Arlo White and White Satan: A Double Interview About One of Denver’s Weirdest Acts

“Do you want to talk to Arlo White or White Satan?”

Presumably, this inquiry was posed by Arlo White, a singer-songwriter and longtime figure on the Denver art and music scene. But maybe not. After all, White Satan, his latest project, showcases an intriguing alter ego whose debut EP, wolf, has a personality all its own. The doomy, deeply weird take on country and pop classics, which is now available to stream, suggests that the man at the center of the fascinating sonic storm is simultaneously possessed and fully capable of possessing others.

Which explains why our answer to the question above was: “We want to talk to both of you.” And Arlo and White Satan were more than happy to accommodate us.

Let’s start with Arlo, a New Jersey native who moved to Colorado with his mom in 1983, when he was a tween. “We were headed to L.A. to become movie stars,” he recalls, “but we ran out of money in Denver.”

Over the years that followed, Arlo went through various musical addictions, including arena rock, heavy metal and punk, and served stints in a wide variety of Denver-area bands — Dead Bubbles, Sparkle Jetts and the Buckingham Squares, among many others. But he also joined forces with his wife, Kim Kennedy White, in 2004 to create Hypnotic Turtle, a self-described “rock arts collective celebrating culture in Denver city and beyond.” Hypnotic Turtle offerings over the past two decades plus have included an independent record label, a regular program on CU Boulder’s Radio 1190, and Hypnotic Turtle DreamBox, a gallery and performance space in Broomfield. One typically eccentric offering: a team-up between White, operating under the moniker “Wrestling Fiend,” and promotion company Primos Premier Pro Wrestling that showcased dramatic grappling, live painting and a cameo by rapper An Hobbes.

Arlo came up with the White Satan concept twelve or thirteen years ago, but only recently did he realize he could bring it to life with the assistance of the Farm Toad, a countrified duo made up of multi-instrumentalist Gregory Hill and drummer Maureen Hearty. The threesome had previously collaborated on a covers album, 2024’s Kry Tough: A Kinky Tale, in which they delivered quirky versions of tunes by the Kinks. This time around, however, they decided to explore C&W’s darkest impulses via twisted renderings of the George Jones staple “She Thinks I Still Care,” the Glen Campbell/Jimmy Webb character study “Wichita Lineman” and “Hello, I’m a Jukebox,” an obscurity penned by Tom T. Hall and delivered by the less-than-legendary George Kent. But they also extended their aural canvas to include the Nancy Sinatra-Lee Hazelwood favorite “Some Velvet Morning” and the Todd Rundgren smash “Hello It’s Me,” a classic of 1970s soft-rock sensitivity with a stealthily skeezy undertone.

The last number finds Arlo coyly changing the line “And spend the night/If you think I should” to “And spend the night/Like you know I should.” He confirms that “there’s definitely some creep factor in there.”

The White Satan handle plays with similar elements. “I realize the name is going to keep me down as much as it will push me ahead,” he acknowledges. “But I’m big with self-sabotage…and I’m a self-hating white man. If you want to think the name’s a joke, then it’s a joke. But I’m not joking.”

Neither is White Satan, whose portion of the interview is as dramatic as his music. “I am very intentional, sometimes unintentionally,” WS says. “And I’m not immune to the fact that some people will put this on and not get it. But very selfishly, I think we made some of the best versions of these songs ever recorded. I was in tears during the recording and when listening to the playback. In tears.”

White Satan doesn’t see himself merely as an interpreter of other people’s work. “I’m writing epics right now,” he boasts, “and I’m really excited for what’s to come in the future.” He adds: “I need people to know that this world isn’t what you think it is, man. I’m not a religious person, and I hate organized religion. If that’s what gets you through the day, that’s great. I’m not here to burn it all down, but I’m also not here to build it all back up.”

The bottom line for White Satan: “I want people to know that I’m here — that I exist.”

That’s fine by Arlo White, too.

Wolf is available to stream now. See the video for “Wichita Lineman” below: