Elmo Keep

This was a difficult interview. I think Rollins can be equal parts boorish, or fascinating, depending on what he’s talking about. His ragging on Bono and U2 for instance, bores me because it’s based in ignorance. To say as he does here, that U2 can’t play is something only someone who has never seen them would say. It also misses the point of U2, who built their post-punk career on not being able to play. As a third wave punk screamer, Rollins should know that. He has a great bit he does about seeing KISS, which is hilarious and brilliantly true. He is fearless in speaking out against George W. Bush and the War on Terror. He works his guts out. He has more intellectual curiosty than the average person. His has lead an interesting and difficult life.

One thing he definitely is not - or at least wasn’t on this occassion - is friendly.

I wanted to ask him so many things that I couldn’t work into the half hour we had. He’s worked with some great directors as a bit part actor, including David Lynch on ‘Lost Highway’. He’s had Gene Simmons on his talkshow, I would love to have known what insights he gleaned into the Demon. Does he prefer being interviewer, or interviewee? He’s the kind of guy I could have asked to explain Fight Club to me. He’s in a really gory horror film recently, what makes people like that stuff? Lots of questions. None of this really happened.

Rollins completely dominated this interview right from the start, just through his body language. He didn’t look me in the eye very often, or refer to me by name once. He sat at one end of the couch and moved slowly further and further away throughout the course of the interview. He wasn’t really interested in talking to me, or in an exchange. I almost felt like I could have left the tape recorder there, said, “tell me about yourself” and have picked it half an hour later.

How do you get the measure of someone in half an hour? Obviously you can’t. In this interview Rollins talks a mile about US politics and literature. It might still be interesting, I guess, but knowing what I wanted to get out of him and didn’t, this is a pretty disappointing piece for me. Face to face is hard, baby. Damn hard.