Robert Brown (born May 27, 1970), sometimes known as Captain Robert, is an American musician and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or ...

band

Abney Park Abney Park is in Stoke Newington, London, England. It is a park dating from just before 1700, named after Lady Abney, the wife of Sir Thomas Abney, Lord Mayor of London in 1700 and one of the first directors of the Bank of England and associat ...

. Brown was born in

Pullman, Washington Pullman () is the largest city in Whitman County, located in southeastern Washington within the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The population was 29,799 at the 2010 census, and estimated to be 34,506 in 2019. Originally founded as Thr ...

, United States. A large part of Brown's childhood was spent traveling in South East Asia with his mother Carolyn Brown Heinz, who is a well known cultural anthropologist. Brown spent time in India, China, Thailand, and Polynesia, with his mother during her research. Brown briefly attended the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

and lived near

Abney Park Cemetery Abney Park cemetery is one of the "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries in London, England. Abney Park in Stoke Newington in the London Borough of Hackney is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney, D ...

. Brown relocated to Seattle at the height of the

Grunge Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of p ...

movement, where he started the dark electronica band "October 27th", and later formed "the EaTen" with guitarist Robert Hazelton (now with the "Deadly Nightshade Botanical Society"). Soon after, they changed the band's name from the EaTen to Abney Park, after the London cemetery. Brown is the principal songwriter in Abney Park. In addition to this, he is the band's lead singer, and plays

darbuka The goblet drum (also chalice drum, tarabuka, tarabaki, darbuka, darabuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, toumperleki, tumbak, or zerbaghali; arz, دربوكة / Romanized: ) is a single-head membranophone with a goblet- ...

diatonic button accordion A melodeon or diatonic button accordion is a member of the free-reed aerophone family of musical instruments. It is a type of button accordion on which the melody-side keyboard contains one or more rows of buttons, with each row producing the ...

(melodeon), and harmonica. Brown's lyrical and musical style is noted for having a unique blend of many musical nationalities and eras. Brown is also responsible for making most of the band's exotic steampunk instruments. Brown has authored several novels which explore Abney Park's fictional backstory, including ''The Wrath of Fate'', ''Retrograde'', and ''The Toyshop at the End of the World''. He also helped in the development of '' Airship Pirates'', an RPG based on these books and the band's lyrics. Brown has made appearances on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

G4tV G4 (also known as G4TV) was an American pay television and digital network owned by Comcast Spectacor that primarily focused on video games. The network was originally owned by G4 Media, a joint venture between the NBCUniversal Cable division ...

, King 5 Evening Magazine, and has been interviewed in many genre websites,Interviews with Robert Brown: * * * magazines and newspapers including ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

''. Robert is married to fellow band member Kristina Erickson, and has two children, Isabella and Chloe.

References

External links

*
Robert Brown
on Myspace * *
A reading by Robert Brown himself The Wrath Of Fate - Chapter 2 - Audio Book - Abney Park's Origin.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Robert 1970 births Living people American male singers Steampunk music Steampunk writers Musicians from Seattle Songwriters from Washington (state) American multi-instrumentalists