Henry Rollins, 52 Harold Mount

I'm determined that this project won't just celebrate dusty old feted figures. Henry Rollins deserves his place alongside Orwell, Gawthorpe and the rest.

He's best known for his music, but he also does spoken word gigs that are pithy, incisive, funny and bold. He has an outspoken and original social conscience.

And he was in Leeds at a formative time. After the split of his first band Black Flag he could have simply faded away. His time in Leeds at that crucial point in his life galvanised his resolve to continue.

Sleeve note to 1999 reissue of Hot Animal Machine by Henry Rollins:

===========

From 1981 to 1986 I was in a band called Black Flag. In late summer of 1986, the band broke up and I had to decide whether to stop or try to keep making music. Years before, Chris Haskett, an old friend of mine, and I promised each other that some day we would record together. We were both in DC at the time so I called him and told him that my schedule was suddenly extremely open. Without missing a beat, Chris went right to work and assembled a band: Bernie Wandell on bass and Mick Green on drums.

At the time Chris was living in Leeds UK and he headed back there because his gear and Mick were there. Bernie and I were to fly out when he got things set. It was a strange time in my life. I had grown used to being in a band, going on tour and being handed a schedule telling me where I was going all the time. I couldn't see ever making another record. Chris would have none of it. There was no doubt in his mind that things were going to go great and he really picked me up. In October I flew to London and took a bus up to Leeds and went to 52 Harold Mount where Chris lived. I had never met Bernie or Mick so it was strange at first but we hung out that night and it was cool.

We had practice time booked and both Chris and I had some song ideas. We went in the next day and started work. I thikn one of the first things we played together was Suicide's "Ghost Rider." From there we worked on covers that I had wanted to do and Chris showed us some of the riffs he had written,

From practice we would go back to 52 Harold Mount and eat. After that, Chris and I would work on song writing. Perhaps it was a grand combination of new association, excitement and a good dose of fear of failure, but whatever it was, we wrote like men possessed and came up with a lot songs in a short time.

Days later we were in Off Beat Studios and met what proved to be one righteous man, the studio engineer, Geoff Clout. He was basically assigned to us. At first he regarded us from quite a distance and a bit of altitude. He thought we were nuts I imagine. Not hard to come to that conclusion. The four of us were very intense in our own lovable way. Nonetheless, we got right to work and managed to record seventeen tracks in a few days. There was no one around, so Chris and I produced and mixed the record with Geoff.

Days later I was flying back to America in a jet lagged daze with the quarter inch tapes under my arm. The master multi-tracks of these songs no longer exist as I could not afford the tape and had to rent it from the studio. Days later, it was no doubt taped over.

Chris is the reason this record happened and it should be mentioned here that it was his hard work and relentless energy that put this thing over the wall. I was so confused and depressed after Black Flag broke up that I didn't know which end was up. Fortunately, Chris did and we ended up with this cool record.

The following April, he and I were in Trenton, NJ working with two people had had never met before, Sim and Andrew. The result was the Rollins Band, hundreds of shows and many, many miles under the wheels.

--Henry Rollins

[ This line-up released two records: Hot Animal Machine (credited as a Rollins solo record) and Drive by Shooting (credited to "Henrieta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters") ]