“As good as a record gets”: The intense Velvet Underground album that transformed Henry Rollins
The Velvet Underground may not have experienced much success in the late 1960s, but their legacy in the realm of guitar music is unbeaten. Their name is consistently cited as an influence by up-and-coming bands even now, almost six decades after their formation, proving that the Velvets were well and truly ahead of their time. “The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies,” ambient pioneer Brian Eno once stated, “But everyone who bought it formed a band.”
One of the band’s many disciples was Henry Rollins, a singer who would come to front hardcore outfit Black Flag a decade or so after the inception of the Velvet Underground. But he wasn’t primarily influenced by that debut record — The Velvet Underground & Nico — that Eno and so many others hold in such high regard. Rather, he took inspiration from their follow-up offering, 1968’s White Light/White Heat.
During a conversation with Goldmine, Rollins picked out the Velvet Underground’s sophomore album as one of the ten records that changed his life, sharing his appreciation for the “intensity” of the record. “The first album is of course fantastic,” he acknowledged, “but it was the band’s second album that really grabbed me.”
“There was an intensity about it that I had never experienced before,” Rollins explained, “It’s as good as a record gets”. After introducing themselves with their self-titled debut, which produced avant-pop staples like ‘Sunday Morning’, ‘Heroin’, and ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’, the Velvet Underground with something noisier, something more experimental, something that showed just how willing they were to push the boundaries of instrumentation and lyricism.
That something was White Light/White Heat, an album that featured lyrics about orgasms, drugs, drag queens and soundscapes full of feedback and distortion. ‘Here She Comes Now’ paired gorgeous guitar twangs with sensual lyrics, while ‘Sister Ray’ pushed into substance use and sex, with Reed singing, “Oh no, man, I haven’t got the time, time, too busy sucking on a dong.”
What the album lacked in commercial appeal, it completely made up for in transgression and experimentation, pushing its way into the hearts of alternative kids for decades to come. One of those kids was Rollins, who would go on to create his own intense soundscapes with Black Flag and to thrive in the underground scene.
Like the Velvets, Black Flag would push into uncharted territory in their lyrics, delving into social criticism over hardcore punk, flourishing in and even pushing forward the realm of DIY. Sonically, Rollins’ wasn’t borrowing from the art rock stylings of the Velvets, but he has mirrored their intensity in his own creations, as well as their cult status within DIY scenes.
Like the Velvets, Black Flag has had a truly formative influence on a specific scene—namely hardcore—from inspiring other bands with their sound to establishing the concept of DIY touring. Their debut, 1981’s Damaged, may not have won much acclaim or fame at the time of release, but it has since been looked upon in a completely different way, much like the Velvets.
It’s easy to see why the intensity of the Velvets’ second album, as well as the intensity of the band more generally, changed Rollins’ life. Though their influence might not always be there sonically, that level of intensity certainly is.
