Keith Rowland interviews Art Bell, who reveals his retirement was forced by a family crisis and legal battles now resolved, though he avoided Coast to Coast AM repeats. Bell’s new talk station, KNYE in Perump, secured a construction permit after five years of planning, featuring himself with Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Mike Reagan, and Phil Henry. Premier negotiations for his return focused on reducing commercials and restoring the original five-hour format, including unscreened calls. Bell also discusses 2000 election dimpled ballots, a 200-foot radioactive desert circle (investigated via soil samples and 15-year-old satellite data), and an upcoming Today Show interview with Katie Couric on February 5th. His return prioritizes the show’s core—paranormal phenomena, spirituality, and unfiltered discussions—over guest-heavy segments, signaling a defiant revival of his legacy. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you good morning, afternoon, or evening, or whenever you've been listening to this on streaming, whatever it is you're streaming.
This is Art Bell, and with me is Keith Rowland, my esteemed webmaster, providing the ability for you to listen to this right now.
And he's here in prom, right next to me.
He's going to ask me some questions, questions presumably that many of you would ask if you could, and I will try and answer as best I can.
Hey, a lot of things have happened since you've been gone, and a lot of people have been wondering and worrying and need to get caught up to date, I think, on what's been transpiring.
And so I thought I'd ask you a few questions and do that.
I know there was a lot of things that happened in your personal life that you did talk about on the air before you retired and made you go off the air.
You want to talk a little bit about some of those things?
Not really, but I will say that as most of my audience is pretty well aware now, I had a really major family crisis, and that required my tending to it.
And much as I love this job, family does come first, and I think most people recognize that, would feel the same way.
And then I had a legal situation as well that I had to pursue to its conclusion and did.
And so both of these things now are alleviated.
And if people want to read about the legal resolution, I think there's a statement on the website.
So I'll leave it at that.
unidentified
Well, I know when you did want to leave the air and tend to those matters, you really wanted to pull out of the public and get away from that and take care of these things.
But your fans weren't going to let you leave the public limelight.
They consider you the immortal in talk radio, and you've been a great talk radio host for many, many years.
And I don't think you would have ever been forgotten.
Well, he goes where the tough go, when the going gets tough.
He goes to his ham radio set.
He spends more time watching television and reading and taking it easy and then, of course, pursuing these things that I was really pursuing as the main goal.
Well, we've been working on that for five years, actually.
Five years.
And we finally have the CP, which is a construction permit.
We are applying to raise a tower higher than it is right now.
That'll be resolved very shortly.
And then we're going to put it on the air.
It's 95.1 KNYE here in Perump, and it will be an all-talk station.
And one of the things that my contract provides for is that I will receive premier product.
That means Rush and Laura and, oh, I don't know, Mike Reagan, and that guy who does all those parodies of me, Phil Henry.
Phil Henry.
And, of course, my program.
So we're going to bring talk radio to the Prompt Valley.
unidentified
Well, there was a lot of speculation before an announcement that you were coming back that people thought that KNYE was your way to get back on the air, and everybody thought that that was your way back in.
For some reason, the audience out there, when they heard that we were about to get the license, grasped that and suggested to themselves that it would be a way I'd be back on the air.
But no, we simply allowed that rumor to live.
We didn't reach out and squash it because it served to mask what was really going on, which was negotiation to return to Coast to Coast AM.
unidentified
Well, prior to that happening, were you listening to the show at all?
In fact, even when I was on the air and had the opportunity to listen to my own program in repeat on the weekends or in repeat after the show, I never listened.
I couldn't handle listening.
And listening to it when I was gone was painful as well.
So now I didn't.
That's an honest answer.
unidentified
So, well, what started convincing you that you should or would or could come back after all this?
About two months ago, Premier came to me and asked me if I'd be willing to come back.
They obviously had been following what had been going on with what took me off the air, and they knew that some of those things had been alleviated.
And the program, to be honest with you, had lost a considerable amount of audience and certainly a considerable number of very important affiliates, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and so forth.
And so they wanted me back, and we sat down and we negotiated.
There's a little statement up on the website about my return, which refers to the negotiation as bloody.
Well, it really wasn't bloody, but they came in and they sat down.
Premier came and sat down and said, well, what's it going to take?
I thought the show was being smothered to a degree by the number of commercial minutes in it.
And so that was my demand one.
And they readily, I guess, gulped once hard and said, okay.
And so when we do come back, there will be far less of a commercial load.
And I think it'll be easier to listen to.
And it's kind of back to basics.
And I wanted to go back from four hours to five hours because from my point of view, when you've got the kind of adrenaline going, it takes to do four, five is nothing.
So it shall be.
So it is written.
So it shall be.
We'll go back to five hours, and it'll be, I hope, easier to listen to.
More show.
unidentified
Great.
Well, that'll be great, because we all appreciate the time that you invest in these interviews with the guests, and it takes time to really delve into the topics in which you take the time to do.
And we don't hear it anywhere else.
And so you have a unique show, and you have fun with it, and everybody out there enjoys it wherever you may take us.
During the last, I don't know, a couple of months of the show, I didn't want the audience, much as I appreciate the sentiments, I didn't want the last two months to turn into, all right, please don't go, please don't retire, and all the rest of that.
I just didn't want that to happen.
It's not good radio.
And so I was guest-heavy and intentionally so that I wouldn't be suffering that on the telephone, and the audience as a whole wouldn't be suffering that.
If you don't know what's coming, it's really more fun.
unidentified
That's right, that's right.
Well, what are you thinking of doing different this time with the show to try to prevent outside factors and things from affecting your ability to do the show and try to prevent some of the drastic things that might cause us to lose you again?
They're outside factors, in other words, beyond my control.
And I'm a public figure, and I really don't care what people say about me, nor can I care legally unless they walk past a certain line.
I mean, for example, you cannot call a person a murderer unless they are, in fact, a convicted murderer.
And you better be damn careful if you endeavor, if you start down that road.
And so if somebody's going to do that to me, there's very little I can do to prevent it.
But I think I've clearly shown what I can do should it occur again and will do.
And I think anybody should do that.
If they don't, then we invite these things to occur again and again.
unidentified
Well, I know Ramona's been a big part of your life and part of the show, as we all know a lot about her from listening to you talk about her on the air.
How does she feel about this now you're coming back after being away?
Well, hey, can you tell us about any of the affiliates that might be coming back on board and so on and what the story is on some of the coverage around the country?
I can tell you that we will, in fact, be on the day I come back in Chicago.
Very good.
And I believe, knock on Prestwood, I think, that we'll be on on the WABC in New York or in New York one way or the other.
So I think pretty much we'll come back to where we were.
unidentified
Well, you've talked a little bit about our mix of guests and open lines, so we're all going to anticipate that very much.
It's quite the show.
And we all know that Mike's done a pretty good job here in trying to keep things in order for us.
I mean, he came in with a tough situation.
I mean, it was a big show to fill, and this wasn't something that he was necessarily totally knowledgeable and had to do a lot of learning to get in there.
And so, you know, the odds were against him when he came in here.
But he did it, and he got in there, and he was a professional about it, and he kept it going.
Anything you want to say to Mike in regards to that?
People think that was Premier, and that's not true.
That was me.
I immediately requested when I was off the air that my material come down, all my material come down from the website.
And I did that for a number of reasons.
One, of course, I was striving to be as non-public as I could.
But also, you know, it was Mike Siegel.
And Mike Siegel does not need to live with the images of Art Bell and all his personal doings and all the rest of that on the website.
So, no, I felt that should come down.
And I called you and asked you to take it down and talk to Premier about it.
And they agreed.
And so down it came.
unidentified
So even though there was a lot of other fan sites out there that had stuff about you out there, we pretty much had to take it off of the website as the official website.
That's right.
And well, in addition to that, as you recall, there was many hours and hours of archives of old programs over on Broadcast.com.
And a few months before you left the air, there was a change in our streaming service such that when we went to the new service, we lost access to all of those old files over there at Broadcast.com.
No, they may not magically appear, or perhaps they will appear somewhere down the line.
I mean, I have no idea.
That's up to you.
unidentified
Well, I know the network still has all the shows on tape.
I mean, from day one, they're there somewhere, and they're available in cassette form, which brings me to an interesting situation where you were off the air, and you didn't want anything about you on the air anymore, off the Internet and off the streaming audio, et cetera.
But the network came up with the top 100 Art Bell shows, and it was a good top 100, and they were actively selling them on the show.
And questions were concerning whether this was something that you agreed with or approved or disapproved.
Actually, through the travails, everybody has always said that I was pulling a publicity stunt.
And the answer to that is absolutely not.
As a matter of fact, actually, in coming back under the conditions I'm coming back under, and this is my own choice, bear in mind, I'm not only not making more money, but I'm actually making less, which is okay.
I'm not here for money in the first place, so here you are.
unidentified
That kind of brings us up to date on what's been happening during this time off.
Let's get caught up in some more of the current events and get your take on some of these things, if you don't mind.
As you know, the UFO research still goes on, and there are a lot of people out there and a lot of groups out there still doing the work, but we haven't heard a lot of it.
You haven't been there to bring us up to date, and we've been missing Peter's reports and so on.
What do you think the status of the UFO research area is, and how are you going to still handle that area?
Well, I think the incoming information is as hot as ever.
Now, there's international warfare and always has been in the UFO community, and I expect that to continue.
Much as the Israelis and Palestinians continue to kill each other on a regular basis, the ufologists continue to do that.
But that's not really a lot different than any other area like it, where there are researchers with very differing opinions on very controversial subjects.
So this kind of warfare will continue.
unidentified
Well, how do you position yourself with these groups that are out there as far as how much activity do you get in, how much involvement do you get in their actual activity versus just going back and reporting it or being the talk show host?
Well, for long before I was born, people were killing other people in the name of their God, and they will continue to do that.
unidentified
Well, I know that you've separated very well spirituality and the afterlife and people's beliefs from the organized religion part of the world, and you've done that very well on the show.
Is it a line that you're going to continue on with the show?
Well, I've only done that because I cannot firmly attach a line between those.
I don't know that there is a line.
There may well be, and it may be when we get up there and we knock on the doors up there, why we'll find out that some little religious sect in the northwest part of the country had it right and everybody else was wrong, and so they're the only ones who are going to get in.
I somehow don't think that's the way it's going to work.
And I do, I am a very spiritual person, although not necessarily a deeply religious person from any specific religious point of view, you know, Catholicism or...
unidentified
They've labeled you as a new age type of person.
But my experience is that you've covered topics in the spirituality and religious areas.
I thought it was the great soap opera of the you know, it was the O. J. trial of this year.
I think, though, now that it's over, it's kind of like Christmas.
Thank God it's over.
Something like that.
It was interesting to watch, and then it became a little too protracted.
I suppose if they'd gone ahead and counted all the little marks, why then Mr. Gore would be our president soon.
But they didn't, and Mr. Bush is our president, so be it.
unidentified
So what's your take on kind of the hottest issues, the things that the people of this world should be concerned with now that we have these religious matters and we have these political matters, but what is it that we should really be concerned about?
I think the big questions in life are whether there's anything after life, because life, after all, is a very, very, very short affair, cosmic plan of things.
So that's the biggest question for me.
And so you explore many areas and you look for evidence of a life after this life.
And then, of course, there are all sorts of paranormal phenomena, many of which are absolutely real, in my opinion, because I've experienced many myself.
So these are really important questions.
And that's, I guess, the center of what this show pursues and will continue to.
unidentified
Well, that has been a characteristic of your show is you'll pursue things that nobody else will.
And that's the surprise of the show.
And you can't really put a label on the show and say, well, it's just this or it's just that, because you never know what might come out.
You were here, I think, when my friend came, and my friend, another ham operator here in town, found a circle out in the desert among probably hundreds of square miles of shrubbery, an area, a perfect circle nearly, about 200 feet in diameter, with nothing in it, nothing growing.
I mean, the growth everywhere else, but in this circle, nothing grows.
And so he brought back a soil sample.
He tested it for alkaline content, and it was okay for that.
He brought it over to me.
I happened to have a device to test for radiation, and we did, and it was far above background.
And so today he came over and borrowed the device, went back, measured the circle, and I'll be damned if it's not radioactive.
So something out there, and we have a satellite picture.
We actually went back to the Terra server and looked at a satellite picture about 15 years old, and that circle was there.
It's been there for 15 years and nothing grows.
Nothing grows.
So something was there, Keith.
And the background radiation above background level is very apparent.
unidentified
Well, I hope it's something that we'll pursue and bring on the air and talk about, and we'll have some pictures on the website, huh?
I always was very, very involved with the website, and I felt that that was very important because photographs are available of a lot of the phenomena we talk about.
And I always broke my neck to get them up on the website, to get them to you, to get them up on the website.
And so let's do it again.
I mean, my email addresses are ArtBell, A-R-T-B-E-L-L, lowercase, at mindspring.com or artbell at aol.com.
So if you have a photograph of interest, send it to me and give us permission to put it on the website, and it'll be up there, and we're going to bring the website back alive again.
unidentified
Great, great.
Well, it's good to hear your voice again and see you're ready to go again.
And just to finalize things here, do we have any more books to expect from you, maybe?