Henry Rollins says that he was pen pals with Charles Manson back when he was fronting Black Flag in 1984. This doesn’t seem too strange when you consider that Hank was sporting long hair and a menacing look back then (as opposed to his short hair and menacing look) and maybe Charlie saw a bit of himself in the Black Flag frontman. (See Black Flag: A Hair Timeline for proof, which we previously reported here).

 

Rollins says: “He wrote me a letter out of the blue once and he said, “I saw you on MTV and I thought you were pretty cool.”

 

Wow, who knew Black Flag was on MTV in the early 80s? Who knew incarcerated murderers have access to MTV? 

 

“He made references to The Beach Boys stealing his ideas, which sounded like sour grapes, and told me to tell everybody else to take care of the wildlife. That must have been the old hippie in him talking.”

 

Rollins was in his early twenties at the time. “Having him write me letters made me feel very intense and heavy. I’d always know I’d have a letter in my PO Box from him because the woman behind the counter at the post office would give you this awful look. His letters would always have swastikas on them so they were easy to spot.” [NME]