One wouldn’t think that an outspoken, heavily tattooed punk singer would be a likely gay activist. Despite his public support of gay rights, if you ask Henry Rollins himself, he would say that he isn’t.

"I am not exactly pro gay and I am not anti-gay, I just don’t think it is an issue, and certainly not one that should be met with violence," Rollins told GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine over the phone from his office in Los Angeles.  "My attitude to someone being gay is ‘so what?’ In this country when you don’t care if Paul marries Tom, all of a sudden you are a gay activist. Well no, I am just imbued with a sense of fair play and burdened with a conscience. I will not be homophobic, I am not wired that way. If Jill wants to marry Jane I don’t see the harm in that.  It is like people saying to me ‘You are healthy, you are a health nut.’ No, I just don’t want to be overweight, diabetic, and die in my 50’s. Eating well must make me a hippie. No I just don’t want to eat a cow every day, if that is ok with you. It is too bad that it is an issue. It is too bad that a gay guy in high school has to fear retribution from people who do not share his orientation. What’s wrong with him? Nothing. I have never been able to stand that argument so I have always pushed against it."

Despite his statement, no one will argue that Henry Rollins hasn’t been a positive advocate for the LGBT community. His stance has confused some of his fans, including one who wrote "You’re into men marrying men and stuff. What the fuck man! Men marrying horses, is that next?" Rollins shared this story during his Provoked tour last year, and did eventually respond to the writer.

"I asked the guy, is man ass the gateway ass to bigger more bestial anuses? What’s the next step, canine into bovine and eventually move up to equestrian or do you move right to horses? What’s your problem, they aren’t having a honeymoon in your bed, get a life! I don’t know anyone personally who thinks that way to my knowledge. Could you imagine being trapped in a mind that stupid? What a drag your every day would be. Everything would be awful and an imposition and everyone an enemy. When you are that dumb, life must really suck."

Of course, his stance has caused some backwards thinkers to just assume Rollins is gay. Some gay men only wish! Rollins told an amusing anecdote while on tour last year about attending an event at a gay bar, and people were handing over money on bets they thought they had lost.

"I will answer when I am asked ‘what is your sexual orientation’ but I never mention it until I am asked. If someone says ‘You stick up for gays’ I am not going to say ‘but I am not gay’ because I don’t care what that guy thinks of me. I am not insecure about my sexuality and if I was gay I wouldn’t see that being a problem because you are what you are, and that is fine. To me it’s not an issue unless I encounter homophobia or an interviewer makes an issue or takes issue with something I have said."

"I still see the people I grew up with in Washington, DC on a regular basis. None of us are homophobic or racist. We are all rabid book-reading people who want to get onto the next thing. So I have never had a lot of that around me. I’ve certainly experienced homophobia but I have never been in a band with a guy who had it, or gone out with a woman who was homophobic or racist – if they were I was out of there. It is never a thing until people make it a thing. I don’t consider myself an activist, I have common sense and when I encounter homophobia it infuriates me. You can’t conduct yourself in my country like that and not hear about it from me."

Rollins’ new spoken word tour Recountdown, named for Bush’s final days as president, is coming to the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary on October 20th, and Edmonton’s Francis Winspear Centre on the 21st. Part stand up comedy, part political and social commentary, an evening with Henry Rollins certain to be entertaining.

"We are going to be talking a lot about places I have recently been, which is the source and substance of all of my tours so far: where I’ve been, what I saw and how I feel about it. Since I was last in Canada I have spent a lot of time in Africa and places like Burma, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I learned a lot, saw a lot, met a lot of interesting people and heard a lot of great stories. We don’t have to spend all evening dwelling upon what will be on Election Day in America. It is going to be what it’s going to be. I am pretty sure that all you wonderful sexy Canadians have made up your mind as to who you think would be a more desirable candidate for president, and we will have to see what shakes out on November 5th."

We asked Henry how he develops his shows.

"I take notes constantly and a lot of photographs with a few different cameras when traveling. If I see something in the Middle East or Africa that I can tie into a point I can make about something in America, that is very interesting to me and I will go after that with everything I have. To get the idea up and running I will talk the idea out loud in a room, processing the idea verbally. It is one thing to have it in your head it is another thing to put it into sentences out loud; it almost becomes a different idea. People who tour with me are used to seeing me sitting and kind of mumbling, seeing how the idea sounds and working on it vocally. On tour these ideas evolve on stage. One night you get partway through and realize what you thought was the main part of the story isn’t, and the emphasis will change. It is a continual state of focusing and focusing and focusing."

I mentioned to Henry how my brother has spent the last eight months in Southeast Asia and how his stories have left an impression on me. While my brother can only share his stories with those he knows, Rollins gets to share with thousands of people a night.

"(Southeast Asia) is a part of the world I had been curious about for so long but never had the time to go. But I found myself in New Zealand and realized in a few hours I could be in Laos, so I went. Then I went back a couple of weeks later into Burma and shot a documentary, drove around the no roads of Burma for two weeks which is very hard on your frame, but I survived it," he recalled. "There are so many stories like crawling through the tunnels in Vietnam. The killing fields of Phnom Penh are not something you forget very quickly if at all. It looks like a small farm and if you look on the ground you start noticing bones and teeth poking out of the dirt. Tree roots bring clothing out of the ground so you will see dresses and pants stuck in the roots at the base of a tree. There are that many bodies still underground. You find teeth and baling wire and bullets and it is everywhere you look."

In a world where it can cost you two days pay for a 70-minute show, one thing you get with Henry Rollins is value for your dollar. His show flies by, and suddenly you realize it’s over three hours later.

"I have got big stories to tell, and I do one show at a time and that is all I think about. Get through this show, do good, and collapse later. I couldn’t do it twice a night - I have, but I’d rather not. I just do my show, work my ass off, tell those stories and give it as much as I have, and then I am given a bed to sleep in, which I go to as soon as I can because I am pretty tired."

With his on-the-mark assessment of politics and the world, we asked Rollins if he would ever run for office. Absolutely not, he replied.

"I wouldn’t want to be part of government because I think you lose a lot of steam. I would rather be a private citizen and have the latitude and the efficiency that I can have as a private citizen. I don’t have to spend most of the day raising money or trying to gain favor with someone."

Another thing I brought up was his reaction to people in both the gay and straight community thinking he is hot. His response was classic Henry Rollins.

"Oh it is so hard, everywhere I go I need bodyguards to keep people from tearing my clothes off," he replied sarcastically. "There is really no evidence of people thinking I am hot in my life. I go to the store in my mighty Subaru Outback and the guy at the counter says ‘when are you going on tour?’ and I say ‘You’ll know because I won’t be here for 6 weeks.’ Past that I don’t really get much evidence that anybody really registers me at all until I walk onstage. Until then I am a white man with gray hair who is 47 years of age and walks slower than he used to. Sometimes someone will say ‘hey you are very attractive.’ Well thank you! I don’t know what else to say other than that and move on to the next topic. I don’t want to get married or have kids, and dating women has just been problematic with my schedule. I am on the move a lot and when I have that conversation that ends the relationship with ‘How come you haven’t called me in a couple of days’ off I go, I’m out."

While he may not want to get married, he has no qualms about the fact that those who want to, should be able to.

"I think it should be legal everywhere. The people who are against it, so what? Tell them to shut up and get a life, please move on. I think what might be a thing that would help is if perhaps we could move the terminology over and call it something else and not give the rabid religious right a leg to stand on. If gay people were ok with it not being called marriage and call it anything else where the Christians can’t say ‘ohh you are intruding upon our sacred hunting grounds’ we all of a sudden take the conversation away from them. People want tax breaks that married people enjoy in states in America and if the state will not recognize the union then you are not getting the benefits and your marriage is not legitimate. So what I would like to do is take it out of the religious realm so the Christians are forced to shut their mouths. Anything but letting Pat Robertson and all these idiotic psychos have a leg to stand on. I would love to be able to say ’sorry, you don’t get to talk about this anymore because we aren’t doing it in your house, so shut up.’"

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