Since the 1960s, the “God of Hellfire,” ARTHUR BROWN, has been shaping the world of rock music. A few days ago, his likely final album, “Nature,” was released. In an interview that is anything but ordinary, the now 84-year-old reflects on the interplay between trees and stars and explains how fire and water have inspired him—as well as his views on AI and why his theatrical rock is a perfect fit for extreme metal festivals. Also joining us: his manager Claire Waller, who, as Arthur calls her, serves as the “voice of industrial wisdom” from off-screen. Welcome to the (mostly anything but) crazy world of ARTHUR BROWN!
You moved back to England from the U.S. a few years ago. What made you decide to move back?
About 15 years ago, I went in England to a cafe. There I met Claire, who was the proprietor of the cafe. And we got to be friends. About 10 years ago, Claire asked me, what would you like to do with the rest of your life? And I said, oh, I’d like to have my past lodged into what I did and when in the history of the music. So she said, okay, well, why don’t we just pack up. And we just set off. In that time, we discussed all the things in life and travelled a lot into different countries. Gradually, the idea of the show came together. And by the time we’d done that, we’d travelled all the way through America. We actually did a tour with YES and CARL PALMER. This tour, which did, I think, 69 locations in America, in different states, was part of our journey. And then gradually, we’d found our way back into England. And we …
[Arthur is handed a cup of tea] Oh, thank you, a cup of tea arrived! Fabulous. That’s good English fare, isn’t it? Well, so we ended up back in Yorkshire, where we stayed with Claire’s sister. Claire, by then, was my manager, the creative director of the show. And as a creative director today in music, you’re doing an unbelievable amount of tasks and roles. And she has done that amazingly and lifted me from a kind of standstill in my career and moved it right up to where we are now.
What’s your connection to that place? What exactly drew you there?
Claire and I ended up eight miles or so away from where my father, my grandfather, and the line of my father’s parents are buried. Where that burial ground was, was one side of the house. And eight miles on the other side is Whitby, where I was born. We first moved out of Whitby with my parents when I was seven, down into Cardiff. In Cardiff, the school curriculum for Wales included having an allotment of land. And one of our lessons was planting, digging, and how to look after plants and everything like that. When I left that and went from Wales to Leeds, they couldn’t believe that … you’re mean to say that you put potatoes in the ground and you got marks for it. (laughs) So it all changed around again. But I was back in Yorkshire till I was about 18. Arriving on the Whitby Moors was a wonderful thing. We both enjoyed just driving around and finding a little village, looking around, seeing what the kind of nature there was there. And I felt very welcomed by it. So I put it back into something.
The house has lots of land and trees and animals. They’re not all ours, but they’re all there. We became accustomed to finding different kinds of foliage and birds. Where we live, we get once a year an osprey, which is a sea eagle. We are the spot where it lands. It stays for about six weeks every year and then goes on to Africa. So we’re the stopping off point. It is a remarkable bird! And in the morning, when we wake up, we look out on the green next to the house, and looking at dawn, there’s about 50 rabbits all in line, looking sunwards and worshipping the sun and its light. We have also different farmers bringing their sheep, particularly when they’re lambing, to a different part of the grounds of this place. There is a national trust area, where you must keep your dogs on the leash during the time when the birds are there. And we have a pony, Claire loves it. It’s kind of fostered because somebody else couldn’t continue with it and didn’t want to put it down. So we had that. And we’ve got Claire’s sister’s big dog, which is a dog that thinks it’s a human. (laughs) And hens that also think they’re entitled to be inside our house. And of course, that’s very pleasant, but there are things that they have to accomplish. Like if we’ve got a set of notes for something important, they might jump on the table and poo on them. (laughs) So it’s a joining with nature in a very real sense of just being with them in space.
There’s also a river there, which sometimes of the year has the brown tinge. On the industrial revolution part of our history, the mines were quite close to where we are. And so, you know, the iron ore and all of that is still washing out of the soil into the rivers. And there are sort of a prehistoric burial mounds and things. So you get to see a lot of different things there …
So did this very special setting bring you back to nature, or have you felt just as deeply connected to nature your whole life?
Well, it’s a real deepening of it. When I was at school and got to the last year of the study there, they said to me, well, you don’t have to come into school. As long as you do make up your own syllabus, and you will follow the curriculum of books to read and stuff like that, the exams will follow that. That led to walks up in the hills.
That brought out certain ways that my psyche and my body worked. I was also adolescent, so all the hormones were flying, and that led to walking in the hills and the grasses, tall grasses. And the things that were happening in my mind were, you know, there was a feeling in my body of being sort of imprisoned, if you like. And then there would be a kind of rush and I would appear to my mind to come out through the top of my head. And when I did that, sometimes poetry just spontaneously came out. And some of that poetry is in my earlier work, when I was like about 26, so THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN. Some of it is in this new album we are putting out today, myself with Dan Smith, who’s an incredible musician.
The basis of that album is the relationship with all of the elements around, the particular different forms: bird song, river song, and rhythms that I had come across when I was living there as a child in the moors. And the rhythms of the colours and the rhythms of the sounds of the sea, of the wind and all of those things. So you might find us on a particular day, walking down where we lit a little fire. And then all of those fires crackle and burn and throw up scents and all of the things we can use in translating the whole countryside into sound and music.
But the lyrics also touch on a lot of sociopolitical issues – you sing about artificial intelligence, the media bubble, and so on. How important is it to you to stay up to date on these topics, both politically and technically?
Well, of course, all of that affects the way we live. Claire and I are weighing up: How are we going to live? How do we live in conjunction with nature and then with all of the human additions to life, like money? So it is all one. When you’re in the trees up here, under the ground are all the mushrooms and the underground of that. So for that case, the whole of the woods or the forest are one creature. That’s where we usually stop. But if you look at it from there, how do you include a star? Is it separate from that forest or actually are they all the same at a certain point?
And even the distance between a living creature, as we call it, and then something which is not living, as we call it … is a mountain living? You can’t say that if you’re not going to go as far as you can in science. Actually, you meet up very closely to what some of the great masters archived in another way of looking at life through meditation. You find the equivalent of consciousness, being what is the root of matter. And therefore on a deeper level there is a dissolving between what’s alive and what isn’t alive.
So how do we find life and how do we find industry occurring? Because as soon as you have, let’s say, consciousness as being a particle, although it may dissolve into something that we wouldn’t be able to do that with, but some people can reverberate with the vibrations that come from the two, and what lies underneath both of them. Therefore, you could say that there is a oneness about everything. How do you live with that? What happens to money? What happens to the right to land? The right to have as many people living in a country as you want, even though it means they have to take food and resources from another country? All of this is kind of coming close to old religions and different magical cultures.
For instance, the journey with Claire, going through different nature backgrounds … like the „moving lights“ of Texas, which are colours and they are vibrations. But how do we relate to that? Is there a joining between us in a way that we can fit it into some way of looking at life that equals at least a scientific way?
In our case, Claire has a very direct connection with the energies of nature and the joining of them, of her energies floating through and being the natural energies of her body, but they’re also the natural energies in the lights that some people attribute to alien presences and things like that, you know. And so that, for me, taking a whole journey with her, was a very present connection with her. I’d read some things about it, but having somebody who … her hands might suddenly disappear in the soil, but not by digging, just – wush. And lots of other adventures of that kind. Do you have anything to say about that, Claire? No? (laughs)
Do you think that this way of approaching life and nature in general is lost for the art and rock music of the younger generation?
I would say that it was an approach which was kind of hinted at or even spoken about when the underground became more overground. Partly due to the presence of large, large sums of money being pumped into the system by the record companies and the other entertainment area. And then, when the governments around the world decided that wasn’t going to actually work as a basis, like it had in some other earlier existences of peoples together. The people moved out of the general and some of them formed communities that absorbed the notion that there was communication between plants and human beings on a very deep level. And the idea that, OK, actually on one level, all matter is the same, whether you’re talking about a planet or a newspaper: On a certain level, they’re all the same thing.
When they were pushing away the ideas that would have changed society completely, that was where it all was pushed. But actually, it’s always been there in one form or another. Actually they are bringing it forward again … it’s happening on quite a large level. It’s not yet as publicly announced, but actually it will reach again to the larger people. And young people are the ones who are interested in that, in spite of the way that the older generations try to treat them in a different way. Even something like the mobile phone culture, and it has its difficulties, and the AI, that some people are already trying to throw in the dustbin, has a reference to that. You know, AI, you can ask it about it, and it will give you a great answer, and it’s better than most people can say.
On the one hand you seem to be a man deeply rooted in nature and inner peace, on the other side, for about 60 years now, you’re famous as the God of Hellfire – this name got stuck to you for your entire life. Is that something that you sometimes regret, that this was what shaped your name and career, or are you still proud of being the God of Hellfire, bringing us fire?
Well, the thing is that when Claire and I decided to do this long journey and to put into perspective what had been my place in music and performance, then we both looked at, well, okay, what most people know, if they know at all of me, is God of Hellfire. And it has been throughout my life always something that people will respond to, if they were fans from a while back, and we therefore decided we want to make people realise what the God of Hellfire really represented. I’m going to ask Claire, if she wanted to say something about that!
Claire: Just the fact that you’re proud of your body of work, of THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN, but the notion of creativity and being an artist of, is it just one hit or is your life dedicated to music? And what you wanted to do was cement the fact that there’s something in a one hit wonder, one song that lasts all of that time, has a meaning, reaches and is fun, whatever reason, but it allows you to continue to perform. And the people that do want to look deeper and go further will see there’s a whole body of work, there are a huge amount of albums.
And really it was creating the sort of identity that Arthur is recognisable for, which is the God of Hellfire, but trying to actually get through the notion that it’s dark and satanic, because actually it’s far from that. And it has been a life sort of exploring spirituality, nature, beingness and creativity, and bringing it to a sort of culmination, pinnacle point with this album of, if you’ve got something left to say, what is it? So it’s kind of building a presence using Arthur’s imagery, because it is unique, it is fun, and Arthur’s happy to embrace that he’s an eccentric, as people say, but there’s so much more than that. But also keeping the fact that don’t take yourself too seriously, that we’re here to create art and music for people to actually escape from very difficult times and have fun.
Conveniently, “God Of Hellfire” fits well with your new job: Lately, you’ve been playing at metal festivals again and again. How did that come about?
If an agent has said you would be well welcomed in this particular festival, quite often in the metal area, whether it’s heavy metal, dark metal … and we were welcome there! They trace the idea of theatre rock, the idea of … can you say something more, Claire?
Claire: It’s people recognising what you did with your voice, with theatrics. So it seems to be getting a sort of kudos and impetus within the extreme metal, dark metal family, which we find to be the most beautiful group of people who truly love music. So we really enjoyed the rebirth of bringing the show to a space where it’s really loved and really set up to accommodate it. We’re able to bring the visual show, because they have the tech. We’re able to bring smoke, fire, and you can really bring the stage presence and the band can really fly. So it’s a great link up.
How does that feel, is it kind of a second part of your career now starting playing for an entire new generation of people who are not familiar with your genre in particular?
Yes, yes, entirely true.
Claire: We found a booker, and he’s well established in the metal scene. He has been an absolutely brilliant agent for Europe and within that scene because he’s so knowledgeable.
Yes, yes indeed, yes. And there’s another factor in there which is when I met Claire, as I said, she was running a wonderful cafe that was kind of the leading energy in certain parts of the artistic life of a big township. I happened to talk to somebody who was a cook there. And he, after a while, said, I like your music. And I said, oh, are you a musician yourself as well? And he said, yes, yes, yes. I’m in a what we call a metal band. And I said, oh. And so he gave me a record he’d made and I listened to it.
And what had been a preoccupation for me was here we have, let’s say … well, a few years before that, the whole underground scene was still really underground. And so it evolved with the artists down in the UFO club and the other places it later spread to with surreal lyricism. And there was a good spiritual element in there. There were musics that came from there, like some that were the beginning of ELP, for instance. And then there were poets running around, spouting poetry. There was Marc Bolan, which in that time was The Boppig Imp, the kind of elf, with Steve Took doing a kind of almost in some way a folk type approach, Indian music involved as well. And then, you know, SOFT MACHINE, that was the jazz input … and various other people. And later, when it was beginning to become more mainstream, you had Tom Jones come down there. You had David Bowie down there. You know, it spread out.
But when that went kind of mainstream, and the mainstream took over, the lyrics changed. And as far as I was concerned, they just seemed to disappear. So it was quite a pleasant surprise when I discovered that, oh, actually, the lyrics that this guy, the cook, had shown me, they are where the people who like to write about these things are still there – but they’re now called heavy metal. And their lyrics were like that. They had another side, that was much more a particular side of the ancient tale telling, which dealt more with death and how do we combat the forces of evil, and even if it wasn’t called evil in that culture, I realized, oh, fantastic! They’re also going to like the lyric style that I had, because it was based in the same things! William Blake, and then all the other sources at that time, which went through a history of illustration, a history of classical style, all of that. So it was a very satisfying coming home, if you like. And this journey that Claire and I took, it was like, the salmon going away and then coming back home to Whitby. (laughs) And then there was the stylish coming home, in terms of musical style, and philosophical, it went deeper into what had been some of the things earlier in my old friend Claire’s life.
It’s impressive how well it works – even at BRUTAL ASSAULT, which -as the name suggests – is an extreme metal festival. Most bands play death metal, grindcore, whatever… and then there’s ARTHUR BROWN. But people came in droves to see you, and they really enjoyed the show. I hope you enjoyed it, too?
Oh, yeah! (laughs) Oh yes!
Claire: I have to tell you, it was my favourite, one of my favourite ever. What a festival. Oh, my goodness. I cannot believe how brilliant it was. (laughs) It’s amazing. It was the Dementors on the hill while I was watching PRIMUS, and then fire cannons going off will live in my heart forever. (laughs)
So you also had some time to enjoy some of the other bands and the festival as well?
Or is it just arriving, playing your show and leaving for the hotel?
No, I mean, sometimes that does happen. But on this occasion, no, no … as you know, it’s like divided into two different areas. And so hearing one and then the beginning of something else that was radically different, it gives you a good taste: You say, well, I must stand here and watch this and jump up and down with it. (laughs)
So you’re still curious to explore new bands and listen to new music?
Yes. Also, where they are very present, is on our playlist. When we’re travelling, of course we travel a lot, and you put on the, what would you call that?
Claire: Well, we have the library of tracks and all the bands. We’re constantly sharing a lot of world music, a lot of interesting rhythms and generational stuff. You know, my son sends a lot through. Some of the band members are younger and we all have very eclectic tastes and all go to live gigs, festivals. So it’s very much part of our world.
That’s really cool, a lot of musicians tell me in interviews that they don’t even listen to any other music than what they do themselves because they’re so much into writing music and playing concerts that they don’t find time to check new bands out or go to concerts anymore …
If I look back, Mozart, for instance, listened to every other classical writer of note in all the countries that would allow that. He didn’t need to, but he was interested in all they did. He was a superb writer and composer, but then he thought, well, I want to know what other people are doing with these same notes. (laughs) How does it change differently? And he quite often went and met them to see what was behind, why they were doing it in the way they were. And of course, some he didn’t like at all. But if you shut yourself in your own, you’re going to have to read up on all the other stuff. If you find the people who are doing stuff and listen, it’s a lot quicker.
You’ve already mentioned that you travel a lot. Now, being on tour is stressful and hard work even for young people. But at 84, it’s just impressive. Aren’t there moments when you think: This afternoon I could have gone for a nice walk in the UK instead of being driven through the Czech Republic in 38 degrees?
(laughs) I mean, you quite often get really tired when you’re doing long journeys and then long sets. It’s a good demand. But on the other hand, it is meeting other musicians. It is seeing other countries. It is coming to know some of the differences, say, between Finland and England: a totally different approach to life. How would you know that? You might read a book, but you wouldn’t be able to taste the flavour of it that comes with eating there and talking to people. So if there is a point where you’re beginning to feel burnt out, and for some reason that’s a terrible one, because how do you deal with not playing for a while and making money to stay alive? (laughs) It’s also, times say, like now, if you’re particularly in England, where the old clubs are suffering indeed. And so where do all these young people go to when the tickets are £180?
It sounds like you’re not thinking about quitting. Are you going to focus on concerts, or will you keep making albums as well?
Well, I will hand over this one to my manager and creative director.
Claire: I don’t think Arthur will ever stop, is the answer to that. I think in terms of the time that it takes to create an album, there’s a realism there, because this album we started in 2021, in terms of Arthur writing the poetry, and it just came out. So I think Arthur’s lifeblood is performing on the stage, connecting with an audience. So we are building the show, we’re constantly creating, we’re constantly looking at costume, lighting, looking at new technologies, we will continue that. And as long as people want to come and see Arthur, and we can still manage to perform, as is the case with many artists today, it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep a live show on the road. So what it needs is exposure, because it’s a great show. It holds its own in a massive, whatever genre, it speaks to people. So as long as that’s the case, and Arthur is able to do it … we have a younger band. We’re all younger in age than Arthur, with a great sense of commitment to creativity in the arts. So we will just keep it going as long as we can, and Arthur wants to do it, and it’s relevant and speaks and people enjoy it.
13. September 2026 Moritz Grütz
Fotos von: Afra Gethöffer-Grütz
Dieses Interview wurde per Telefon/Videocall geführt.
Was für ein außergewöhnlicher Mensch, der Arthur. Spannendes Interview, werde mir mal das neue Album anhören.
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