“I like the capacity of imagery being part of the show,” said Arthur Brown, the ‘God of Hellfire’ himself, who will make his way to Southampton later this month.

The 82-year-old Fire hitmaker will take to the stage at The 1865 on Thursday, March 13.

He spoke to the Daily Echo about touring, almost 60 years after his groundbreaking number one hit.

“It’s a good deal of fun,” Arthur said about the touring lifestyle.

“We’ve played [Southampton] before and we loved it.

“We made good contact with the audience.”

Nowadays, Arthur’s shows are still as visually spellbinding as they were in the 1960s.

“We have a fantastic show with all these characters and costumes.

“There is a lot of humour, movement and dance.”

Arthur’s biggest hit was Fire, the lead single from his debut album, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

He revealed how the song was written:

“We couldn’t find the tune for the character that was the God of Hellfire,” Arthur said.

“It was by chance I heard two guys playing a riff.”

Alongside keyboardist Vincent Crane, the pair worked on the riff, ultimately producing the song that topped the charts.

The inspiration came from a long-term interest in all things flames after living through the Blitz and blackouts of the 1940s.

“I got quite interested in flames.

“If you are watching fire a lot, your mind gets carried along with it.”

The same year Fire was released, Arthur headlined the first ever Isle of Wight Festival, on a lineup with Fairport Convention, The Pretty Things and legendary American rock band, Jefferson Airplane.

Being typically theatrical, Arthur had planned to arrive by balloon, though that didn’t quite go to plan.

“We had worked it all out,” Arthur said.

“We had rehearsed [the entrance] but the wind changed direction and we couldn’t get it to cooperate.”

The 1968 Isle of Wight Festival was one of the first major rock festivals in the UK, in later years hosting Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Joni Mitchell and some of the most important names in music.

“Before the time of those festivals, you had one dance hall in town and all kinds of people would come to see it because there wasn’t anything going on.

“Then came the festivals, where you had a complete mixture of all styles of music.

“Each band sounded different.”

Almost 60 years later, Arthur still tours regularly, and he has plans for new music.

With multiple record companies involved with his back catalogue, and even a brand new album, it’s fair to say that Arthur is showing no signs of slowing down.