Henry Rollins is something of a renaissance man. Carving out a successful music career with the genre-defining hardcore punk band Black Flag and later Rollins Band, he didn't stop there. He has since fronted his own show on MTV, had a recurring dramatic role in Sons Of Anarchy, had a successful comedy career, fronted political campaigns focused on LGBT rights, ending world hunger, and more.
Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with him to discuss his new venture, The Sound Of Vinyl, his infectious passion for music, and his work integrating vinyl, technology, and content into an interesting package that could help preserve not just music but the stories behind the music for generations to come.
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A new era of vinyl
Of Rollins' many achievements, when I first became aware of his new initiative,
The Sound Of Vinyl, I was particularly interested to learn more from him about it.
The idea is simple. You can visit the The Sound Of Vinyl website, share your music tastes, and you will be notified when there is vinyl available that you might be interested in. Buying the vinyl is as simple as responding to a text.
The Sound Of Vinyl model at it's core, is somewhat familiar. Netflix started out life in a similar way: you could browse a range of movies, TV shows, and recommendations based on your interests, and a few days later a DVD would arrive.
Rollins is a core part of this new endeavor, and while he is passionate about the value of vinyl, he also considers the value of discovering new music as a key part of being a music fan.
Many of you will be familiar with the role of the local record store, replete with owners with a seemingly vast knowledge of what music you should listen to next. Rollins sees this as a vital piece of the The Sound Of Vinyl puzzle, not merely the distribution itself.
"With those kind of wizened, old Woody Herman experts who would kind of scold you as you bought a record, like, 'You’re buying that one but he sold out on that record,' where I’d go, 'Okay, well tell me the Stan Kenton record I really need'. Then, they’d come running out and throw a record into your hand and grab you by the ear and drag you back to the counter and lecture you for another 20 minutes. We’re trying to do that with the The Sound Of Vinyl website", he says.
Rollins' vision for this content piece is expansive. "You’re gonna see on-camera interviews of me extracting information from fascinating people from every aspect of the industry from engineers, record-company owners, journalists, record collectors, and music fans, about everything from how they remastered the Blue Note catalog to the first record they ever bought, to their preferred analog playback environment. You’ll see really well-known and somewhat obscure people wax forth about the vinyl experience and you’ll have access to an insane amount of vinyl. You’ll see Top 10 lists that I’ve written in Starbucks all over Southern California on a weekend because I have no life."
Jono Bacon
Rollins' vision of a hub of information and vinyl is powerful and given the clearly consistent interest in vinyl, it is likely sustainable. It does though tap into a much deeper relationship between the consumer and the medium, of which vinyl is far more unique.
Unlike the world of digital video or optical discs which are merely delivery devices for content, with vinyl the medium itself is part of the charm. Netflix moved naturally from DVD distribution to streaming video because the latter offers greater convenience, but also because the former was utilitarian and frankly, boring. Optical discs simply lack the romanticism and fondness that vinyl fans share with their medium.
In our conversation, I too shared this romanticism with Rollins. It isn't just the content of vinyl, but the packaging, the liner notes and lyrics. It is the feel, and even the smell when you open the record up for the first time.
"Of all of the things that you said, the fact that vinyl has a physical place in the world in that you hold it in your hand, if you drop it, you could hurt it, this gives it more value. I think digital music has devalued the currency of music in that you can run over a CD with a car, and it still plays, which is fine. You can stream it but all of a sudden it is then music-in-the-background. Well, what does the album cover look like? I don’t know."
The vinyl cat lady
In the 30 minutes or so that I spent on the phone with Rollins, his sheer passion for music was infectious. This isn't a guy whose musical proclivities are merely career-focused on making (and now distributing) music.
Rollins is a prolific collector himself, dubbing himself a "vinyl cat lady". For him music is not just noise, it is story, context, and relationships too.
"I like collecting because sometimes I don’t listen to music, I just go into the room and I sit with the records. I really enjoy that. I just sit with them because I’m with my ancestors, I’m with my best friends, I’m with the great, genius artists of not only my lifetime but the lifetime of my ancestors. I’m with John Coltrane and Jimmy Hendrix, Sun Ra, and Jane’s Addiction, just sitting in my garage."
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Vinyl is becoming increasingly popular for music fans.
He continues, "Do I know them? No, but do I really? Yes, because I know them through the message of music. What John Coltrane wanted to tell me was not in an interview, it was on the record. So do I know John Coltrane? Are you kidding? I definitely know John Coltrane. Is he my friend? How many times have I listened to 'A Love Supreme'? I think he and I are friends and that’s why I don’t necessarily go running to meet a musician. I’m happy just going to the show standing in the back so that young kids don’t run into me and break my hip."
Behind the music
As we chatted it became clearer and clearer that for Rollins, and myself included, music is far more than the one-dimensional noise coming out of your speakers. The energy, creativity, and wider back-story that went into the music is something Rollins wants to protect. He sees vinyl, and the physicality that we discussed earlier, as a core tool in accomplishing this.
"Some people really sweated and nearly killed the bass player to make that record. Shouldn’t you know more about what you’re listening to? I think the digital experience has distanced a lot of people away from all the best parts of music and to me the vinyl welds you to all the good parts of music."
"First off it sounds better. That’s not up for debate, but the fact that you have to manually put it on the record player, flip the damn thing over, not screw up the record by putting the needle on it incorrectly, put it away, store, and care for it, like, kinda love it a little, which is weird with an inanimate object but I love my records as much as I’ve ever loved any human being. They’re definitely better friends and I’ve never had that with a CD."
Rollins enthusiasm reminded me a little of my now passed grandmother who had a similar passion for books. In her little library she would evocatively gush about the stories, lessons, and learnings buried in the hundreds of books she owned. For her, books were not merely containers of information, but a fundamental part of the human condition and an unlimited wealth of potential for learning and discovery.
"People need to have their minds blown by stuff their grandfathers, literally, grew up on. I want them to put out hard-earned money and get a record that they’ll preserve and give to their kids 20 years later. If you take care of a record it still sounds good. I have records I’ve been playing for three damn decades now and they still sound good. That’s what we’re trying to do on this site, educate, illuminate and spark the curiosity of, and provide a direct-to-customer vinyl service".
Over the years I have met various founders who exhibit a passion for their new venture, but I have never met anyone who shares the sheer level of energy, passion, and approachability as Rollins demonstrated in our discussion. What came thundering through was a deep level of authenticity, and if he and his partners can bring this to The Sound Of Vinyl, they will really have something special on their hands.
On the other hand, if you choose the CD Baby approach, you will ALWAYS make something from your release – even is it’s 91% of bugger-all. Yes, at your peak CD Baby will cost you more than the flat fee model will … assuming you make that much … but over the following 20 years, it will cost a hell of a lot less. The graph looks like this:
Now, I have no problem whatsoever paying someone who’s done a great service for me – especially if they have made nothing in all the time that I’ve made nothing. That’s called a true partnership – you win, I win. The companies that charge a flat fee are saying that they want to get paid no matter what happens to you – they don’t care whether you succeed or fail! That’s perfectly legitimate business, but it’s not sharing your risk and it’s not helping you in all the time that your releases don’t make their minimum.
