Henry Rollins: The Warrior Gene and a Costly Cure for Aids. Part 3 of an Interview with the Legend

photo of Henry Rollins by Maura Lanahan

Henry Rollins needs very little introduction. Chances are he's caught your attention in one of his incarnations, whether it be his first wave of fame with punk pioneering head-smashers Black Flag, or his later endeavor Rollins Band, or with one of his many startlingly passionate spoken word recordings. And if he didn't get your attention that way, there's a good chance you'll recognize him from one of his many television appearances or documentaries, or perhaps you are familiar with his work taking phenomenal photographs of some of the world's least-known places? Either way, the always-interesting Rollins will soon be regaling us at Fun Fun Fun Fest, so we thought it wise to catch up.

Without further ado, here is the final installment of a sprawling and thoughtful three-part interview, this part being about the "warrior gene" and the ethics of gene therapy. Click here for part one, about his current responsibility to the world's lesser-known corners, and his last "real job," and here for part two, about the likelihood of a Black Flag or Rollins Band reunion tour.

So I’m fascinated by that notion of “The Warrior Gene.”

Yeah, the MAO-A gene.

Exactly. I'm wondering, if there truly is a gene that predisposes people to potentially aggressive or violent behavior (which there seems to be), do you think that in the future gene therapy to work that stuff out is ethical?

That's a really good question, and I don't…hmm, my answer would be if you could DNA test every little boy in school and not have it come off like some kind of eugenics thing like The Boys From Brazil, and if you could say, “Okay, these four kids are testing positive for ADD,” or if you could somehow be able to find in the genes autism, or something, then maybe some preventive measures could be done. Or maybe even the MAO-A gene. And you say well, that being in mind, let's put that in the kid's file. Unless that's too much information, and un-Constitutional, and invasive. And maybe, when the kid hits puberty, or when clinically this attribute or that manifests itself, we'll be ready, with maybe a class or teachers or an environment that can help this young person articulate this thing they never asked for. So it doesn't come at them as like, why am I so different?

As someone who's used to being very different amongst other kids, it would have been a great relief to me had there been some kind of clinical explanation as to why so many things were difficult. Who knows what I have, who knows? But everything seemed to be harder. And it's not poor little me, it was major learning difficulties. Anyway, I think if you could do it ethically, in a preventative way, I think that's good. But what I think is going to happen, which is not really the answer to your question, but I think what you're going to find is that there's going to be a buck that's going to be able to be made in medication. There's already on the market MAO-A blockers, so you can now buy the cure for your “Warrior Gene,” which is such a pop culture…

Stupid name for it.

You know, when I found out exactly what this thing was, I was very sad that that's what they're calling it. It needs to be re-branded to be considered. But I think that there's going to be a medical bubble, where you'll be able to have more—you know Americans, Brits, and Australians, we love to medicate—just fistfuls of pills to have. We’ll market more things like restless leg syndrome, more things to put on TV at two in the morning.

My fear is if it turns into, “Are you afflicted with blond hair and blue eyes? Is your skin too white for you? Here’s the cure!” I don’t see that in this century, but I see it going there if a buck can be made.

You don’t see that in this century?

That is an interesting question on a slippery slope. You know what I mean? It was like stem cell research, harvesting cells. Well, hopefully we can get them from cord blood or somewhere that’s not, I don’t know, a microscopic human, and we can get ahead with science. But, now, is everyone going to live to be a hundred? Are people going to stop dying? What’s that do to the population? I mean, am I a social Darwinist? Okay, when some people get sick and die, it’s like, it happens. How long do you really want to live? How long should you live? Well, the rich will live longer, the poor not so much. They’ll get worse ingredients as time goes on. I think it always comes down to: Can a buck be made? And if a buck can be made, believe me, there will be a pill.

Here’s something a bit cynical, but I think I’m right. I think they find something like the warrior gene and they sit on it, and they find the neural blocker. And they basically let the cart lead the horse. They find the ailment. Well, they make it into an ailment. They find a fact. They turn it into an ailment. They come up with the pill, and then they announce, “You might have the warrior gene.” And when you find that out, “We’ve got a pill for you,” where they unleash the news where the cart is leading the horse. So you buy the pill. They already have the pill worked out before they’ve really investigated the ailment. It’s basically putting effect before cause.

You’re medicating for something you didn’t even know you had.

Yeah, and they work harder on the medication to the ill rather than what the ill really is, because the ill doesn’t really bring you money until you bring the medication. When you bring the medication, you can bring it to market. You can’t bring an illness to market. You can’t say, “HIV. Give me ten shares.” The cure, now you can sell that. That you can sell. Literally you can sell that tablet, that injection, that ARV treatment. You can’t sell the plague. No one wants a bucket of bubonic plague. But they might want the tablet that’s going to make the next village not bleed out of the mouth and die in an hour like the last village did. And, so, I think there’s a lot of that.

And, I bet—again, I have no proof whatsoever—that an ARV treatment and a cure for AIDS was probably around a lot longer than the market had a hold of it, where they’re just getting the names together, the pricing, the proprietary rights, who’s going to get what, what companies are going to get it for what parts of the world, and who’s not going to get it. Do they have oil? Then let’s broker a cure for AIDS and we’ll use it as a way to get their natural resources. I mean this is the Dick Cheney world. This is how you win. This is a bigger game. And I think that game is played. I think that’s the great game.

Are you familiar with the book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man?

Yeah, and its follow-up. I mean, like it says, you can play literally with life and death, just by putting a collar on the water pipe that goes into that country, or the energy pipe. I mean, it’s everywhere. They’re killing people just by rationing the flow. They literally kill old folks in their homes. And these people should be in prison, but they’re not. But you can do that. And if you can barter and broker the cure to AIDS and HIV, which I’m sure was done, no way it wasn’t done…no way it wasn’t done, or at least considered. Come on, there’s too much of a buck to be made!

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Henry Rollins will be performing on the Yellow Stage at Fun Fun Fun Fest.