Henry Rollins

“I’ve got a bad problem where I can’t say the word ‘no’ to work,” mused Henry Rollins on his 1993 spoken word album, The Boxed Life.

“The output is up,” he admits, “because there’s more opportunity for me.”

Singer, poet, raconteur, National Geographic host, publisher, label manager, and now photographer, Rollins presents his latest project, Occupants, a photo book chronicling his world travels from Kyrgyzstan to Mali. The sweat-drenched days of Black Flag’s tour van are behind him, but the mentality of the SST-era still feeds the beast.

“You come in earlier than everyone else, you hit it harder than everyone else, and you remain fit on the fact that you’re eating your lunch and part of theirs because you got there first,” he ticks off.

“These days, I can take a documentary concept, get the funding, and go shoot it, where it used to be something that would sit on my notepad,” Rollins says. “I want to be able to fire on all cylinders until people say, ‘Thank you, you can sit down now.'”

This article appears in November 4 • 2011.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.