Before the Chop by Henry Rollins

Author:Henry Rollins [Rollins, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781880985533
Publisher: 2.13.61

LA WEEKLY #052

01-26-12 Bristol UK

Tournado

I am in Bristol, England. The cold outside has permeated the walls of the utilitarian backstage area where I am waiting before I walk out onstage later this evening. I have an electric heater pulled in front of me and occasionally hold my hands over it to warm my hands so I can keep writing.

The cold backstage is one of the things you can count on at this time of the year in England. There is a spare and austere build to these rooms that seems to say, “Comfort, like success, would only lead to your downfall.” It may sound strange, but not only have I grown used to these often less-than-cheerful environments, I don’t mind them at all. If you can thrive in these conditions and hit stage every night, you’re good to go.

It is the relentless grind of rooms like these, travel, erratic sleep opportunities, meals that are often less than great and myriad other destabilizing factors that send many touring performers back to more tolerable environs with a more predicable continuum. Basically, this isn’t for everybody. Unfortunately, many of the people who find it objectionable have to live like this for more nights a year than they would like.

I have been touring and performing far and wide for over thirty years. At this point, I am more in my element out here. I guess you could consider me institutionalized to a certain degree.

I tour in any weather and in any place that will have me. I have no preferred country or season, as long as there are not many nights off. The strangest times of my life have been spent off the road. The older I get, the stranger and more difficult the “downtime” becomes. By the time I have gone to the grocery store twice, I feel like I am on pause, but life is in play mode and passing me by. As the days off the road tick by so quickly and painlessly, my guilt grows and I feel that I am taking the easy way out.

Beyond guilt and feeling that I am becoming soft by sleeping in the same bed every night, and having so many things in such easy reach is that I just don’t trust it and ultimately, it doesn’t seem real.

There is a very powerful motivating force that keeps me out on the trail. This may sound odd, but I like to be in service and under obligation. Service is a strange word applied to being onstage, I know. I feel a great debt to the audience because firstly, they walked in to the venue and secondly, they are trusting their night and the irretrievable time they will spend therein, to me. I would rather lose a finger than let them down. This Damoclean sword that hangs over my head nightly is an obligation that keeps me on the balls of my feet and leaning forward. I quite enjoy it. I am used to the more than generous amounts of anxiety and stress that all this produces.

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