Henry Rollins recently stirred up excitement when he mentioned that he was working on a four-song project with fellow hardcore legend Ian MacKaye, but as it turns out, neither of them actually appear on the music itself.
In an update on Rollins’ website on October 31st, the former frontman of both Black Flag and Rollins Band wrote, in part, “Weeks ago, I journeyed it to DC in order to work on a great project. Ian MacKaye and I went to Inner Ear Studios, where we made our first records decades ago and mixed a four song session with the great Don Zientara at the board. … We are extremely excited by this one.”
Considering that Rollins hasn’t made new music for a couple of decades, and MacKaye’s iconic status as frontman of both Minor Threat and Fugazi, it’s quite understandable that Rollins’ post worked up old-school hardcore fans into a frenzy. But as Rollins clarified in a new post on Friday, he and MacKaye were actually working on mixing an unearthed demo by an unnamed legendary punk band:
“Before anything else, I think I need to clear something up. Last week I told you that I went up to DC and mixed some tracks with Ian MacKaye at Inner Ear Studios in beautiful Arlington, VA. The tracks we mixed were not a collaborative effort, besides the mixing itself. I am not on the tape. Ian is not on the tape. Neither of us are on the tape. What we were working on was a demo, recorded in 1979, by a legendary Punk band that recently came into my possession. I had the tape baked and transferred by the very capable Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound in Nashville and had him send the tracks to Ian so he could take them to Inner Ear and get them loaded in. The mix came together quite quickly because it was only eight tracks on one inch tape and the quality of the sounds were so good out of the gate, very little had to be done. The performances are fantastic. Ian and I played the mixes over and over days later and kept in touch to see if either one of us had any notes as to anything that needed to be changed and neither of us could find anything wrong with the work. I contacted a member of the band and asked if I could release the tracks. I got permission and started preparing the tracks for release. We sent the final mixes to Pete, who mastered them and they’re really good. I’m going to be working in collaboration with Larry Hardy at In The Red Records and we’ll be releasing the demo as soon as possible, as a four song 12”. You might already know that Larry and I have been putting out very cool and often extremely rare tracks on 7” and 12” records over the last few years. In fact, we have a great one at the pressing plant right now. Once it’s back, I’ll tell you all about it. It’s super cool.”
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So, while it may not be the project hardcore fans were hoping for, it still sounds pretty intriguing. Stay tuned as Rollins reveals which legendary punk band’s music he and MacKaye have been working on.
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