Then, a few songs into Skrewdriver, all of a sudden you hear "Paki Paki, get out of my country." I still have those records, but I dont play them. Its a shame what that guy turned into, because hes a good singer. It makes listening kind of hard because you know what it turned into. VH1: Do you think the white power movement is broader or smaller than people think it is? Its probably smaller than people think it is. One depressing evening, I spent three or four hours going to as many hate websites as I could find. I think these get hits from the same four mouth-breathers every day, so the numbers of people checking in is probably deceiving. I hate to break it to all these racists, but their numbers are decreasing. Racism is not a human trait. You dont come out of the womb racially biased. Its acquired information. Now that we have more access to information, I think well get around the ignorance. Were going to lose the gills and the fins, get on dry land and start walking now. |
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