Index on Censorship's What the Fuck!? podcast: Penny Rimbaud

Index on Censorship magazine podcasts

In this episode, Index’s associate editor Mark Frary talks to musician, poet and activist Penny Rimbaud, who founded anarchistic punk band Crass in the 1970s.

He talks about why the battle isn’t against Donald Trump but against all US presidencies and why the British are the most repressed in the world. He says the Sex Pistols and the Clash were only playing at being angry.

He also says everyone should change their name, as he did, and why his poetic namesake is the inspiration behind his new album, Arthur Rimbaud in Verdun, now out on One Little Independent Records.

The high-concept album is based on a fiction constructed by Penny which places the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (who died in 1891) at the historic and tragic battle of Verdun in 1916. It is influenced by the sounds of John Coltrane and the visuals of Jackson Pollock.