‘There’s nowt to hide behind – this is just me, expressing myself as honestly as I can.’ | Antony Szmierek interviewed

From English teacher to BBC 6 Music’s Artist of the Year, Antony Szmierek is redefining spoken-word-infused indie dance. He talks to us about UFOs, happy accidents, and the Great Pyramid of Stockport.

by Harvey Solomon-Brady |
@zak_watson_Antony_GreatPyramidStockport-30

It’s the middle of the day and Antony Szmierek is holed up in a studio, fine-tuning the final details of his upcoming tour.

“It feels like a bigger setup this time,” he tells me over the phone. “Not that we’ve got more equipment, I think we’ve just stepped it up a little bit.”

He sounds both excited and entirely at ease, the kind of artist who relishes the controlled chaos of preparing for a run of shows. The kind who thrives in the unpredictability of live performance.

For someone who never set out to make music, Szmierek has taken to it with an undeniable natural flair. He spent five years as an English teacher before stepping onto the spoken word scene in Manchester, and you can hear the clarity of his storytelling in every line he delivers.

The comparisons to John Cooper Clarke and Jarvis Cocker are inevitable, and the Hacienda-era nods in his work are intentional, but his music isn’t just a rehash of Manchester’s past.

If anything, it’s a reflection of his own world, a heady mix of indie, dance, and a dash of spoken word that manages to be both smart and unpretentious.

“I think what I make kind of sits between an indie band and dance music,” he says, “and it’s neither one nor the other. It’s not always easy to categorise, but I don’t mind that.”

That refusal to be boxed in extends to Szmierek’s lyrical style. He writes the way people actually speak: punchy, direct, and with a sharp eye for the absurdities of everyday life.

“I’m never trying to sound clever for the sake of it,” he says. “I just want to express big ideas in a simple way.”

It’s a philosophy that shines through in his latest album, Service Station at the End of the Universe, a record packed with snapshots of modern British life told through the lens of late-night wanderings, strange encounters, and a keen sense of humour.

The accidental musician

Music wasn’t the plan. Szmierek had always been drawn to words, reading them, writing them, performing them. “I’ve always had an overactive imagination, and reading was an escape,” he says.

Sci-fi was an early obsession (you don’t call your album Service Station at the End of the Universe without a healthy respect for Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), but the act of creating didn’t kick in properly until later.

He self-published two novels, The Albatross and The Hypocrite, before falling into the open mic scene. “The nights were intimidating, but I learned I had a knack for finding the laughs first and then hitting people with something more introspective.”

It was only when the pandemic hit that music took centre stage. “I bought a keyboard and just started teaching myself. Like everything else, I was figuring it out on my own.” That DIY spirit still runs through his work today, songs that feel loose, lived-in, and distinctly human.

He’s not precious about perfection, either. His track ‘Yoga Teacher’ famously includes a mistake he made mid-take. “I mispronounced ‘yoga’ and said ‘yoja’, then swore straight after. But it felt right, so we kept it in.”

AS_Rafters_Lead_Charlie_Cummings
(Credit: Charlie Cummings)

Finding the strange in the everyday

A lot of Szmierek’s writing revolves around finding something extraordinary in the ordinary. The title track of his album is a tongue-in-cheek reflection on British road culture, but he also applies that lens to forgotten landmarks, most notably the ‘Great Pyramid of Stockport’.

“It’s just this weird, empty blue building, but I liked the idea of treating it with the same reverence as the actual pyramids,” he laughs.

In a bizarre twist of fate, as his song about it was being released, news broke that the structure was being converted into a curry house.

“Suddenly, everyone was talking about it, and people kept tagging me in posts. I even met the guys who are turning it into a restaurant. It’s all a bit surreal.”

That playfulness, the way he leans into the absurdity of real life, is one of Szmierek’s biggest strengths. His songs are full of characters: punks, dreamers, lost souls in service stations. But at their core, they’re about connection.

“I get messages from people telling me they’ve used my lyrics at weddings, funerals, on dating apps. It’s mad. But that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Making something people can see themselves in.”

With his debut album out in the world and a packed tour ahead, Szmierek is already thinking about what’s next. “Album two is being written,” he says, “and I’m working on a new novel as well.” He makes it all sound effortless, but there’s a deep sincerity running through everything he does.

“There’s nowt to hide behind,” he says. “This is just me, expressing myself as honestly as I can.”

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