He has appeared in films alongside Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino, hosted the MTV comedy show Jackass and toured for two decades as a spoken word artist and writer.

Now Henry Rollins will be the first man to perform at the Assembly in Spencer Street, Leamington, on August 29.

But when he steps onto the stage audiences are more likely to hear tales of travelling in Burma, Iran and Iraq than reflections on a life in showbusiness.

"It's just me with a microphone and whatever I have to tell," he says. "A good night for me is when I have good material. It's up to me to go out into the world and have something interesting that I can somehow communicate when I take it to the stage."

He has performed more than 100 shows a year for the past 25 years, so when he is not performing or working he uses the proverb "may you live in interesting times" as his starting point, visiting Afghanistan, Djibouti, Syria, Beirut and Kurdistan.

Life was not always this rich, and after a troubled childhood and a education at a naval school his horizons extended only as far as pushing a broom in minimum wage jobs.

Music helped him break out of this, when he realised it was possible for a "prep school douche bag" to move beyond simply earning a living.

He said: "Punk rock made me think it was possible for a mere mortal to be in a band. In a 16-month period I saw Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Led Zeppelin, the Clash and the Ramones.

"When I saw Led Zeppelin I was 130m from the stage. Then the first time I saw the Ramones, Dee Dee Ramone sweated on me. That had a big effect. The music felt different when you were right up close.

"It was punk rock that told me it was OK to question things and challenge things. Punk rock said 'question authority'."

Rollins sang with Washington DC band State of Alert for a short time, before making his name with Los Angeles band Black Flag in the early 1980s.

He also became known for his body-building regime and aggression onstage. But the lifestyle of a stoned rock-star did not appeal.

Interviewers were surprised to find the singer alert and drug-free.
When Black Flag split up in 1986 he formed his own group the Rollins Band.

Although never a mainstream figure, his schedule has remained busy, even after the death of a close friend who was murdered in front of him, Rollins kept working.

He appeared at Woodstock in 1994 and that year won a Grammy award for best spoken-word album Get in the Van.

He has appeared in films such as Heat, Johnny Mnemonic and Bad Boys II and in 2003 he began performing for US troops in war zones around the world, and often combines travelling with film-making, including a recent documentary on world famine.

He added: "The world is interesting. Culture is interesting and I'm a curious guy. The choice between sitting at home and watching TV and going to Indonesia is a no-brainer - I have to go to the airport right now.

"Throwing a rock at a cop isn't going to solve anything, so as I hurtle towards 50, making a documentary on world poverty is how I stick it to the man."