RO: Your point of view is more in line with most rational citizens in the country. Do you ever see yourself running for office?

HR: No, those people (politicians) take a lot of meetings and talk out of two sides of their mouth and are always in need of fundraising. I'm a high-school graduate and I enjoy my life as a private citizen. If you put me on the platform with anybody in opposition, I would probably get my head handed to me. If I get into a thing with Ann Coulter, she would hand me my head. She lives for that bloodsport and I don't have it.

You couldn't put me on a segment on Fox News. I would get talked into a corner and it would end with Bill O'Reilly asking me why I hate America. I'm not quick on my feet like politicians seem to be. I just like my country. And now I am almost quoting Glenn Beck.

I think there are saner ways to do things. I think Eisenhower was right when he warned us about the military-industrial complex. To add one more scoop on that cone, there is the prison-industrial complex. Why else do we have more incarcerated men and women than any other country in the world, including countries with a higher population? It's because it makes money.

RO: What parallels do you see in the music scene from 1980 to 2010?

HR: A little, in some surprising places. In the early days of Dischord, Ian MacKaye's label, things were very wide open. The Bad Brains used my little VW to drive up to New York to get the pressing of their single back to D.C. My little car got "Pay To Cum" back to D.C., so the car was good for something. I was there when the first Teen Idles record was released as Dischord 001. My record was Dischord 002.

I remember seeing the Bad Brains with 100 people, seeing the Cramps with 150 people. Getting sweated on by Dee Dee Ramone. All of that stuff is very fondly remembered by me.

I am seeing parallels to those days now with a lot of small labels who only do cassettes and CD-Rs with handmade art. There is a great label in the Midwest called American Tapes out of Michigan. They make noise music and it's spearheaded by this one guy, John Olson. He's got like five different bands. Wolf Eyes, Dead Machine, this thing and that thing. Every record he puts out for the most part, he gets cereal boxes and spray-paints them up, puts in two flyers, two cassettes and a CD. All spray-painted with a limited edition of 20 or 12.

He has about 850 releases on his label and I have probably about 500 of them. I am such a big fan of the noise movement. I am big fan of labels like Fag Tapes, Gods Of Tundra, Hanson Records, all that stuff is relevant to me. These guys kind of gasp that I actively seek out their stuff. Every now and these guys will write me "Dude! You just ordered something from my site!" Yeah man, I am into it. I have tubs of this stuff and I listen to it.

I wrote Olson last year and I told him that they are what punk rock should have done. Just like when Johnny Lydon went to Public Image Ltd., you guys are taking it somewhere. It's not commercial, they don't want you to like them, and they aren't going to go on MTV. You want to get the record, you have to go to the show or bleed out the mouth on eBay. These noise labels are like that. You better be there first in line because it's over in five minutes.