Antony Szmierek: "There's still twenty percent that's still a secret. There's still a personal life behind it"

Departing the service station & leaving the characters behind - the once English teacher turned indie wordsmith reflects on a symbolic year that changed his life and produced a sequel. 

Written by Tom Adams  |  Edited by Lucy Astbury                                     June 2026

"My secret is I'm actually in Bristol. I moved in the new year... classic me really".

It's quite the bombshell icebreaker. For a man whose spoken word curated a patron saint of Withington, referenced the Didsbury Dozen, and mainstreamed Stockport's abandoned valley of the kings, it's obvious his forever affiliation to Manchester is ubiquitous. But at least for now, Antony Szmierek is an adopted Bristolian; trading Madchester for trip-hop, and a service station for a heron. Following the news of a second record eighteen months after his first, it feels like a fitting time for a bittersweet embrace of change. Jumping ship from the storyline of his debut, Szmierek’s second album takes a more self-reflective approach into trying to make sense of the last twelve months, and the many big life shifts that have been thrown at him. It takes just minutes of our conversation to learn his witty introspectiveness and satirical honesty are so charmingly genuine. Maybe it comes with a Manchester-based bias, but as Antony is about to gear up for album cycle two, it really is impossible not to root for him again, even if this time round he's doing it from afar. "I feel a bit like I'm disappointing people when I tell them I've moved away from Manchester, but then again, at least I'm not living in London." 

In fact, since the turn of the new year Antony couldn't have travelled further away from Manchester, London, or his new home in Bristol for that matter. After a few domestic dates, a European tour and four nights in America, Szmierek and his band (which includes his brother, Martin) had merely days to unwind before immediately jetting back to Europe to finish off the remaining tour dates in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. "I'm still on LA time which always feels a bit of a wanky thing to say but it's true. I've only just got back so I'm basically trying to figure out who I am again." 

As poetically existential as that sounds, it felt like a pretty coherent place to take him back three years or so. Around this time in 2023, Antony revealed he was still teaching at a specialist arts college in Manchester for kids with special educational needs, all the while playing at the UK's biggest festival and making his TV debut on Later… With Jools Holland. 

"I started out as an English teacher at Chorlton High School. I did five years, and had my own form from year seven all the way to year eleven. But afterwards, I thought to myself I can't do that again. Just emotionally I couldn't commit to another group of eleven year olds. So that's when I went freelance with tutoring and ended up working at a specialist arts college for three years. I had a bit more time to write music so that's when the overlap began to happen, and also when I started getting played on the radio. I was still teaching five days a week at the same time I was playing Glastonbury and appearing on Jools Holland. I left before I signed a record deal because it wouldn't have been fair on the kids. It was Christmas 2023 I left teaching and then in February 2024 I signed a record deal." 

"It's funny it was mostly the kids' parents that recognised me. The kids knew what was going on but I don't think it ever felt real to them. The parents really started to figure it out. One of them actually asked me for a picture after school once and their kid was like "what the hell are you doing" because they just didn't understand it." 

It was during his mid-twenties, regularly attending open mic nights across Levenshulme and Chorlton, where Szmierek first got his chance to perform consistently. His face lights up mentioning SAYIN'?, a weekly open mic night in Hulme that gives poets, wordsmiths, rappers, and songwriters a stage to blur the lines of poetry and spoken word, and pioneered what would become a significantly more popularised scene just years later. 

"It was a proper community! It became a bit of a double life thing for me. I wasn't aiming for anything, it was just an outlet and a place to meet some incredible people. I met Kate Ireland through that, and there's not many successful poets in the business. What's funny is you never know you're part of the start of something. A few of us have actually gone on to do this thing that was a bit of a new bit at the time, like Kate does some music stuff too. We were sort of the heart of that which is really nice to look back on." 

"I always really enjoyed the performance element of whatever I'm doing. I always wanted to be in a band, I never really wanted it to be just me with a backing track but there's no precedent for it really. With a lot of the early stuff for example, it was really difficult to figure out how to perform it with a live band. The amount of times you go to gigs now and you can't hear a fucking word of what's being said on stage… so with my stuff, if you can't hear what I'm saying it'll be shit. The thought of that happening at my own gig makes me want to die. I remember when we did a festival one time and someone said "the sound was shit but you were great" like live music really is just that unpredictable." 

"I actually only feel a bit like I'm catching up with the whole songwriting thing. I mean even now they all naturally start as poems. I wander around a lot and write things down. The beauty of being an artist is the end product will always end up coming out sounding like you, no matter what you aim for before." 

Roll on February 2025 and Antony releases his hugely successful debut record Service Station At The End Of The Universe. Encapsulating 90s Britpop in an ode to Lancashire's Forton Services, the album is an anthology of autobiographical stories that incorporate a number of characters and monuments into its lyrically artistic treasury. Most notably of all, Stockport's 120ft high pyramid that has towered over the M60 since 1992. Now home to an Indian restaurant called Royal Nawaab (that recently featured in Channel 4 documentary The World's Biggest Curry Restaurant - you can Where’s Wally spot Anthony for a few seconds) it's fair to say 'The Great Pyramid of Stockport', which included a flight to Egypt to film the music video, as well as Manchester's Albert Hall gratuitously building him a metal pyramid structure worth £10,000 for his hometown show, has inscribed itself into Szmierek folklore forever. 

"It's true we did a twenty four hour flight to Egypt", he says laughing with his head in hands. "It made us ill for like two weeks like we got some ancient curse from the pyramids or something. The Royal Nawaab guys are lovely by the way, and they've really included me in the whole thing. If you actually go to the restaurant, my album is framed near the entrance. Mr Mahboob, who owns it, actually came to my album signing at Piccadilly Records on release day with his entourage and the press, which is when I signed the record and that's the very one that's framed in the entrance. But yeah it's a good curry, a great place too… Well, I wrote a whole song about it." 

The debut album's title track is the opener, and serves as a clever introductory easter egg in the form of a stream of consciousness one by one introducing the album's ensemble of characters to the wider plot. Novel personalities like the yoga teacher, Angie's bridesmaids, and even a mention of a "Stag Do Hulk Hogan" each help create a cohesive and familiar narrative to the album, all until they momentarily fade away for track ten, 'Restless Leg Syndrome' - the album comedown. I'd noticed how much this song had meant to Antony after recounting a particularly emotional performance at the Albert Hall last year. Written after an "especially big night" at Salford's notorious White Hotel, it was an instance where Antony had substituted the album's characters, and inserted his authentic self into the storyline. 

"I'm so proud of that song. It's the purest form of what this is. It was really difficult to perform it that night at the Albert Hall because my mum was in the audience. I'm getting emotional talking about it now actually. It was a hard thing to do and to step away from the character and be like this is me and this is how I feel." 

"There are versions of that on this second album too actually. There's a song called 'You're Not Supposed To Do This Forever', and the last song, 'Aussie Gold Hunters', which sounds mental but it'll make sense soon I promise. That one is about being in hotel rooms on my own, and Aussie Gold Hunters is a show that's really far down the channel list on channel 107 or whatever that always came on at like two in the morning and I used to just watch it all the time. There's a lyric on that song actually which is "I've never known so many people but I'm on my own quite a lot" so that's probably one of the heartbreakers on this record." 

Thankfully, there's really not a long time to wait for them. Decoding Birdsong, Antony's sophomore album will be released on the 21st August, and this time round he's swapping characters for symbols, and exploring the notion of trying to make sense of the signs to believe in something again. 

"I think with the first album, I can kind of retrospectively like it now because of what it is. It's like a little novella. That's why it had the 90s leaning sonic stuff and the characters. Whereas this second album doesn't have the whole 90s thing. It's less nostalgic driven, a lot more personal, and a bit less hiding behind characters. It's basically all the stuff that's happened to me in the last year. There's a breakup song on there called 'Godzilla Hotel', a monologue called 'Flight Simulator', moving to Bristol and running away from Manchester, love songs about things that shouldn't be in the press, songs about more difficult things, and positive things. But then there's also the symbols of the record that makes it a cohesive story, such as luck, loneliness, coincidence, and the things I was looking to to try and make sense of everything that'd happened. The songs are also a bit more song-ey on this one too. It's still spoken word but some are a bit less poem over the top of a song kinda thing." 

One of those symbols is the heron. Based on a real grey heron that became a customary component of Antony's walks along the River Mersey whilst still living close to South Manchester's Chorlton Water Park, the bird has subsequently become the image for the album, and serves as a representation of familiar hope. 

"I used to walk that route everyday and there was always this heron that would stand in the same spot. It was patient and never seemed bothered by anything, and then there's so much when you start looking into the heron and the symbol of it in a lot of cultures that they're in between worlds as in the water and the land. Having felt a bit in between worlds last year after the debut album and I began getting recognised more and more in Manchester, life just didn't feel real at all. 

"The second album was actually called The Heron at first, and then it got expanded out to being Decoding Birdsong which is just a wider metaphor for looking into the universe and trying to make sense of what it's trying to tell you. But yeah it's a real heron, and when I come back to Manchester at the start of June, I'll probably go and see the heron again. The references to Manchester are still there, just a little more buried this time." 

I took this opportunity to enquire about a certain internet star, Robbie Knox: an award-winning writer, producer and director known for his YouTube channel, his work on Jaackmaate's Happy Half Hour podcast, and his former role on the Saturday-morning TV show Soccer AM. Perhaps most alluring of all, Robbie plays the heron in the music video for 'The Heron'. 

"I was so happy with the video for 'The Heron', especially as I wrote the character for Robbie. I met him on a sort of Soccer AM revival podcast, and he did a poem about Debenhams, and he was really good and funny. We just really got on. We swapped numbers and had this stupid running joke where we would text each other sweet dreams before we went to sleep. His wife would be like why are you texting Antony Szmierek again. We actually said very little else other than that, and then I had the idea of having him be the heron because I wanted it to be this cult leader figure and thought what would make that visually unique and immediately thought of Robbie." 

"I think music videos are a good opportunity to tell a different side of the story to the songs, and another chance to be creative. We don't have a lot of money, and it's usually just me and Zak (Watson) but Zak's an amazing director and editor, and makes them look really good and expensive. The music videos are important to me and no one watches them anymore, so I shouldn't really care about them because they're kinda a waste of energy. When you can literally just do a TikTok talking to your phone or something… it'd probably do better. I love films and I love script writing so it's sort of just a way of me getting to do it. 

"After the debut record I released a music documentary film which was actually a lot scarier to put out than any of the songs or videos I'd done because I'm very honest on stage. I often think it's a bit like teaching in that I'm only giving like eighty percent, which is a lot to give, but there's still twenty percent that's still a secret. There's still a personal life behind it, so it was quite scary to do that one in particular." 

The second single to follow 'The Heron' was 'Chalk', an unorthodox electro-dance track that wouldn't feel out of place amongst the discography of Underworld or Hot Chip. I wanted to ask Antony about his creative process for this one, but before that, I was keen to know how he felt about the modern tradition of singles leading up to the release of a new album. 

"It's hard because you're not sure which singles are gonna do well, I mean no one knows! But it's hard because it's not really supposed to be my job. I'm too in the album to know which would do well on the radio or streaming. It is hard to relinquish control of the singles, and it's difficult to think which would represent the album best. I think with singles culture generally, they're kind of just like setting off a flare to be like we're over here, maybe if you like this song you'll enjoy some of the others. Honestly, I don't know if I'd have chosen 'Chalk' as the second single because it's five minutes long, and there's other ones with more obvious choruses. But now it's out I really like it being a single because it's unusual and almost a bit braver than some of the more obvious ones." 

"I always have the concept and a lot of the lyrics before I go into the studio, so I knew I had this snooker metaphor. I know nothing about snooker but the inspiration came from this snooker documentary Ronnie O'Sullivan: The Edge Of Everything. In it they say that the chalk in snooker makes no difference to the game at all, like it scientifically does fuck all so it's a bit like trying to control something you can't control but everyone still does it anyway because it's routine, and it gives the illusion of control. I loved that and thought it was such a good metaphor for everything, especially the music industry. Then when I took that song to the studio with Max (Rad), we wrote it from the ground up. We had a drum loop from a synth going and then were just playing around adding bits and building it up so it was a bit of an exercise in restraint and incremental gains. There's always a temptation to make every song three minutes but I was determined to make something just really long where the last two minutes were just the same thing over and over again, and not make, well… a typical Antony Szmierek song." 

Antony gave a little Amplifier exclusive too - the voice at the end of 'Chalk' is actually Ben (Sadler) of Getdown Services, one of the bands that supported Antony on tour last year. Funnily enough, the inclusion of collaborations is another obvious change between Service Station At The End Of The Universe and Decoding Birdsong. Antony states he had decided quite early on that his debut record would predominantly be a solo piece of work, whereas looking at album two’s listings, five of the thirteen songs include a featured artist. 

"I hadn't even considered that that was such a big headline for the second record until it was announced. It was a symptom of the year being on my own a lot, and then wanting to be around people. All of the features on this album are my friends. Imogen (from Imogen and the Knife) is my best friend, 1-800 GIRLS (is) here in Bristol who I spent New Year's Eve with. Ellur is a close friend of mine too so they're all people I love and respect as musicians. I really wanted to make a more listenable second album, so I think it really helps that it's not just me all the way through. It's funny as well because Ellur's chorus on 'Bookie's Favourite' kinda had to have her northern accent for how it rhymes. Then Immy, Max and I were in the studio for 'Flight Simulator', which was one of the best creative days I've ever had. She did a bit of spoken word and it fucking destroys me every time I listen to it - it's so, so good. Also, Serra from Los Bitchos is on 'Seminal' too so it really was me getting to work with my friends."

On a similar note of camaraderie, Antony will have thousands of fans eagerly awaiting his UK tour this October, including the Amplifier family. Looking ahead to his return to Manchester at the Academy, I couldn't help noticing that there can’t be many Mancunian venues he hasn't played yet. PARKLIFE and the Albert Hall last year; Northern Quarter's finest, Night & Day and Band On The Wall the same; the O2 Ritz before that; YES, CANVAS, New Century Hall, Sandbar and Off The Square in years prior… I wondered whether amongst the many venues he'd played, he secretly had a favourite. 

"They're different beasts! There's a lot to be said of the more intimate gigs but they're also usually some of the more nerve wracking ones because you're closer to everyone and more exposed. When it's a bigger venue, I think there's a bit more of a performance to it. I feel almost safer in a bigger room because it becomes a bit more about the use of space and the lights. I remember feeling nervous about how the performance would translate to the bigger rooms because it sometimes feels a bit end of the pier comedy at times. I'm always a big advocate for the smaller venues so it's actually gonna be a bit mad to go and do the bigger rooms in October on tour. It's gonna be overwhelming but I'm sure it'll be beautiful too." 

As we approached the end of our fifty minute call, I re-evoked the pyramids by asking for his golden triangle. If he could cover one song, with one other artist, at any venue of his choice, what would he choose? Remembering his long-time wish to be the lead singer of an indie band, it felt like an appropriate question to end on. 

"I'd probably want to do someone else's song to be honest with you. It'd be 'Disco 2000' with Jarvis Cocker, at The Crucible Theatre" - which coincidentally (or deliberately), has previously hosted many snooker events in the heart of Sheffield. "It's also a song I mention in so many of my own too, and Jarvis is someone who gives me hope at the longevity of the project that I hope to still be doing this when I'm his age, but who knows, we'll see". 

Antony Szmierek's Decoding Birdsong arrives 21 August 2026.