Road Warriors The Rollins Band brings heady hard rock to Portland’s State Theatre

Enigmatic. Powerful. Human.

Henry Rollins is more than a musician. He’s a political and philosophical workhorse; transcending the traditional boundaries of entertainer at every turn. From punk rocker to spoken word artist, and actor to author, Rollins should be balding from all the hats he’s worn.

Two weeks shy of his band’s next release, Rollins will return to Maine to don his hard rock lid. The Rollins Band will bring a head full of noise to the Portland State Theatre at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 10.

And for a man with as much fire and intensity as Henry Rollins, it’s hard to believe he’s been in this business for two decades.

Without a lot of hoopla, Rollins was first accepted into the drained L.A. punk scene in 1981 when he stepped onto the stage as the new singer for Black Flag. Screaming impaled lyrics, with little pre-empting from the rest of the band, Rollins helped revive punk as an underground movement.

Not long after the Black Flag dissolution in 1986, Rollins went on to form and front the aptly named Rollins Band. Eight albums, 10 years and a Grammy nomination later, the Rollins Band disbanded and Rollins had all but burned himself out on being in a band.

Then he heard a demo of the L.A. rock trio Mother Superior. Rollins was so impressed, he produced one of the band’s albums. An inevitable jam session ensued and the foursome clicked musically. Rollins was back in the game.

“These guys got me back into music,” Rollins said in a recent interview. “I was tired of music right then. But during the first night with those guys I thought, ‘Oh, yeah! I remember this!'”

Rollins has only been working with the current incarnation of the band for a short time, but he’s quick to defend the group’s chemistry.

“Jim, Marcus, Jason and I have been playing and recording since early 1998,” Rollins explained. “It’s not exactly a new band. With 124 shows under our belt, it’s a tested and roadworthy unit. These guys can play.”

In addition to a slew of road tours, the band released the rugged and off the cuff “Get Some Go Again” last year and are awaiting the Aug. 21 release of “Nice” – twelve tracks of raw hard rock energy with little meddling from studio engineers.

But as Rollins will readily admit, there’s no substitute for the real measure of an entertainer – the live show.

“Studio work is a pain in the neck and the reward has always been that I get to go on tour and hit stage where there are no second takes and everyone can see what you lack,” Rollins said.

Tickets for the show are $19.50 and are available by calling Ticketmaster at 775-3331 or by visiting the nearest Ticketmaster outlet.