Henry Rollins News

(7/25/02, 3 p.m. ET) -- Henry Rollins has gone back to his past as a member of Black Flag to create an all-star benefit album. Rollins corralled artists such as Iggy Pop, Ryan Adams, Public Enemy's Chuck D, Motorhead's Lemmy, and members of Slayer, Slipknot, Rancid, and Queens Of The Stone Age to record 24 Black Flag songs for Rise Above, the latest album dedicated to the West Memphis Three (WM3).

The West Memphis Three--Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin--are serving life sentences in Arkansas for murdering three 8-year-old boys. Pegged as Satanists, the WM3 maintain that their confessions were coerced by police and that they are, in fact, innocent. They are currently appealing the verdict. The trio's story has been the subject of two Paradise Lost documentaries on HBO, which is how Rollins was introduced to it.

A hearing on a recent appeal motion by the WM3's Misskelley is slated to be heard on November 12 in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Rise Above, most of which was recorded in May at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, is due October 8. Among the highlights are Pop's "Fix Me," Adams's live version of "Nervous Breakdown," "Room 13" by Corey Taylor of Slipknot, "No More" by Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen of Rancid, "Revenge" by Tom Araya of Slayer, and the title track duet by Rollins and Chuck D.

Calling the results "bulletproof," Rollins says that after investigating the story of the WM3, their "plight...became personal...I didn't agree with the verdict. I figured that to do nothing about that would be to align myself with the forces of injustice that got them pulled into this horrible situation."

Steve Earle spearheaded another album, Free The West Memphis 3--Benefit For Truth And Justice, in 2000.

The full Rise Above tracklisting includes: "Rise Above," Chuck D and Henry Rollins; "Nervous Breakdown," Keith Morris; "Fix Me," Iggy Pop; "American Waste," Neil Fallon of Clutch; "I've Had It," Cedric Bixler Zavala of the Mars Volta; "I've Heard It Before," Jeff Moreira of Poison The Well; "Room 13," Corey Taylor of Slipknot; "Wasted," Exene Cervenka; "Jealous Again," Nick Oliveri of Queens Of The Stone Age; "TV Party," Henry Rollins; "No Values," Hank Williams III; "Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie," Dean Ween of Ween; "Depression," Casey Chaos of Amen; "Six Pack," Mike Patton (Tomahawk, Fantomas, Faith No More); "Police Story," Ice-T; "Revenge," Tom Araya of Slayer; "Thirsty And Miserable," Lemmy of Motorhead; "What I See," Chuck Dukowski; "No More," Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen of Rancid; "Black Coffee," Henry Rollins; "Slip It In," Henry Rollins and Inger Lorre; "Annihilate This Week," Henry Rollins and Kira Roessler; "My War," Henry Rollins; and the live "Nervous Breakdown," Ryan Adams.

-- Gary Graff, Detroit

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