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Henry Rollins

Henry Lawrence Garfield (born February 13, 1961), known professionally as Henry Rollins, is an American singer, writer, spoken word artist, actor, and presenter. After performing in the short-lived hardcore punk band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the California hardcore band Black Flag from 1981 to 1986. Following the band's breakup, he established the record label and publishing company 2.13.61 to release his spoken word albums, and formed the Rollins Band, which toured with a number of lineups from 1987 to 2003 and in 2006.

Rollins has hosted numerous radio shows, such as Harmony in My Head on Indie 103, and television shows such as The Henry Rollins Show and 120 Minutes. He had recurring dramatic roles in the second season of Sons of Anarchy as A.J. Weston, in the final 2 seasons of the animated series The Legend of Korra as Zaheer, and has also had roles in several films. He has campaigned for various political causes in the United States, including the promotion of gay rights, World Hunger Relief, the West Memphis Three, and an end to all war. He currently hosts a weekly radio show on KCRW, is a regular columnist for Rolling Stone Australia, and was a regular columnist for LA Weekly.

Early life
Rollins was born Henry Lawrence Garfield in Washington, D.C., on February 13, 1961, the only child of Iris and Paul Garfield. His mother is of Irish descent, and his father was from a Jewish family. Rollins's paternal great-grandfather, Henach Luban, fled to the U.S. from Rēzekne, Latvia, (then part of the Russian Empire) and changed his first name to Henry. When Rollins was three years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in the Washington neighborhood of Glover Park. As a child and teenager, Rollins was sexually assaulted, and he suffered from depression and low self-esteem. In fourth grade, he was diagnosed with hyperactivity and took Ritalin for several years to focus during school.

Rollins attended The Bullis School, then an all-male preparatory school in Potomac, Maryland. According to Rollins, the school helped him to develop a sense of discipline and a strong work ethic. It was at Bullis that he began writing. After high school, he attended American University in Washington for one semester, but dropped out in December 1979. He began working minimum-wage jobs, including a job as a courier for kidney samples at the National Institutes of Health. In 1987, he said that he had not seen his father since the age of 18, and, in 2019, wrote, "What my father thinks of me, or if he is still alive, I have no idea."

State of Alert
Initially into hard rock acts like Van Halen and Ted Nugent, Rollins soon developed an interest in punk with his friend Ian MacKaye.

"'We wanted something that just kicked ass,' he says. 'Then one of us, probably Ian, got the Sex Pistols record. I remember hearing that and thinking 'Well, that's something. This guy is pissed off, those guitars are rude.' What a revelation!"

From 1979 to 1980, Rollins was working as a roadie for D.C. bands, including Teen Idles. When the band's singer, Nathan Strejcek, failed to appear for practice sessions, Rollins convinced the Teen Idles to let him sing. Word of Rollins's ability spread around the punk rock scene in Washington D.C.; Bad Brains singer H.R. would sometimes have Rollins on stage to sing with him. In 1980, the Washington punk band the Extorts lost their frontman Lyle Preslar to Minor Threat. Rollins joined the other members of the band and formed State of Alert (S.O.A.) and became its frontman and vocalist. He put words to the band's five songs and wrote several more. S.O.A. recorded their sole EP, No Policy, and released it in 1981 on MacKaye's Dischord Records.

Around April 1981, drummer Simon Jacobsen was replaced by Ivor Hanson. At the time, Hanson's father was a top admiral in the U.S. Navy and his family shared living quarters with the U.S. vice president at the Naval Observatory. The band held their practices there and would have to be let in by Secret Service agents.

S.O.A. disbanded after a total of a dozen concerts and one EP. Rollins had enjoyed being the band's frontman, and had earned a reputation for fighting in shows. He later said, "I was like nineteen and a young man all full of steam and loved to get in the dust-ups." By this time, Rollins had become the assistant manager of the Georgetown Häagen-Dazs ice cream store; his steady employment had helped to finance the S.O.A. EP.

Black Flag
In 1980, a friend gave Rollins and MacKaye a copy of Black Flag's Nervous Breakdown EP. Rollins soon became a fan of the band, exchanging letters with bassist Chuck Dukowski and later inviting the band to stay in his parents' home when Black Flag toured the East Coast in December 1980. When Black Flag returned to the East Coast in 1981, Rollins attended as many of their concerts as he could. At an impromptu show in a New York bar, Black Flag's vocalist Dez Cadena allowed Rollins to sing "Clocked In", a song Rollins had asked the band to play in light of the fact that he had to drive back to Washington, D.C., to begin work.

Unbeknownst to Rollins, Cadena wanted to switch to guitar, and the band was looking for a new vocalist. The band was impressed with Rollins's singing and stage demeanor, and the next day, after a semi-formal audition at Tu Casa Studio in New York City, they asked him to become their permanent vocalist. Despite some doubts, he accepted, in part because of MacKaye's encouragement. His high level of energy and intense personality suited the band's style, but Rollins's diverse tastes in music were a key factor in his being selected as singer; Black Flag's founder Greg Ginn was growing restless creatively and wanted a singer who was willing to move beyond simple, three-chord punk.

After joining Black Flag in 1981, Rollins quit his job at Häagen-Dazs, sold his car, and moved to Los Angeles. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Rollins got the Black Flag logo tattooed on his left bicep and also on the back of his neck, chose the stage name of Rollins, a surname he and MacKaye had used as teenagers. Rollins played his first show with Black Flag on July 25, 1981, at Cuckoo's Nest in Costa Mesa, California. Rollins was in a different environment in Los Angeles; the police soon realized he was a member of Black Flag, and he was hassled as a result. Rollins later said: "That really scared me. It freaked me out that an adult would do that. ... My little eyes were opened big time."

Before concerts, as the others of the band tuned up, Rollins would stride about the stage dressed only in a pair of black shorts, grinding his teeth; to focus before the show, he would squeeze a pool ball. His stage persona impressed several critics; after a 1982 show in Anacortes, Washington, Sub Pop critic Calvin Johnson wrote: "Henry was incredible. Pacing back and forth, lunging, lurching, growling; it was all real, the most intense emotional experiences I have ever seen."

By 1983, Rollins's stage persona was increasingly alienating him from the rest of Black Flag. During a show in England, Rollins assaulted a member of the audience who attacked Ginn; Ginn later scolded Rollins, calling him a "macho asshole". A legal dispute with Unicorn Records held up further Black Flag releases until 1984, and Ginn was slowing the band's tempo down so that they would remain innovative. In August 1983, guitarist Dez Cadena had left the band; a stalemate lingered between Dukowski and Ginn, who wanted Dukowski to leave, before Ginn fired Dukowski outright. 1984's heavy metal music-influenced My War featured Rollins screaming and wailing throughout many of the songs; the band's members also grew their hair to confuse the band's hardcore punk audience.

Black Flag's change in musical style and appearance alienated many of their original fans, who focused their displeasure on Rollins by punching him in the mouth, stabbing him with pens, or scratching him with their nails, among other things. He often fought back, frequently dragging audience members on stage and assaulting them. During a Black Flag concert, Rollins repeatedly punched a fan in the face who had continuously reached for his microphone. Rollins became increasingly alienated from the audience; in his tour diary, Rollins wrote "When they spit at me, when they grab at me, they aren't hurting me. When I push out and mangle the flesh of another, it's falling so short of what I really want to do to them." During the Unicorn legal dispute, Rollins had started a weight-lifting program, and by their 1984 tours, he had become visibly well-built; journalist Michael Azerrad later commented that "his powerful physique was a metaphor for the impregnable emotional shield he was developing around himself." Rollins has since replied that "no, the training was just basically a way to push myself."

Rollins Band and solo releases
Before Black Flag disbanded in August 1986, Rollins had already toured as a solo spoken-word artist. He released two solo records in 1987, Hot Animal Machine, a collaboration with guitarist Chris Haskett, and Drive by Shooting, recorded as "Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters"; Rollins also released his second spoken word album, Big Ugly Mouth, in the same year. Along with Haskett, Rollins soon added Andrew Weiss and Sim Cain, both former members of Ginn's side-project Gone, and called the new group Rollins Band. The band toured relentlessly, and their 1987 debut album, Life Time, was quickly followed by the outtakes and live collection Do It. The band continued to tour throughout 1988; in 1989 another Rollins Band album, Hard Volume, was released. Another live album, Turned On, and another spoken word release, Live at McCabe's, followed in 1990.

In 1991, the Rollins Band signed a distribution deal with Imago Records and appeared at the Lollapalooza festival; both improved the band's presence. However, in December 1991, Rollins and his best friend Joe Cole were accosted by two armed robbers outside Rollins's home. Cole was murdered by a gunshot to the head; Rollins escaped without injury but police suspected him in the murder and detained him for ten hours. Although traumatized by Cole's death, as chronicled in his book Now Watch Him Die, Rollins continued to release new material; the spoken-word album Human Butt appeared in 1992 on his own record label, 2.13.61. The Rollins Band released The End of Silence, Rollins's first charting album.

The following year, Rollins released a spoken-word double album, The Boxed Life. The Rollins Band embarked upon the End of Silence tour; bassist Weiss was fired toward its end, and replaced by funk and jazz bassist Melvin Gibbs. According to critic Steve Huey, 1994 was Rollins's "breakout year". The Rollins Band appeared at Woodstock 94 and released Weight, which ranked on the Billboard Top 40. Rollins released Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag, a double-disc set of him reading from his Black Flag tour diary of the same name; he won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording as a result. Rollins was named 1994's "Man of the Year" by the American men's magazine Details and became a contributing columnist to the magazine. With the increased exposure, Rollins made several appearances on American music channels MTV and VH1 around this time, and made his Hollywood film debut in 1994 in The Chase playing a police officer.

In 1995, the Rollins Band's record label, Imago Records, declared itself bankrupt. Rollins began focusing on his spoken word career. He released Everything, a recording of a chapter of his book Eye Scream with free jazz backing, in 1996. He continued to appear in various films, including Heat, Johnny Mnemonic and Lost Highway. The Rollins Band signed to Dreamworks Records in 1997 and soon released Come In and Burn, but it did not receive as much critical acclaim as their previous material. Rollins continued to release spoken-word book readings, releasing Black Coffee Blues in the same year. In 1998, Rollins released Think Tank, his first set of non-book-related spoken material in five years.

By 1998, Rollins felt that the relationship with his backing band had run its course, and the line-up disbanded. He had produced a Los Angeles hard rock band called Mother Superior, and invited them to form a new incarnation of the Rollins Band. Their first album, Get Some Go Again, was released two years later. The Rollins Band released several more albums, including 2001's Nice and 2003's Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three. After 2003, the band became inactive as Rollins focused on radio and television work. During a 2006 appearance on Tom Green Live!, Rollins stated that he "may never do music again", a feeling which he reiterated in 2011 when talking to Trebuchet magazine. In an interview with Culture Brats, Rollins admitted he had sworn off music for good – "... and I must say that I miss it every day. I just don't know honestly what I could do with it that's different." On the same topic, Rollins more recently said in 2016 "For me, music was a time and a place. I never really enjoyed being in a band. It was in me and it needed to come out, like a 25-year exorcism. One day, I woke up, and I didn't have any more lyrics. I just had nothing to contribute to the form, and I was done with band practice and traveling in groups."

Rollins is a guest star on Damian Cowell's 2017 album Get Yer Dag On!

Musical style
As a vocalist, Rollins has adopted a number of styles through the years. He was noted in the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene for what journalist Michael Azerrad described as a "compelling, raspy howl". With State of Alert, Rollins "spat out the lyrics like a bellicose auctioneer." He adopted a similar style after joining Black Flag in 1981. By their album Damaged, however, Black Flag began to incorporate a swing beat into their style. Rollins then abandoned his State of Alert "bark" and adopted the band's swing. Rollins later explained: "What I was doing kind of matched the vibe of the music. The music was intense and, well, I was as intense as you needed."

In both incarnations of the Rollins Band, Rollins combined spoken word with his traditional vocal style in songs such as "Liar" (the song begins with a one-minute spoken diatribe by Rollins), barked his way through songs (such as "Tearing" and "Starve"), and employed the loud-quiet dynamic. Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis names Rollins a "screeching hate machine" and his "hallmark" as "the sheets-of-sound assault".

With the Rollins Band, his lyrics focused "almost exclusively on issues relating to personal integrity", according to critic Geoffrey Welchman.

As producer
In the 1980s, Rollins produced an album of acoustic songs for convict Charles Manson titled Completion. The record was supposed to be released by SST Records, but the project was canceled because the label received death threats for working with Manson. Only five test presses of Completion were pressed, two of which remain in Rollins's possession.

In 1995, Rollins produced Australian hard rock band the Mark of Cain's third full-length album Ill at Ease.

Television
As Rollins rose to prominence with the Rollins Band, he began to present and appear on television. These included Alternative Nation and MTV Sports in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Rollins also co-starred in The Chase with Charlie Sheen. In 1995 Rollins appeared on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries that explored the murder of his best friend Joe Cole and presented State of the Union Undressed on Comedy Central. Rollins began to present and narrate VH1 Legends in 1996. Rollins, busy with the Rollins Band, did not present more programs until 2001, but made appearances on a number of other television shows, including Welcome to Paradox in 1998 in the episode "All Our Sins Forgotten", as a therapist who develops a device that can erase the bad memories of his patients. Rollins also voiced Mad Stan in Batman Beyond in 1999 and 2000.

Rollins was a host of film review programme Henry's Film Corner on the Independent Film Channel, before presenting the weekly The Henry Rollins Show on the channel. The Henry Rollins Show is now being shown weekly on Film24 along with Henry Rollins Uncut. The show also lead to a promotional tour in Europe that led to Rollins being dubbed a "bad boy goodwill ambassador" by a NY reviewer. He also hosted Fox's short-lived 2001 horror anthology series Night Visions. The show's creators wanted Gary Oldman to host this show, but Fox insisted on having Rollins instead.

In 2002, Rollins guest-starred on an episode of the sitcom The Drew Carey Show as a man Oswald found on eBay and paid to come to his house and "kick his ass". He co-hosted the British television show Full Metal Challenge, in which teams built vehicles to compete in various driving and racing contests, from 2002 to 2003 on Channel 4 and TLC. He has made a number of cameo appearances in television series such as MTV's Jackass and an episode of Californication, where he played himself hosting a radio show. In 2006, Rollins appeared in a documentary series by VH1 and The Sundance Channel called The Drug Years.

Rollins appears in FX's Sons of Anarchy's second season, which premiered in the fall of 2009 in the United States. Rollins plays A.J. Weston, a white supremacist gang leader and new antagonist in the show's fictional town of Charming, California, who poses a deadly threat to the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club. In 2009, Rollins voiced "Trucker" in American Dad!'s fourth season (episode eight). Rollins voiced Benjamin Knox/Bonk in the 2000 animated film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

In 2010, Rollins appeared as a guest judge on season 2 episode 6 of RuPaul's Drag Race. In 2011, he was interviewed in the National Geographic Explorer episode "Born to Rage", regarding his possible link to the MAOA gene (warrior gene) and violent behavior. In 2012, he hosted the National Geographic Wild series "Animal Underworld", investigating where the real boundaries lie in human-animal relationships. Rollins also appeared in the Hawaii Five-0 episode "Hoʻopio" that aired on May 6, 2013.

In November 2013, Rollins started hosting the show 10 Things You Don't Know About on the History Channel's H2. In 2014, he voiced the antagonist Zaheer in the third season of the animated series The Legend of Korra.

Rollins played the part of Lt. Mueller in episodes 1-3 of the fourth season of the TV series Z Nation, which originally aired on Syfy in 2017.

In 2019, Rollins began appearing as a disillusioned poisons instructor in the TV series Deadly Class.

Weekly Radio Show (2004–2009)
On May 19, 2004, Rollins began hosting a weekly radio show, Harmony in My Head, on Indie 103.1 radio in Los Angeles. The show aired every Monday evening, with Rollins playing music ranging from early rock and jump blues to hard rock, blues rock, folk rock, punk rock, heavy metal and rockabilly, and touching on hip hop, jazz, world music, reggae, classical music and more. Harmony in my Head often emphasizes B-sides, live bootlegs and other rarities, and nearly every episode has featured a song either by the Beastie Boys or British group The Fall.

Rollins put the show on a short hiatus from early to late 2005, to undertake a spoken-word tour. Upon resuming the show, Rollins kicked off his return by playing the show's namesake Buzzcocks song. In 2008, the show was continuing each week, despite Rollins's constant touring, with new pre-recorded shows between live broadcasts. The show ended when the station went off the air in 2009.

Weekly Radio Show (2009–present)
On February 18, 2009, KCRW announced that Rollins would be hosting a live show on Saturday nights starting March 7, 2009, which has since been moved to Sunday nights at 8:00   p.m. As of Aug 2023, Rollins has hosted 748 episodes.

Podcasts
In 2011, Rollins was interviewed on Episode 121 of American Public Media's podcast, The Dinner Party Download, posted on November 3, 2011.

In February 2015, Rollins began recording a semi-regular podcast with his longtime manager Heidi May, titled Henry & Heidi. In describing the show, Rollins stated, "One day Heidi mentioned that I've told her a lot of stories that never made it to the stage and we should do a podcast so I could tell them ... I thought it was a good idea and people seem to like how the two of us get along. We've been working together for over 20 years and are very good friends." The podcast has received positive reviews from Rolling Stone and The A.V. Club.

Filmography
Rollins began his film career appearing in several independent films featuring the band Black Flag. His film debut was in 1982's The Slog Movie, about the West Coast punk scene. An appearance in 1985's Black Flag Live followed. Rollins's first film appearance without Black Flag was the short film The Right Side of My Brain with Lydia Lunch in 1985. Following the band's breakup, Rollins did not appear in any films until 1994's The Chase. Rollins appeared in the 2007 direct-to-DVD sequel to Wrong Turn (2003), Wrong Turn 2: Dead End as a retired Marine Corps officer who hosts his own show which tests the contestants' will to survive. Rollins has also appeared in Punk: Attitude, a documentary on the punk scene, and in American Hardcore (2006). In 2012, Rollins appeared in a short documentary entitled "Who Shot Rock and Roll" discussing the early punk scene in Los Angeles as well as photographs of himself in Black Flag taken by photographer Edward Colver. Rollins also inspired the characterization of Negan in The Walking Dead comic and auditioned to play the character in the television series, but eventually lost the role to Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Books and audiobooks
Rollins has written a variety of books, including Black Coffee Blues, Do I Come Here Often?, The First Five (a compilation of High Adventure in the Great Outdoors, Pissing in the Gene Pool, Bang!, Art to Choke Hearts, and One From None), See a Grown Man Cry, Now Watch Him Die, Smile, You're Traveling, Get in the Van, Eye Scream, Broken Summers, Roomanitarian, and Solipsist.

For the audiobook version of the 2006 novel World War Z, Rollins voiced the character of T. Sean Collins, a mercenary hired to protect celebrities during a mass panic caused by an onslaught of the undead. Rollins' other audiobook recordings include 3:10 to Yuma and his own autobiographical book, Get in the Van, for which he won a Grammy Award.

In early 2005, with his weekly show on hiatus, Rollins posted playlists and commentary on-line; these lists were expanded with more information and published in book form as Fanatic! in November 2005. In 2007 and 2008, Rollins published ''Fanatic! Vol. 2 and Fanatic! Vol. 3'', respectively.

Rollins continued to take notes of the music featured on his show, and wanted to preserve them in book form along with scans of set lists, flyers and other music-related materials he had been collecting since the 70s. These volumes ''Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 1, Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 2 and Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 3'' were published in 2018, 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Online journalism
In September 2008, Rollins began contributing to the "Politics & Power" blog at the online version of Vanity Fair magazine. Since March 2009, his posts have appeared under their own sub-title, Straight Talk Espresso. His posts consistently criticize conservative politicians and pundits, although he does occasionally target those on the left. In August 2010, he began writing a music column for LA Weekly in Los Angeles. In 2012, Rollins began publishing articles with HuffPost and alternative news website WordswithMeaning! In the months leading up to the 2012 United States Presidential election, Rollins broadcast a YouTube series called "Capitalism 2012", in which he toured the capital cities of the US states, interviewing people about current issues.

Spoken word
Since the 1980s, Rollins has toured around the world doing spoken word performances and his shows frequently last for over three hours. His spoken word style encompasses stand-up comedy, accounts of experiences he has had in the world of music and during his extensive travels around the globe, self-deprecating stories about his own shortcomings, introspective recollections from his own life (such as the death of his friend, Joe Cole), commentaries on society and playful anecdotes. "The talking shows are more demanding, because it's only me on stage", Rollins explained in regards to his spoken word shows. "It's like comparing surgery with construction – one requires super concentration and the other is just physical."

Video games
Rollins was a playable character in both Def Jam: Fight for NY and Def Jam Fight for NY: The Takeover. Rollins is also the voice of Mace Griffin in Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter.

Campaigning and activism
Rollins has become an outspoken human rights activist, most vocally for gay rights. In high school, a gay classmate of Rollins' was bullied by classmates to the point of attempting suicide. Rollins has cited this as the main catalyst of his "anti-homophobia". Rollins frequently speaks out on justice on his spoken word tours and promotes equality, regardless of sexuality. He was the host of the WedRock benefit concert, which raised money for a pro-gay-marriage organization.

During the Iraq War, he started touring with the United Service Organizations to entertain troops overseas while remaining against the war, leading him to once cause a stir at a base in Kyrgyzstan when he told the crowd: "Your commander would never lie to you. That's the vice president's job." Rollins believes it is important that he performs for the troops so that they have multiple points of contact with other parts of the world, stating that "they can get really cut loose from planet earth." He has made eight tours, including visits to bases in Djibouti, Kuwait, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan (twice), Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Honduras, Japan, Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

He has also been active in the campaign to free the "West Memphis Three", three young men who are believed by their supporters to have been wrongfully convicted of murder, and who have since been released from prison, but not exonerated. Rollins appears with Public Enemy frontman Chuck D on the Black Flag song "Rise Above" on the 2002 benefit album Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three, the first time Rollins had performed Black Flag's material since 1986.

Continuing his activism on behalf of US troops and veterans, Rollins joined Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) in 2008 to launch a public service advertisement campaign, CommunityofVeterans.org, which helps veterans coming home from war reintegrate into their communities. In April 2009, Rollins helped IAVA launch the second phase of the campaign which engages the friends and family of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at SupportYourVet.org. On December 3, 2009, Rollins wrote of his support for the victims of the Bhopal disaster in India, in an article for Vanity Fair 25 years–to the day–after the methyl isocyanate gas leak from the Union Carbide Corporation's pesticide factory exposed more than half a million local people to poisonous gas and resulted in the deaths of 17,000 people. He spent time in Bhopal with the people, to listen to their stories. In a later radio interview in February 2010 Rollins summed up his approach to activism, "This is where my anger takes me, to places like this, not into abuse but into proactive, clean movement."

Rollins is an advocate for the legalization of cannabis. Rollins has stated he does not personally consume cannabis but views the issue as an important matter of civil rights, arguing that its illegality is based in "bigotry and racism and financing the prison–industrial complex". Rollins has shared his views on the subject as keynote speaker at the Oregon Marijuana Business Conference and the International Cannabis Business Conference.

In August 2015, Rollins discussed his support for Bernie Sanders as a candidate in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

Views and relationships
Rollins has said that he does not have religious or spiritual beliefs, though he also does not consider himself an atheist. He has mostly avoided recreational drugs throughout his life, but experimented a few times with alcohol, cannabis, and LSD during his teens and early 20s.

Rollins is childless by choice, and says that he has not been in a romantic relationship since his 20s. Rollins said, "I am not that interested in having someone to account to and be romantic with on a regular basis. Every once in a while I think I want it, but it's like holding on to sand. It always slips away. Falling in love does not interest me." A lifelong bachelor, Rollins considers himself a solitary person, and maintains few deep relationships outside of his professional ones. One of his closest personal friends is musician Ian MacKaye, with whom he has been close since they met as children. He also enjoys a friendship with actor William Shatner, which developed after he performed on Shatner's album Has Been.

After nearly 40 years of living in Los Angeles, Rollins mentioned during his "Good to see you" tour that he had relocated to Nashville.

In an interview with Jason Tanamor of Zoiks! Online, when asked about a longtime rumor of Rollins being homosexual, the singer said, "Perhaps wishful thinking. If I were gay, believe me, you would know."

Murder of Joe Cole
In December 1991, Rollins and his best friend Joe Cole were the victims of an armed robbery and shooting when they were assaulted by robbers outside their shared home in Venice Beach, California. Cole died after being shot in the face, but Rollins escaped. The murder remains unsolved. In an April 1992 Los Angeles Times interview, Rollins revealed he kept a plastic container full of soil soaked with Cole's blood: "I dug up all the earth where his head fell—he was shot in the face—and I've got all the dirt here, and so Cole's in the house. I say good morning to him every day. I got his phone, too, so I got a direct line to him. So that feels good."

In a 2001 interview with Howard Stern, Rollins was asked about rumors that he kept Cole's brain in his house. He stated that he has only the soil from the spot where Cole was killed. During the interview, he also speculated that the reason they were targeted may have been because, days prior to the incident, record producer Rick Rubin had requested to hear the newly recorded album The End of Silence and parked his Rolls-Royce outside their house while carrying a cell phone. Because of the notoriety of the neighborhood, Rollins suspected that this would bring trouble because of the implication that there was money in the home. He even wrote in his journal the night of Rubin's visit that his home "is going to get popped".

Rollins has included Cole's story in his spoken word performances.

With State of Alert

 * No Policy (1981)
 * Flex Your Head (1982)

With Black Flag

 * Damaged (1981)
 * My War (1984)
 * Family Man (1984)
 * Slip It In (1984)
 * Live '84 (1984)
 * Loose Nut (1985)
 * In My Head (1985)
 * Who's Got the 10½? (1986)

Solo

 * Hot Animal Machine (1987)
 * Drive by Shooting (1987)
 * Live (1987) – split album with Gore

With Rollins Band

 * Life Time (1987, re-release 1999)
 * Hard Volume (1989, re-release 1999)
 * Turned On (1990)
 * The End of Silence (1992, double-CD re-release 2002) #160 US
 * Weight (1994) #33 US, #22 UK
 * Come In and Burn (1997) #89 US
 * Insert Band Here (1999)
 * A Clockwork Orange Stage (2000)
 * Get Some Go Again (2000) #180 US
 * Nice (2001) #178 US
 * A Nicer Shade of Red (2002)
 * End of Silence Demos (2002)
 * The Only Way to Know for Sure: Live in Chicago (2002)
 * Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three (2002)
 * Weighting (2004)

With Wartime

 * Fast Food For Thought (1990)

Spoken word

 * Short Walk on a Long Pier (1985)
 * Big Ugly Mouth (1987)
 * Sweatbox (1989)
 * Live at McCabe's (1990)
 * Human Butt (1992)
 * The Boxed Life (1993)
 * Think Tank (1998)
 * Eric the Pilot (1999)
 * A Rollins in the Wry (2001)
 * Live at the Westbeth Theater (2001)
 * Talk Is Cheap: Volume 1 (2003)
 * Talk Is Cheap: Volume 2 (2003)
 * Talk Is Cheap: Volume 3 (2004)
 * Talk Is Cheap: Volume 4 (2004)
 * Provoked (2008)
 * Spoken Word Guy (2010)
 * Spoken Word Guy 2 (2010)

Spoken word videos

 * Talking from the Box (1993)
 * Henry Rollins Goes to London (1995)
 * You Saw Me Up There (1998)
 * Up for It (2001)
 * Live at Luna Park (2004)
 * Shock & Awe: The Tour (2005)
 * Uncut from NYC (2006)
 * Uncut from Israel (2006)
 * San Francisco 1990 (2007)
 * Live in the Conversation Pit (2008)
 * Provoked: Live From Melbourne (2008)
 * 50 (2012)
 * Keep Talking, Pal (2018)

Audio books

 * Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag (1994)
 * Everything (1996)
 * Black Coffee Blues (1997)
 * Nights Behind the Tree Line (2004)
 * World War Z (2007)

Essays

 * I Am an Audiophile, an editorial essay in Stereophile.
 * Iron and the Soul, an editorial essay in Details.

title: Henry Rollins


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Hadron

In particle physics, a hadron is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong interaction. They are analogous to molecules, which are held together by the electric force. Most of the mass of ordinary matter comes from two hadrons: the proton and the neutron, while most of the mass of the protons and neutrons is in turn due to the binding energy of their constituent quarks, due to the strong force.

Hadrons are categorized into two broad families: baryons, made of an odd number of quarks (usually three quarks) and mesons, made of an even number of quarks (usually two quarks: one quark and one antiquark). Protons and neutrons (which make the majority of the mass of an atom) are examples of baryons; pions are an example of a meson. "Exotic" hadrons, containing more than three valence quarks, have been discovered in recent years. A tetraquark state (an exotic meson), named the Z(4430)$−$, was discovered in 2007 by the Belle Collaboration and confirmed as a resonance in 2014 by the LHCb collaboration. Two pentaquark states (exotic baryons), named P$+ c$(4380) and P$+ c$(4450), were discovered in 2015 by the LHCb collaboration. There are several more exotic hadron candidates and other colour-singlet quark combinations that may also exist.

Almost all "free" hadrons and antihadrons (meaning, in isolation and not bound within an atomic nucleus) are believed to be unstable and eventually decay into other particles. The only known possible exception is free protons, which appear to be stable, or at least, take immense amounts of time to decay (order of 1034+ years). By way of comparison, free neutrons are the longest-lived unstable particle, and decay with a half-life of about 611 seconds, and have a mean lifetime of 879 seconds, see free neutron decay.

Hadron physics is studied by colliding hadrons, e.g. protons, with each other or the nuclei of dense, heavy elements, such as lead (Pb) or gold (Au), and detecting the debris in the produced particle showers. A similar process occurs in the natural environment, in the extreme upper-atmosphere, where muons and mesons such as pions are produced by the collisions of cosmic rays with rarefied gas particles in the outer atmosphere.

Terminology and etymology
The term "hadron" is a new Greek word introduced by L.B. Okun in a plenary talk at the 1962 International Conference on High Energy Physics at CERN. He opened his talk with the definition of a new category term: "Notwithstanding the fact that this report deals with weak interactions, we shall frequently have to speak of strongly interacting particles. These particles pose not only numerous scientific problems, but also a terminological problem. The point is that 'strongly interacting particles' is a very clumsy term which does not yield itself to the formation of an adjective. For this reason, to take but one instance, decays into strongly interacting particles are called 'non-leptonic'. This definition is not exact because 'non-leptonic' may also signify photonic. In this report I shall call strongly interacting particles 'hadrons', and the corresponding decays 'hadronic' (the Greek ἁδρός signifies 'large', 'massive', in contrast to λεπτός which means 'small', 'light'). I hope that this terminology will prove to be convenient. — L.B. Okun (1962)"

Properties

According to the quark model, the properties of hadrons are primarily determined by their so-called valence quarks. For example, a proton is composed of two up quarks (each with electric charge $+ 2/3$, for a total of +$4/3$ together) and one down quark (with electric charge $− 1/3$). Adding these together yields the proton charge of +1. Although quarks also carry color charge, hadrons must have zero total color charge because of a phenomenon called color confinement. That is, hadrons must be "colorless" or "white". The simplest ways for this to occur are with a quark of one color and an antiquark of the corresponding anticolor, or three quarks of different colors. Hadrons with the first arrangement are a type of meson, and those with the second arrangement are a type of baryon.

Massless virtual gluons compose the overwhelming majority of particles inside hadrons, as well as the major constituents of its mass (with the exception of the heavy charm and bottom quarks; the top quark vanishes before it has time to bind into a hadron). The strength of the strong force gluons which bind the quarks together has sufficient energy ($E$) to have resonances composed of massive ($m$) quarks ($E$ ≥ $mc$2). One outcome is that short-lived pairs of virtual quarks and antiquarks are continually forming and vanishing again inside a hadron. Because the virtual quarks are not stable wave packets (quanta), but an irregular and transient phenomenon, it is not meaningful to ask which quark is real and which virtual; only the small excess is apparent from the outside in the form of a hadron. Therefore, when a hadron or anti-hadron is stated to consist of (typically) 2 or 3 quarks, this technically refers to the constant excess of quarks vs. antiquarks.

Like all subatomic particles, hadrons are assigned quantum numbers corresponding to the representations of the Poincaré group: $JPC$($m$), where $J$ is the spin quantum number, $P$ the intrinsic parity (or P-parity), $C$ the charge conjugation (or C-parity), and $m$ is the particle's mass. Note that the mass of a hadron has very little to do with the mass of its valence quarks; rather, due to mass–energy equivalence, most of the mass comes from the large amount of energy associated with the strong interaction. Hadrons may also carry flavor quantum numbers such as isospin (G parity), and strangeness. All quarks carry an additive, conserved quantum number called a baryon number ($B$), which is $+ 1/3$ for quarks and $− 1/3$ for antiquarks. This means that baryons (composite particles made of three, five or a larger odd number of quarks) have $B$ = 1  whereas mesons have $B$ = 0.

Hadrons have excited states known as resonances. Each ground state hadron may have several excited states; several hundred different resonances have been observed in experiments. Resonances decay extremely quickly (within about 10$−24$ seconds) via the strong nuclear force.

In other phases of matter the hadrons may disappear. For example, at very high temperature and high pressure, unless there are sufficiently many flavors of quarks, the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) predicts that quarks and gluons will no longer be confined within hadrons, "because the strength of the strong interaction diminishes with energy". This property, which is known as asymptotic freedom, has been experimentally confirmed in the energy range between 1 GeV (gigaelectronvolt) and 1 TeV (teraelectronvolt). All free hadrons except (possibly) the proton and antiproton are unstable.

Baryons
Baryons are hadrons containing an odd number of valence quarks (at least 3). Most well known baryons such as the proton and neutron have three valence quarks, but pentaquarks with five quarks – three quarks of different colors, and also one extra quark-antiquark pair – have also been proven to exist. Because baryons have an odd number of quarks, they are also all fermions, i.e., they have half-integer spin. As quarks possess baryon number B = $1/3$, baryons have baryon number B = 1. Pentaquarks also have B = 1, since the extra quark's and antiquark's baryon numbers cancel.

Each type of baryon has a corresponding antiparticle (antibaryon) in which quarks are replaced by their corresponding antiquarks. For example, just as a proton is made of two up-quarks and one down-quark, its corresponding antiparticle, the antiproton, is made of two up-antiquarks and one down-antiquark.

As of August 2015, there are two known pentaquarks, P$+ c$(4380) and P$+ c$(4450), both discovered in 2015 by the LHCb collaboration.

Mesons
Mesons are hadrons containing an even number of valence quarks (at least 2). Most well known mesons are composed of a quark-antiquark pair, but possible tetraquarks (4 quarks) and hexaquarks (6 quarks, comprising either a dibaryon or three quark-antiquark pairs) may have been discovered and are being investigated to confirm their nature. Several other hypothetical types of exotic meson may exist which do not fall within the quark model of classification. These include glueballs and hybrid mesons (mesons bound by excited gluons).

Because mesons have an even number of quarks, they are also all bosons, with integer spin, i.e., 0, +1, or −1. They have baryon number $B = 1⁄3 − 1⁄3 = 0$. Examples of mesons commonly produced in particle physics experiments include pions and kaons. Pions also play a role in holding atomic nuclei together via the residual strong force.

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title: Hadron


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Heisuke Hironaka

Heisuke Hironaka (広中 平祐) is a Japanese mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 for his contributions to algebraic geometry.

Early life and education
Hironaka was born on April 9, 1931 in Yamaguchi, Japan. He was inspired to study mathematics after a visiting Hiroshima University mathematics professor gave a lecture at his junior high school. Hironaka applied to the undergraduate program at Hiroshima University, but was unsuccessful. However, the following year, he was accepted into Kyoto University to study physics, entering in 1949 and receiving his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from the University in 1954 and 1956. Hironaka initially studied physics, chemistry, and biology, but his third year as an undergraduate, he chose to move to taking courses in mathematics.

The same year, Hironaka was invited to a seminar group led by Yasuo Akizuki, who would have a major influence on Hironaka's mathematical development. The group, informally known as the Akizuki School, discussed cutting-edge research developments including the resolution of singularities problem for which Hironaka later received the Fields Medal. Hironaka has described his interest in this problem as having the logic and mystery of "a boy falling in love with a girl." In 1956, Akizuki invited then Harvard professor Oscar Zariski to Kyoto University. Hironaka took the opportunity to present his own research to Zariski, who suggested that Hironaka move to Harvard University to continue his studies.

In 1957, Hironaka moved to the United States to attend Harvard University as a doctoral student under the direction of Zariski. Hironaka's algebra background, developed under Akizuki, allowed him to bring fresh insights into mathematics discussions in Harvard, which placed a greater emphasis on geometric perspectives. In 1958–1959, Alexander Grothendieck visited Harvard University and was another important influence on Hironaka, inviting him to the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifique (IHES) in Paris.

Returning to Harvard in 1960, Hironaka received his PhD for his thesis On the Theory of Birational Blowing-up.

Career
Hironaka was an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Brandeis University from 1960–1963. He taught at Columbia University from 1964–1968 and became a professor of mathematics at Harvard University from 1968 until becoming emeritus in 1992.

Hironaka returned to Japan for a joint professorship at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences and Kyoto University from 1975–1983 and was the Institute Director from 1983–1985.

Hironaka was the president of Yamaguchi University from 1996–2002.

Research
In 1960, Hironaka introduced Hironaka's example, showing that a deformation of Kähler manifolds need not be Kähler. The example is a 1-parameter family of smooth compact complex 3-manifolds such that most fibers are Kähler (and even projective), but one fiber is not Kähler. This can be used to show that several other plausible statements holding for smooth varieties of dimension at most 2 fail for smooth varieties of dimension at least 3.

In 1964, Hironaka proved that singularities of algebraic varieties admit resolutions in characteristic zero. Hironaka was able to give a general solution to this problem, proving that any algebraic variety can be replaced by (more precisely is birationally equivalent to) a similar variety that has no singularities.

Hironaka recalled that he felt very close to approaching the solution while studying in Harvard. Then, soon after getting his first teaching position at Brandeis, he realized that if he combined his commutative algebra experience from Kyoto, geometry of polynomials from Harvard, and globalization technique from IHES, he had everything he needed to solve the problem.

In 2017 he posted to his personal webpage a manuscript that claims to prove the existence of a resolution of singularities in positive characteristic.

Awards
Hironaka received a Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, at the International Congress of Mathematicians at Nice in 1970 at 39, just under the 40 year age limit.

List of Awards:

 * Asahi Prize (1967)
 * Fields Medal in 1970.
 * Japan Academy Prize (1970)
 * Guggenheim Fellowship (1971)
 * Order of Culture (1975)
 * Person of Cultural Merit (1975)
 * Honorary doctor of the Complutense University of Madrid (1981)
 * Legion of Honour (2004)
 * Harvard Centennial Medal (2011)

Influence on Asian Mathematics
Hironaka has been active in promoting mathematical education, particularly in Japan and South Korea. Hironaka wrote or co-authored 26 books on mathematics and other topics.

In 1980, he started a summer seminar for Japanese high school students, and later created a program for Japanese and American college students. In 1984 he established the Japanese Association for Mathematical Sciences (JAMS) to fund these seminars, serving as executive director. Additional funding was received from corporations and the Japanese government. Harvard emeritus math professor Shing-Tung Yau noted that "In the 1980s there were few domestic grant opportunities for foreign travel or exchange [...] today, one can see the fruits of Hironaka’s efforts in the number of former JAMS fellows who have become professors of mathematics across the United States and Japan."

As visiting professor at Seoul National University in 2008–2009, Hironaka mentored undergraduate student June Huh, a former high school drop-out and aspiring poet, encouraging his interest in pursuing math for graduate school. Huh won a Fields medal in 2022 for the linkages he found between algebraic geometry and combinatorics.

Personal life
Hironaka married Wakako Kimoto in 1960, a Brandeis Wien International Scholar who entered Japanese politics through her election to the House of Councillors in 1986. They have a son Jo, and daughter Eriko, who is also a mathematician.

On his love for mathematics, Hironaka said "I accumulate anything to do with numbers. For instance, I have more than 10,000 photos of flowers and leaves. I like to just count the numbers and compare them. I am so pleased to be a mathematician, because I can see the mathematical interest in things."

Selected Publications

 * Hironaka, H. (1957). "On the arithmetic genera and the effective genera of algebraic curves," Mem. College Sci. Univ. Kyoto Ser. A Math., 30(2): 177-195. DOI: 10.1215/kjm/1250777055
 * Hironaka, H. (1960). "On the theory of birational blowing-up,"
 * Hironaka, H. (1964), "The Resolution of Singularities of an Algebraic Variety over a Field of Characteristic Zero." Annals of Mathematics., 79(1):109-203. https://doi.org/10.2307/1970486
 * Hironaka, H.; Matsumura, Hideyuki. (1967), “Formal functions and formal embeddings” J. Math. Soc. Japan, 20(1-2): 52-82. DOI: 10.2969/jmsj/02010052
 * Hironaka, H. (1967), “On the characters ν \nu* and τ \tau* of singularities" J. Math. Kyoto Univ., 7(1): 325–327. DOI: 10.1215/kjm/1250524306
 * Hironaka, H. (1974), “The theory of infinitely near singular points” J. Korean Math. Soc. 40(5): 901–920. https://doi.org/10.4134/JKMS.2003.40.5.901
 * Aroca, J. M.; Hironaka, Heisuke; Vicente, J. L. (1977). “Desingularization theorems" Memorias de Matematica del Instituto.
 * Hironaka, H. (1991), "Fame, sweet and bitter." In P. Hilton, F. Hirzebruch, and R. Remmert (Eds.), Miscellanea mathematica(pp. 155-176)
 * Hironaka, H.; Janeczko, S. (Eds.). (2004). “Geometric singularity theory"
 * Aroca, J. M.; Hironaka, H; Vicente, J. L. (2018), "Complex Analytic Desingularization" ISBN 978-4-431-70218-4

title: Heisuke Hironaka