It might not come as a huge surprise, but Henry Rollins has no plans to perform music live again any time soon. Outside of a couple stray appearances at friend’s shows, he hasn’t performed as part of a band on stage in 17 years. He is, however, currently on an extensive spoken word tour, and he linked up with The Guardian to talk a bit about stepping back from making music and a project that he’s dumped his entire life savings into that’s launching in Nashville next year.

“I stopped processing ideas in terms of lyrics,” he said of his extended absence from music-making. “One day, I woke up and thought: ‘I’m done.’ My manager flipped out, but I’ve never looked back. I didn’t want to become a human jukebox playing old songs, so I filled the space the band took with films and TV and now my shows, my radio show and writing. At this point, I wouldn’t go back on stage with a band for anything.”

As for the Nashville project: “It’s something I’ve been working on for a couple of years with my manager, Heidi May, and I’ve put my life savings into it,” Rollins said. “All I can say is that we’re looking at launching 14 months from now in Nashville and it will make people smile until their faces hurt.”

Rollins moved to Nashville a few years ago. In 2022, an LLC associated with him purchased a commercial building for $2.7 million — it previously housed an HVAC company. There’s no official news as to what Rollins plans to do with the space.