"The American recording industry has groomed a nation of pussies," says part-time musician Henry Rollins with studied bluntness. "But I have the antidote -- I just came out of the studio last night mixing it."

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Brave words for a man of mighty froth and fury, yet relatively feeble commercial muscle. Since his pioneering hardcore band Black Flag imploded in 1986, the potty-mouth Rollins has released eight solo albums, which have sold combined what the Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty sold in its first two weeks. Now the self-professed "aging alternative icon" is taking baby steps back toward the Matchbox 20/Offspring/Green Day" pop culture that forsakes him every year.

Though he remains relatively tight-lipped about his forthcoming album, the rippling frontman says he did enlist the guitar-grinding aid of former MC5 axeman Wayne Kramer and legendary Thin Lizzy member Scott Gorham.

"It'll probably be the best rock album since ... well, since my last one," he says unabashedly. "It's definitely the six-guitars-blazing-per-song, rock & roll-Motor-City-madness kind of vibe."

The yet-untitled album won't get its due until some time next spring, as the multi-faceted heavyweight is pursuing his spoken word career. A crass stand-up comedian of sorts, Rollins will release a double-CD of live spoken word performances titled Think Tank and a home video titled You Saw Me Up There on Sept. 8. Recorded in part on his thirty-seventh birthday at Chicago's House of Blues, the album rages against stupid people, sitcoms, infidelity, discrimination and Lemonheads' frontman Evan Dando -- topics he discusses like a venomous longshoreman with Tourette's syndrome.

"As long as homosexuals are getting beaten up and fired from jobs, and women who dig women are being teased or stereotyped, we definitely need to talk about [sex]," he says. "But I draw the line at vulgarity. I say 'f---' a lot, and I shouldn't do that because it's lazy. If that's all I can think of to say, maybe I should go to the articulation gym and bench press some neurological muscle."

Rollins' NC-17 discourse appears to be is his only vice. He doesn't drink, smoke or use drugs -- poisons he says are unleashed on America "to keep everyone slow moving and stupefied so they don't put up a fuss when they are indoctrinated into the Bruce Willis movies." Perhaps excessive profanity makes you want to take roles in Keanu Reeves movies.

With music on the backburner and lots to bitch about, Rollins will roll through Europe, Australia and finally the States, tongue-lashing "motherf---ers like Orrin Hatch" as well as common annoyances like taxes, traffic and cockroaches. Further spouting will appear in Do I Come Here Often? (Black Coffee Blues, Part II), a book due from Rollins' 2-13-61 Publications this fall.

"I don't know what my appeal is -- I never have," he says. "Maybe it's just sitting in a seat and having someone else say that thing that you feel, very loudly in a very unrestrained manner. Unrestraint is an American pastime."

ANNI LAYNE
(August 18, 1998)