Screaming angryman Rollins had a choice - he could either stick in a dead-end job with no prospects or do something about it. He took what he wanted from life and it makes him furious that there are people who are too lazy to do anything about their own situation. Don't get on the wrong side of this man

Physically: he's crudely tattooed, pumped 'n' toned, testosterone- stoked, and possesses the frown-etched stare of a man who intends to complete his mission by any means necessary. Creatively: he was once head howler for American hardcore rockers Black Flag; is straight-edged, a spoken-word performer; an author and book publisher; a movie actor; a US horror-show presenter; a connoisseur of the coffee bean; and has fronted his eponymous band for the past 15 years. In three blood-, sweat- and tear-soaked years, Rollins has transformed himself from hardcore punk to Renaissance Man. This is a brief insight into some of the incidents that enabled him to do so.

It would be an understatement to say that you had an uneasy childhood...

Well, I don't know if it was as bad as anybody else's, it was just one of those, you know, things where adulthood was way better by comparison. Never really going to a school I was close to geographically, I was always kind of the out-of-towner. I remember that gave me this general unease. All through high school I was from the city and I went to school with suburban kids, so my bus ride was going way out of town to school and all the way back to go home. So that was always kind of a drag. It took me a long time to make friends with people in my own neighbourhood because I never met them. There was no opportunity to hang out in the neighbourhood, because I was too busy doing homework, or getting back late from school, or getting up really early to go there. So by the time summer comes around, you're just the skinny kid on the block who no-one knows. Of course, they all have to take their turn chasing you and trying to beat you up. As far as my early teens, my fighting days at high school were pretty much over very early. In tenth grade, I beat up a twelfth-grader. I put a hole in his face... his teeth through his cheek. He had to be stitched up and they did this in front of a good third of the school. After that... I was like a made man at high school - no-one messed with me because I was the guy who beat up the guy two grades past him. So I had it kind of easy from tenth grade on.

What actually provoked that set-to... what provoked you to do what you did?

The guy would tease me a lot, and I asked this teacher pal of mine: "What do I do about this guy?" Because if you get in fights at this school you can forget the merits, and you get sent to Saturday class in your school uniform... and it's a drag. So, you don't want to get in fights. You're not afraid of the fight as much as of the punishment, you know, it's just such a big waste of time. So I said: "What's my recourse?" And he said: "You do what you need to, I'll take care of the rest." The next time this guy gave me grief I said: "Well, let's just deal with this." He couldn't believe he was hearing this. We go out in the back of the school, and I beat him up. The next day, both of us are taken in front of the disciplinarians; the guy is all bandaged up, he's got eight stitches in his cheek. The general disciplinarian says: "Would you like to explain to me what's wrong with this boy's face?" I'm not going to say anything, I'm gonna let him explain it. He could barely talk because of the swelling, but he looked at the ground and said: "I fell down a flight of stairs at the gym, sir." Everyone knows there's no stairs at this gym. And the general says: "So that's your story?" And he said: "Yes sir." He [the general] knew what happened, and he looked at us and said: "If I see either of you under these circumstances again, I'm going to land on both of you with both feet. Am I clear?" We said: 'Yes, sir"... and he walked out of there. When we got back in the hallway I said: "What was that?" He [the kid] just looked at me and walked away. I went to that teacher and said... "Fell down stairs at the gym?" And he said: "Yeah, I had a talk with that little asshole." This teacher... he basically helped me out because I was just provoked until, you know, I hit back.

Wasn't that teacher Mr Pepperman, the guy who got you into lifting weights?

Yeah. He drove me to school every day for a little while, and he was there. We lived in the same neighbourhood. So my mum would give him some money, and I would get a ride with him instead of having to walk really far to catch the school bus.

Growing up, did you have any idea what you wanted to be?

When I graduated high school [in 1979, aged 18], I didn't know what to do: I knew I didn't want to go into the military, which is a place to go for a while; I didn't want to go to college; and I didn't want to get a normal job. So, I got a series of crap jobs. Minimum wage, where you learn everything in ten minutes... scooping ice cream, parking cars, hauling out trash. I mean, I did all these things, as everyone does, but luckily for me, about 22 months later, I was in Black Flag and on the road.

Out of interest, what was the job you quit to join Black Flag?

I was scooping ice-cream at a Häagen-Dazs.

Prior to Black Flag, what was the worst job you ever had?

Probably working at a [animal testing] lab. I was cleaning walls, ceilings, floors... cleaning rat cages, and driving blood and liver samples from one lab to another. The three-dollar-an-hour job where you work with idiots who don't have anything else to do.

I've done factory jobs, and I know I was forever thinking: 'I'll show 'em, one day I'm gonna do something creative with my life.' Did you not have those thoughts while you were doing such a shit job?

No.

So until Black Flag asked you to join them, you were just going through life with no focus?

Yeah, I mean... you just kinda see your day-to-day unfolding and you realise: 'Well, I could be here a very long time.'

Did that bother you?

Yeah, yeah... it started bothering me and I really didn't understand what I was gonna do about that. I was reaching a real point of frustration at that time...

Have you ever been lost for words?

Yeah. The first time I met Iggy Pop, I was at a loss for words. I went: "How you like playing in Seattle?" And he just looked at me like I was an idiot and went: "It's okay." I was very young.

You've had your fair share of detractors in your time. Did it ever make you paranoid about what you were doing?

No, just very aware that you can't ever, ever underestimate human intensity, and what people will do. If you're stupid enough to ever think: 'Oh, no-one would do that'... that's when you're going to get a really bad wake-up call. And someone will do that. Someone flew a plane into a fucking office building, so you know, you have to be ready for pretty much whatever.

Anything...

Well, yeah. And you have to be responsible for the responses you provoke in people. So when the show's over and some guy wants to come up and cut your ear off, you just can't say: "Well go fuck yourself." Because you've inspired that person to a degree where they've got to run up to you and tell you everything. So you have to deal with that and go: 'Okay, well, I'm the one who's provoked this response.' I can't just tell the guy to go fuck off. It took me a long time to see that.

You've always seemed to have contempt for most of the human race. Has that contempt diminished any as you've got older and wiser?

I have contempt for those who are weak, or mediocre when they have an option. Everyone has an option. In America you have a lot of people who eat too much, drink too much and sleep too much. And they're mean, green pieces of shit. Then you get a place like India, and I met tons of people there who have nothing and they're not greedy, and they're not mean. They have no property, they can fit everything they use into a bucket, and they weren't trying to take my watch. There's this old saying: 'You always have an option no matter what your surroundings are.' Those who are pigs in the midst of paradise... I will never understand it. Those people, yeah, I've got contempt for them because they infringe upon my freedom. But by and large I reckon we are all just trying to get through it.