Suburban Voice Interviews Black Flag Black Flag are a band that needs little introduction. As you are probably aware, they are constantly refining their sound and may not appeal to many of the hardcore followers. But, as they will tell you, they're not going to lead you around or be your hero. Black Flag are Henry Rollins (vocals), Greg Ginn (guitar), Kira Roessler (bass) and Bill Stevenson (drums). This interview was done in two parts, by Andy. INTERVIEW WITH HENRY AND BILL: SP: Henry, what inspired you to write poetry? Henry: Well, let's break that down. First off, I don't consider anything I do as poetry. I've always hated that word, but that's just the way I am. It's not even verse. I just write. I've been writing since I was 16. I just got the opportunity to do it in public, on broadcasts and recordings and I've really gotten into it. And I've been writing a lot more like the last year and a half. Bill: You know what I've noticed about that. In the past year and a half, the band has been kinda like when a fish gets trapped in the tide pool and the water goes out, only in a public sense. And I saw that channelled into Henry's poetry or whatever. It was how he blew off steam. As for me and Greg, we spent our hours jamming and learning new rhythm techniques. We'd spend hours and hours just playing and Henry would be off doing his writing. That was our way of blowing off steam from all the legal hassles, 'cause we couldn't do our records because they had us tied up. Henry: During that long period of time, I got to expand my life and try different things. I'd do shows where it was just me and a microphone on stage. While these guy were improving their rhythm technique, I was working on my own thing. SP: I know that your range has improved and you seem to growl less. Henry: Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet! SP: Why are your lyrics so depressing? Henry: Because that's the way we or I see things. What a song like "Three Nights" is about is a divorce of self. That's a concept I'm really into. It's like it's just the splitting of the mind and body. SP: Is it true that when you go in to record, you practice extensively before you go in to do the actual recording? Henry: We all dig playing, man, like when I'm not there, these guys will be jamming, anyhow. Bill: It's got to be perfect, man. When we went into record "My War," we spent 5-6 hours a day for the month before practicing. Henry: What you're dealing with--it's very blunt that Black Flag is a real band. A band that can actually play its instruments, like ZZ Top, a band that can really get down and play and to do this, it takes hours of practice and hours of work outside of practice, as in swimming, running, pushups, situps, sleep... Otherwise, it's no Black Flag. Billy is his drums, I am my thing. We are Black Flag and anything less is less. We're not in it to fuck around. SP: Who chose the drawing for the cover of "My War"? Henry: I chose that because it hit me that this was the album cover. SP: Speaking of album covers, who chose the one for "Blasting Concept," because certain people have referred to it as sexist or violent towards women. Bill: First, the whole album was put together 2 years ago. Henry: The whole idea to put that particular Pettibon piece on the cover was Bob Carducci's. But it's not important whose idea it was. It was who drew it. Raymond Pettibon is the greatest. Greg: It's the classic way to stick it in! Hell, by putting that record out, we're doing a public service. Henry: Yes, we are a sexist-socio-political band with quasi-Crass-fascistic overtones. With a danceable backbeat that will kill you if you get too close to it. And we're a fun band. We're pro-jism, funtime, pro-sex. Personally, I am pro-nuclear war. I want to destroy the earth, 'cause it will get rid of everyone. All the mafia, all the clubowners, all the neurotic cocaine-sniffing wenches, all the fucking scumbags. I want to start clean and after the bomb drops, there will be nothing left but big old roaches, mutants and stuff like that. SP: Speaking of drugs, Henry, are you still straight-edge? Henry: I'm sure as hell not into cocaine like these promoters in one town we were in. They were like the most neurotic cocaine sniffing people. They were going around saying 'hey, hey, hey' ...they were doing their lines and wasting my time. I don't know about any straight edge. It's a religion I am not into. I've got one religion--the Rollins religion. I am the lord of my own church, I'm the man on the cross, I wrote the book, I am the boss and I believe, Amen. SP: And, lastly, what do you think of Nig-Heist? Henry: It's obvious that they are the third LA band. The Doors were the first, X was the second. The third, of course, is Nig Heist. INTERVIEW WITH GREG: SP: What do you think of people who say you've gone heavy metal? Greg: That's all the dumb categorizing people like to do. The way I see it, Black Flag is just a band. We try not to fit into any particular category, mainly because a label is too restricting. SP: In the Boston Globe, the review of "My War" said you were trying to sound like Flipper, with a droning bass and slow torturous guitar lines, but without any sense of humor. What do you think of that accusation? Greg: Well, I don't think the guy looked beyond his nose. I certainly have no desire to be like Flipper. And I also find some of our songs funny in a unique way. SP: Elsewhere, someone said that you were introducing a metal influence into your sound so you could live out your adolescent desires to be a guitar hero. (I wrote that in the review of "My War."--AL) Greg: Well, when I was an adolescent, I didn't play guitar, so that would be kind of impossible. When I got into music, I was around 19 and, up until then, I never really followed music. You know, in fact, I like a lot of types of music. Jazz, classical, not just rock. Anything that just moves me. And the rest of our band is like that, also. So it's really hard to say we are this or that, because there's all kinds of influences musically and otherwise with our band. We listen to such diverse stuff. People, when they hear something, they like to categorize it so they can say, "oh, they're doing this or that." We're just trying to be ourselves. We're not prejudiced into any category of music. SP: So you play what Black Flag wants to play, not what people say you are or expect you to. Greg: Yes. SP: When's your next record coming out? Greg: First, we're going to have a spoken word/instrumental that has Kira on it (NOTE: Greg played bass on "My War" under the pseudonym Dale Nixon) out first. Then we have another album recorded and that's going to come out shortly after that. SP: Of all the bands on SST, why did you decide to tour with the Meat Puppets? Greg: Well, we like the Meat Puppets a lot and they just put out a new album. So they wanted to do it and we wanted to do it. SP: They sound nothing like you. Greg: No one sounds like us. SP: Their influences are a lot different. They have kind of a country influence in some aspects. Greg: I feel like we have a lot in common with them. As far as the tour, we like to play with them. They play different all the time. SP: On the "Blasting Concept" compilation, why did you exclude some of the later bands and material? Greg: The album was compiled a long time ago. We had a lot of court and legal problems and we haven't been able to do stuff. We had a lot of financial problems as a result of that and we paid lawyers and we hadn't been receiving money for records that we should have. So it's actually a compilation that only goes up to a certain time period, which is awhile ago, and maybe we'll do another one. It exposed the records. We try to keep the old records available because it's not just a trendy kind of music that we're dealing with. If a record is good, it can have lasting value and a lot of people get into the old Minutemen stuff after they find out about them now. SP: How did Kira get in the band? Greg: We just jammed one time. We didn't try out people or anything like that 'cause I was playing bass. We were just working on a lot of stuff because the legal problems were continuing and we just used the time to work on a lot of ideas with our music at home. SP: He she gotten a bad reaction from your audience because she's a women? Greg: I don't think so. It seems like people have been real open-minded. I think that people are finding out more about what Black Flag is about. SP: Have people been open-minded about the changes in the direction of your sound? Greg: Well, we always have changed. There's always certain people who are against it, but I think we've gotten a surprisingly good positive reaction. It kind of surprised me, really... This stuff was printed in Suburban Punk #10 (1984).