'This Is One of Those Impossible Stories' — Henry Rollins Discusses Major Milestone in the Cramps' Legacy

"Every other record has its problems and it's never this unicorn-like. This is one of those impossible stories."

On Thursday (June 4), Henry Rollins joined Loudwire Nights to dive deep into a significant moment in the continued legacy of a band he's loved since he was a teenager: The Cramps.

You can listen to the full conversation in the audio player near the end of this article.

Last week, it was announced that the Cramps' record label, Vengeance Records, is being resurrected by a newly-formed company, The Cramps Inc. The first release from it will be a never-before-heard record from the band taken from a recording session in 1977, Gravest Gravy.

Along with a group of other like-minded individuals, Rollins is deeply involved in this new moment in the Cramps' career.

But for Rollins, the story started long before now.

"My best friend, Ian MacKaye, he went to the cool school," Rollins shared with Loudwire Nights' Chuck Armstrong.

"All of his friends were people who ended up in early Dischord Records bands. He heard cool music way before I did and thanks to Ian, I heard this cool music that his cool friends were turning him onto. So we're driving in his car one day, he's got the mixtape going, and what's this band doing this song 'Human Fly'? I was like, 'Whoa?! What's that?' Blew my mind. He goes, 'Oh, that's the Cramps. You ever heard of them?' No, we see each other every day, I'm not going to hear something if he doesn't know about it."

MacKaye shared everything he knew about the Cramps with Rollins, including a live recording of a show he snuck into in February of 1979. As Rollins told the story, MacKaye crawled into a window at the Hall of Nations on the campus of Georgetown University and recorded the Cramps' performance with his mom's tape recorder.

"It's the first copy of a tape I ever made," Rollins recalled.

"Anyway, I turned 18 in February of '79, so I can go to clubs. In April of '79, the Cramps played a small bar called LBJ. I don't remember it being sold out, but it's a bar that services as a venue. You've probably been to at least 1,000 of those where the stage is kind of tucked away and the Christmas lights go around the banister and the parquet floor and the PA is kind of just screwed into the wall next to the TV or something. It was a very low-tech scene."

Rollins paid $3 and saw his first club show just a few months after his 18th birthday.

To see these four very interesting looking people, I mean, they're all kind of rugged and beautiful and charismatic in their own way, but it's like a live monster movie, crazy sitcom playing out in front of you.

"I stood next to Ian and the stage is about a foot high and you can smell them," he said.

"You can walk right up there. I stood in front of the Cramps, which is Bryan Gregory to my left, and then Lux [Interior] in the middle, Nick Knox at the back and [Poison] Ivy on my right — and they started playing."

He interrupts the memory to say that a few years ago, he came across a recording of this exact show on eBay, so of course he bought it and he was happy to hear that the show was as cool as he remembered.

"They play this amazing music and to see these four very interesting looking people, I mean, they're all kind of rugged and beautiful and charismatic in their own way, but it's like a live monster movie, crazy sitcom playing out in front of you," Rollins expressed.

"They're literally right in front of you. I remember during the song 'Rockin' Bones,' when Bryan Gregory screams, 'Raw bones! Raw bones!,' his acne scars turned red. And I'm like, 'Oh, okay, this is real.' And I kind of staggered out of that show and I don't think I've ever recovered. I say that about that band and that show, I never got better."

Unearthing the Cramps' Gravest Gravy + Bringing It to Life

Along with Rollins and MacKaye, there is a small group of people involved in Vengeance Records today, including the three people in charge of The Cramps Inc.: Poison Ivy, film producer Jimmy Maslon and Larry Hardy who owns and operates In the Red Records.

Rollins and Hardy have worked together in the past, most recently releasing Demo Kicks, a 12-inch vinyl featuring newly-unearthed recordings from the U.K. Subs.

"Larry and I are, as I like to say, we're in cahoots," Rollins told the Loudwire Nights audience.

"We're always up to something and we're both vinyl nerds and we love the rare stuff and there's all these bands that we like. He and I are in touch all the time, working on projects and whatever else."

Hardy and his wife, Robin, just so happened to have built a friendship with Lux and Ivy and Hardy had done a lot of work on behalf of the Cramps over the years.

"When he calls Ivy, she'll call back, when I call, I get crickets," Rollins laughingly said.

When Lux passed away in 2009, Hardy stayed in touch with Ivy and kept his eye on her, making sure she was okay. One day, Rollins told Hardy that he would like to help Ivy archive whatever she had in her house.

"Maybe get the tapes out of the garage, because recording tapes shouldn't be in a garage, it should be in an HVAC climate-controlled environment, which I have," he stated.

"[I told Larry,] I'd like to work on those archives at no cost. I just want to do the right thing. That's what it's all about. So he brought her over to my place and my manager Heidi was there and we just spent the afternoon talking about all of this ... We get it in our minds — and it's probably Larry's idea — but I did say it to him at one point, Vengeance Records has to come back. 2026 is going to be the year of Vengeance. We're going to get Vengeance back on the road."

Once Ivy was okay with getting the tapes out of her garage, Hardy started going through and making an inventory of what she had. He came across a pack of quarter-inch tapes and asked Ivy what it was. As she explained, it was an idea the Cramps had for an album called Gravest Gravy, but they ended up shelving it.

I did say it to him at one point, Vengeance Records has to come back. 2026 is going to be the year of Vengeance. We're going to get Vengeance back on the road.

"You find out that in October 1977, when the Cramps go into the studio, Nick Knox is newly in the band and they go into Memphis, Tenn., Ardent Studios, with the great visionary maniac, Alex Chilton," Rollins said.

"Their idea is they're going to record their first A-side, which is going to be 'TV set,' a great song of theirs, and then they're going to record whatever else. Alex Chilton says, 'How about this? Let's just record every song you've got and we'll just pick out the best of the litter.' And so luckily, the Cramps did just that and they ended up with a ton of music."

More than a decade after recording, Lux and Ivy decided to mix some of the songs. In 1989, they went into a studio in North Hollywood and Chilton mixed a few songs in Memphis; these mixes were going to be Gravest Gravy.

"They had the name, they had the tracks and they had the cover photo taken by the great and sadly recently passed away Stephanie Chernikowski, who also did Gravest Hits, that great portrait shot," Rollins shared.

"Gravest Gravy, the idea is, well, here's more gravy. Here's more of those October '77 sessions. Basically, the record was going to be a love letter to the fans, bringing everyone back around to the beginning, October '77 in Memphis, and here's more of it. And for, as I say, for reasons lost to time, the project got shelved."

When Hardy found the tapes in Ivy's garage, he took them to Brian Kehew, who Rollins described as "tape guy extraordinaire over at Warner Bros.," and they baked and transferred them to see what was on them. He sent the digital files to Rollins and after he picked his jaw up off the floor, offered to help Hardy go through the various mixes and see if they might be able to reconstruct Gravest Gravy.

"From lots of nights of listening carefully and a lot of note taking, I'm hearing the vocals and Ivy's guitar basically get in the pocket, and the last mix of every song, it's right there," he said.

"I contact Ian MacKay, whose ears are much better than mine, and I said, 'Okay, you're going to be the other pair of ears on this.' He's like, 'Of course.'"

After both agreed on the right mixes, MacKaye took the tracks to Don Zientara at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, Va. — who recorded the Teen Idles, MacKaye's band he started in '78 — and did some EQ and level work. From there, everything was sent to engineer Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound in Nashville.

"To watch Pete work on this was an honor and a joy, he's so good," Rollins enthused.

"I'm never doing another project without him again. I mean, he's the best I've ever worked with. We make the mastering, we send it to Larry and send it up to Ian and everyone's happy."

As unreal as this story may seem to the average fan, Rollins never shied away from the fantastical nature of how everything unfolded.

"I've been involved with a lot of records," he said.

"I'm on them, I've produced them, compiled them, whatever, and for many years. It's a bunch. I don't think anything comes close to this one."

The Importance + Necessity of Preserving Music History

As Rollins said earlier in the conversation, this all started out as a simple desire to help Ivy archive her recordings. This idea of preservation remains a duty for Rollins and is something he has taken seriously since a young age.

"I do a lot of archival work for bands and artists — some are still with us, some are not — and that is magnetic tape, clothing, setlists, receipts, invoices, summons, whatever it is, fan mail, all kinds of things," he explained.

"In my opinion, I have anthropomorphized the past. It is elusive. It wants to get away. It is carbon-based. It wants to disintegrate. It wants to go, 'No!' And it wants to dance into the ether and disappear. That's why a flyer will eventually turn to dust. You can slow that down, but it is eventual. And that's why there are acid-free environments, that's why there are HVAC systems and on and on — and I've invested mightily in all of that. I've preserved my own history, which is of very little interest to me, but it's the duty. Everyone else's history is far more interesting to me. That's what I've been doing since 1979."

The moment this began occurred when Rollins and MacKaye were walking down M Street in Washington D.C., taping up Teen Idles flyers on light poles.

"Someone had been following us, ripping them off the light poles and I think we put some of them back up again," he recalled.

I've preserved my own history, which is of very little interest to me, but it's the duty. Everyone else's history is far more interesting to me. That's what I've been doing since 1979.

"That really offended me. Like, 'Oh, oh, you're trying to say we're not here? You're trying to erase us?' I said, 'Okay, then I'm just going to keep two of every flyer I can find.' And that's why I have two of every Teen Idles flyer and then I figured out two tape decks, copy tapes [of] Teen Idles' band practice. 'Hey, we made a tape,' let me borrow that, tape a copy. Ian started doing the same thing, because now you have Bad Brains live tapes, the Cramps, hey this guy in Maryland, he's got a tape, let's borrow it. Let's start preserving history."

Then Rollins joined Black Flag and found boxes of flyers and he started to organize those. He'd hang out with bands like Husker Du and ask them for their flyers.

READ MORE: Henry Rollins Shares Incredible Stories + Memories of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath — Interview

"Ian and I, we are these preservers of history," he said.

"Ian is more on the DC-area beat, I'm kind of, you know, the bands that I like. That's kind of what I see my job as, I'm in the fourth quarter of my life. I want to have some fun and this is all part of that ... It must be done. I think this stuff is more important than my next meal. We cannot drop this torch. The fire can't go out. The story must be told. The mission must be accomplished. And damn, is it fun."

What Else Did Henry Rollins Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• How he fell in love with rockabilly: "I don't think I understood what rockabilly was. I was really young and very thickheaded. What's that? The singer in the Teen Idles, Nathan Strejcek, he was really all over when it comes to music. And he had that King-Federal Rockabillys compilation record. This is like five songs from each label or whatever. It was a $1.99 cutout and he had it. Nathan was cool, so I must have it. So for two-thirds of an hour on minimum wage work, I had it, too. And between that record and the Cramps, I was introduced to this thing called rockabilly ... As a more experienced person, I got to read Cramps interviews and got the ethos as to why they like this music and I could not agree more. It's so much more punk rock than punk rock, I mean, those guys took way more drugs than punk rockers. They're just criminal maniacs and you really understand the appeal that they had to Lux and Ivy. These are truly deviant people. They make a lot of punk rockers look like Boy Scout types. The rockabilly people are just really bad news and the music is really good, super simple and really good. It's because of the Cramps I discovered this kind of true underbelly genre of music, these moist, sticky people making music. This love affair I have with all of that goes on to this day."
• What else is cooking for the Cramps: "What you should know, which I don't know if you know or not, Alex Chilton, the tape that he sent, it's got two versions of 'TV set,' two different vocals, very different ... We've already made a single, a seven-inch. I think it's being pressed right now. I own a lot of Cramps photos, so we used photos that I own for the cover. I wrote up all the back cover stuff...it's called More Gravy. That sucker is being pressed right now for an August release. So hopefully, if all goes according to plan, fingers crossed, we'll have Gravest Gravy and More Gravy, the accompanying seven-inch in multiple color variants ... There's another project that we just finished mastering and then there's another project which we start work on in early June that involves myself and someone named Ian MacKaye, and that one is going to be a true barn burner. We are working, that's our job, to go through the vaults, the archive and find source masters that are great and should come out."
• Another reason why he's excited The Cramps Inc. exists: "I don't think anyone gives this enough thought. With bootlegs, the band doesn't get paid. But also the Cramps did a lot of covers, and so there's other writers to be paid. And with bootlegs, those writers don't get paid their publishing. And now that we're doing everything legitimately, like 'Problem Child,' the Sam Philips estate gets paid ... That's a large part of this, getting great material out for Cramps fans because they deserve nothing but the best...and I'm guilty as charged, I love music, so I buy bootlegs all the time. I have every Cramps bootleg I know of because I want to hear it. I'm a fan, I'm a fan, I'm a fan, but I'm part of the problem. I don't blame a fan for getting a bootleg, I just wish the bootleggers would do right, just send a check, but that's not the business they're in. So we are trying to mitigate that and neutralize that as well."

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below or the Video at the Top of the Page

Henry Rollins joined Loudwire Nights on Thursday, June 4; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.