The record that worked as Ritalin for Henry Rollins: “Just grooving”
Henry Rollins might have a reputation as being one of the most intimidating frontmen in rock and for being a punk icon, but there are so many more layers to the man than simply being the totemic and overbearing figure he appears as on first glance. You certainly wouldn’t want to cross Rollins in the street if you were unaware of his musical output, and some might still use that as an excuse to steer clear of him, but there are plenty of nuances to him that suggest he’s not all that he seems on the outside.
As the frontman for Black Flag from 1981 to 1986, Rollins was an integral part of one of the most seminal hardcore bands ever, but in the years since departing from the group, he’s dabbled in plenty of other genres and become known for his spoken word poetry and stand up comedy. Sure, some of that is packed with aggression, but for someone whose entire image was built around being a domineering and threatening figure, this is something of an unusual pivot.
Once again, his work when in a musical context might appear on the surface to be riddled with hatred, but there’s more than just venom coming from Rollins. He’s an activist, and a genuinely empathetic man who cares about changing the world, not for his own image, but for the improvement of humankind. You can’t say that Rollins isn’t a man of multitudes, and that’s what makes him so endlessly fascinating.
As a child, he found himself becoming enthralled by all varieties of music, and his mother would regularly take him on visits to local record stores even before his teenage years to help him pick out anything that he liked the look of. Having been diagnosed with what is now referred to as ADHD when he was younger, his attention span for certain things was severely hampered, but when it came to absorbing as much music as possible, he’d be able to retain his focus for much longer periods.
One record he especially remembers picking out and becoming obsessed with was Isaac Hayes’ Shaft, as he relayed to Pitchfork in a 2019 interview. He’d mentioned the song of the same name to his mother before and expressed an interest in it, so during one of their evening visits to the local record store, they managed to get their hands on the double album.
“The instrumental tracks thrilled me the most,” Rollins recalled. “I had a wild imagination but no attention span. I’d be on Ritalin during the day, but in the evenings it’d wear off. So I’d go back to my wild mind alone in my room, just grooving on these records.” While it’s easy to imagine an older Rollins bouncing around the stage to far more extreme music, it’s a lot more endearing to imagine a younger version of the man feeling thrilled by far funkier sounds.
“You couldn’t take me anywhere,” Rollins said of his untameable hyperactivity. “But when you put the music on, the hyperventilating stopped. The crying stopped. Aah. There was nothing my parents could do to calm me down like the records could.”
