Hardcore punk great and former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins will appear at Rebellion Festival this year with one of his signature spoken word performances.

The annual festival returns to the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, running from Thursday the 3rd of August until Sunday the 6th, and will welcome Rollins to Blackpool for the first time on the Friday.

In a press release, Rollins expressed his joy at the invitation, stating, “I’m looking forward to being part of Rebellion Festival this year. I will be on my own, no band, just me speaking. Perhaps the lowest volume performance of the entire event!”

The festival is a celebration of all things punk, having been around around since 1996 (under the previous name Holidays in the Sun, a reference to a Sex Pistols track of the same name), hosting a multitude of punk acts in doing so.

This year’s edition features another frontman of a prominent 80s punk outfit, H.R from Bad Brains, and will see Neville Staples, formerly of two-tone ska band the Specials, and Brix Smith, former member of the post-punk band the Fall, perform solo too.

Other classic punk bands include English band the Damned, American groups M.D.C, TSOL and the Dickies, while English contemporary punk duo Bob Vylan are also set to perform at the renowned punk event.

As well as all the punk rock on offer there are groups whose music goes beyond the traditional punk realm, thereby exemplifying the festival’s ideals: bands like rock group the Only Ones and ska band Bad Manners aren’t specifically punk bands but they carry a certain punk attitude, an attitude that doesn’t particularly care what others may think of them, an attitude on which the festival is built on.

Rollins certainly embodies such a punk attitude. Starting off as a roadie for local Washington D.C punk bands, he formed and fronted State of Alert in 1980, and released an EP with this group before they disbanded later that year.

Rollins soon after became a fan of Black Flag, seeing as many shows as possible and even singing for the group on one occasion. Coincidentally the band was then on the lookout for a new vocalist after former singer Dez Cadena switched to playing guitar, and Rollins was thus invited to join.

Rollins’ stage presence helped Black Flag’s prominence and, after releasing six albums in as many years, the band became synonymous with the American punk scene. In 1986 the band disbanded, however, and Rollins formed another band, the Rollins Band, and also started his spoken word career, and has released seventeen spoken word albums to date.

Listen to “Rise Above” by Black Flag below:

Tickets for Rebellion Festival are available to purchase here.