Henry Rollins in 'West of Memphis' -- Exclusive Movie Clip + Album Stream

Posted on Jan 14th 2013 11:27AM by Dan Reilly
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Legacy Recordings

The new documentary "West of Memphis" chronicles the case of the West Memphis Three, the trio who spent 18 years in jail after being wrongfully convicted of the murders of three young boys.

Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were finally released in 2011, and the film shows their long fight for freedom. Many musicians publicly supported them during their incarceration and are now lending their help on the film's soundtrack, West of Memphis: Voices for Justice. Eddie Vedder, Nick Cave, Johnny Depp, Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines, Patti Smith and more appear on the album, along with veteran punk rocker Henry Rollins, who reads one of Echols' letters from death row.

In the exclusive video clip below, Rollins also discusses why he got involved with the project. "This may sound a bit presumptuous, but when I saw Damien, Jessie and Jason, I saw a bit of myself. Damien was a book reader who liked to hang out alone and wrote in his journals that he was depressed -- hello! He liked to listen to weird music. Check! So, it could have been me."

Check out Rollins' thoughts on the case and why it angered him so much below, and stream the full stream of West of Memphis: Songs of Freedom on Spinner's Listening Party.