Arno celebrates 65th birthday with all appropriate bells and whistles
One of Flanders’ most endearing – and enduring – celebrities, rock singer Arno turns 65 next month with an exhibition and three birthday concerts. Journalist Christophe Verbiest has interviewed the musician many times over the years to offer us an overview of the career of this unique personality
Ostend hosts an exhibition on “the universe of Arno”
Arno – born Hintjens but having shed the surname long ago – is the godfather of the Belgian rock scene, loved as much by the Flemish as by the francophones. And contrary to what he might have you believe, he’s certainly no lazy bones.
From the moment his career really got off the ground with the band TC Matic at the start of the 1980s, he’s been working hard: releasing loads of amazing records and basically being on tour continuously. “But I never had a boss. What I do never feels like working,” he adds with his characteristic gravelly chuckle: “I’ve been one hell of a lucky bastard.”
Arno (pictured) turns 65 on 21 May. In celebration, the singer, who has been living in Brussels for decades now, returns to his hometown of Ostend for the festivities. The day of his birthday and the day after, he plays the Casino Kursaal; both shows are sold out. On 23 May, he plays in Brussels at the Botanique, and if you act fast, you can still get into that show.
Next week, meanwhile, the exhibition CinemArno opens in the former Cinema Capitole in Ostend’s Langestraat: an exhibition that “through pictures, film, videos and soundscapes wants to immerse visitors in the wonderful world of Arno”.
It was in that same Langestraat, once the heart of the city’s nightlife, that Arno saw the light of day. Musically, that is. “When I was 16, I was walking through the street, and, from a window of a pub, I heard a voice like I had never heard, which left me thunderstruck: Bob Dylan singing ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. From that day on, I knew I would never feel lonely again.”
America vs Europe
In the 1960s, buying new music in Belgium was not at all easy. A lot of great American blues or rock’n’roll couldn’t be found in record stores and had to be bought abroad. If you lived in Ostend, with its busy ferry line to England, you were a bit more lucky, since travellers often brought music with them.
In 1978, I went to the United States, and the scales fell from my eyes
That’s how Arno first heard American delta blues, for instance, by singer and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson. When he was old enough, Arno went to London by himself to buy records."
So perhaps it doesn’t come as a surprise that Arno started his musical career as a harmonica player and only started singing a few years later. At 23, he formed his first band, Freckleface. Based in Ostend, they released only one, eponymously titled album, which dissolved in the mists of time until it finally got rereleased last year.
His next project was the blues duo Tjens-Couter, which he formed with Paul Decoutere. It would lead to TC Matic, the band that definitively put him on the European rock’n’roll map.
“In 1978, Paul and I went to the United States,” Arno remembered. “And the scales fell from my eyes. American bands play American music better than I will ever be able to. On the other hand: our European music culture is much richer. I realised: I have to make European music. ‘Urban!’ was the word that was buzzing around in my head. The music should be repetitive, taut and nervous.”
So he went looking for musicians who could realise his dream. “I found a bass player in the world of dance and funk, Ferre Baelen; a drummer who didn’t want to have anything to do with dance, Rudy Cloet, a fan of Jethro Tull; and a keyboard player with a great knowledge of synthesisers, Serge Feys.”
Bluesman Decoutere stayed aboard, and a band was born with members from radically different backgrounds. Arno: “All those different influences thrown together, I call that surrealism. It’s very European, Belgian even.” He laughs: “Stoemp is our invention!”
In the spring of 1980, Decoutere left TC Matic, after playing with Arno for almost a decade. Arno replaced him with Jean-Marie Aerts, who described himself as “the missing link”. And indeed, the pieces of the puzzle Arno had been fostering for two years fell into place.
Going it alone
For five years, the band kept their nose to the grindstone, released four albums and toured as much as possible – even as support for the immensely popular Simple Minds. Though they were responsible for classics like “Oh La La La”, “Putain putain” and “Elle adore le noir”, they never seemed to get the recognition as pioneering European rockers that they deserved. In the end, it was the tension between some of the band members that finished them off. I remember, one morning in 1986, their split being one of the headlines on the radio news.
I turned my shortcomings into my blessings
Arno didn’t waste any time wallowing in that demise: The same year, he released his first solo album. “I didn’t really want a solo career, I just wanted to create music that I couldn’t create with TC Matic,” he explained. “But since the band split, the solo career became the main focus.”
Some of the members continued to play with him, but gradually they left and now Serge Feys is the only ex-TC Matic man still in Arno’s entourage.
In the 30 years since, Arno has built a rich career (he hates this word) based on the same principle mix that guided TC Matic through several years – though the ingredients did change now and again. French chanson became more important to him, for instance, but he hasn’t given up on scorching rock, either.
And of course, there’s that unique voice, singing in a unique language. His take on English is as unconventional, to say the least, as that on French. But listeners tend to chalk it up to creativity; when he is criticised for his lyrics, it usually comes from non-native speakers.
And that voice – yes, it became rougher, more worn out throughout the years. Arno sounds more and more like a blues man who has lived several lives. But it’s still as unique a voice as you’ll ever hear. “I turned my shortcomings into my blessings,” he said. “I stutter, but not when I’m singing. I’m not a great singer; I never took lessons. And my songs are ramshackle, but they function.”
Arno’s sound is indeed so unique that a journalist coined the term à l’arnaise to describe his musical blend.
“I started playing music because I wanted to be free,” said Arno. “In the 1960s, freedom was our ideal. In the 1980s, everyone wanted to make money. And now becoming famous seems to be the main drive. People sell their freedom for fame. That’s the difference between now and then.”
That doesn’t mean, he cautioned, “that I’m saying it used to better before.” A final characteristic laugh: “You’re wise enough to come to your own conclusion.”
CinemArno
2 May to 1 June at Cinema Capitole, Langestraat 49, Ostend
An Arno Quartet: The must-have albums
TC Matic (1981)
The debut album by, in retrospect, one of the most important European bands of the early 1980s. The sound is a mix of hyperkinetic new wave rock, lashing repetitive funk, weird synths and a touch of ghostly blues, with Arno singing like a modern-day shaman.
Idiots Savants (1993)
Arno’s fourth solo outing turns the term idiot savant into an honourable nickname. He went to Nashville to record his most soulful album, with a remarkably broad sound and some absolute Belgian classics.
À la française (1995)
From the first recordings of TC Matic, Arno had been writing songs in French, but this is his first album that’s solely in French. A great artistic effort, and commercially a bull’s-eye. It paved the way for his success in the French territories, where he’s much more popular than in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Charles Ernest (2002)
Over the last decade or so, Arno has been releasing one great album after the other, the highly underrated Future Vintage being the latest. But this might be his all-time best: stripped of all possible trifles, Arno delves deeps into his soul. “Like I said before, I am just a lonely solo gigolo”.
