It started with a walk. A casual, everyday walk for Antony Szmierek to clear his head and take a pause from the whirlwind twelve months around him as moment after moment arrived in front of him.
The sort of walk he’d regularly take to decompress and process the incredible shows and ridiculous surprises that came to define a breakthrough year where he not only seized attention with his debut album ‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’, but became a beloved people’s poet.
There, amongst the myriad of emotions, was the Heron. Every time he’d spot the Heron, he’d smile and watch it. Unbeknownst to Antony, the time would come when it would click into place for what comes next.
“I was writing all this stuff and trying to connect it together, and then I was like, wait… It’s the Heron. It’s always been the Heron. That’s the point of this whole thing,” he recalls. “It’s still. It’s patient. It’s not waiting for anyone else. It’s independent, and it’s solitary. It was such a beautiful thing, and then I saw it in a completely different way. When I was having a bad day, I wouldn’t see the Heron and all of a sudden it would just swoop in, like it was looking after me.”
“That’s how I live my life anyway; my religion is coincidence.”
With ‘The Heron’, Antony lays out a fresh blueprint. Catapulted across the globe, that moment of stillness and patience was the perfect fuse for a brand new dancefloor to open up in the biggest way possible, born in the eye of the whirlwind that comes from stacked-out rooms and an audience hanging on his every word.
“It’s weird being in the intermediary stage right now… like, I haven’t really gone away, have I?” he cracks. “It does feel different, though. Like, I do feel different. It feels like it’s been a year since we released any new music, and when you’re used to being on this cycle and having new new new all the time, I was a bit worried about not putting anything out and surviving to the second record. It’s a relief that I’m here. I’ve got this new song, and we can do this all again, which is so great. That was my big worry, I’d be back teaching Year 7 in no time!”
Written while Antony was on the road and bringing ‘Service Station…’ to life in huge rooms like Manchester’s Albert Hall and London’s KOKO, ‘The Heron’ and a forthcoming new “dance-led” album is “a document of that last year”, one which included “a lot of changes. It was difficult in a lot of places, and it was quite emotionally taxing, then I realised, actually, a lot of it was about loneliness in different forms. Loneliness on a grand scale of ‘why are we alone in the universe?’ and also that bratty sort of loneliness of being like ‘I’m single, and everyone hates me’,” recalls Antony. “It’s a real representation of where I’m at now, which is really nice.”
“It’s been a year since we released any new music”
Surrounded by inspiration, Antony’s next move was natural. “I write a lot better when I’m hungover or tired or on a low ebb,” he smiles, “because you’re not overthinking and you become this conduit just for words. You’re having these new experiences. You’re in a van or on a ferry or on a plane…” He pauses before laughing. “Well, there might be a tune about a plane crash on the new album, but it all sort of wrote itself.”
Still living in Manchester and returning to the flat he had lived in long before stepping on stage, he kept telling himself the same thing: I’m still normal. I’m still the same. Nothing’s changed.
“But everything had changed,” he points out. Meeting so many people in such a short period of time, in such small, sharp doses, was both exhilarating and isolating when the crowds would fall silent, and the adrenaline would slide away. Yet it’s in the love and meaning where Antony found euphoria and purpose.
“What makes everything feel worthwhile is that – it isn’t for me,” he explains. “It’s this thing where people can come to a show for an hour and a half and celebrate and lose themselves and be happy and be with their friends. We talk about being together and being with your friends, and that’s kinda the point of it for me. What’s nice is that this can be something for people to hold onto, and I really find that amazing.”
“I’m aiming to be the ambassador for British Wetlands”
‘The Heron’ takes that idea of connection and runs with it. A fizzing dancefloor banger with grooving basslines and an insatiable playfulness combined with razor-sharp declarations, it’s an encouragement to turn away from the unengaged and find something not alone but together.
In many ways, it’s an embodiment of Antony’s live shows, where he leads jam-packed rooms and stunning festival stages on a ride that triggers smiles and tears in equal measure. Touching something deeper, it recognises loneliness being in the room and grabs your hand tight before heading in the opposite direction.
Any song with trademark lines about ‘rare aesthetic reluctant hope-core’ and being ‘lost in a vertical video called Moments Before Disaster Part 4’ is primed for instant reactions, finding Antony in a form bursting with confidence. It’s Antony Szmierek, laser-focused and searing with purpose.
“The Heron is this sort of preacher figure, which is weirdly how I kinda found myself when playing live,” he explains. “Having all these references, it’s strange to deliver them in such a sincere way, but I’m really placing this persona on this bird. That repeating of how ‘you’ll never be alone again’, that really was me on those daily walks trying to decompress and reconnect with something. It became a symbol of that.”
Before you ask, Antony knows what he has to do. “We’re aiming for Countryfile, Sean Bean’s new bird podcast – it’s going to happen. I’m aiming to be the ambassador for British Wetlands. I can see that. It’s going to be a weird year!”
He also knows what comes next. “I get sent videos of pyramids every single day, which is lovely,” he laughs, “and I’m already getting pictures and videos of herons. Just wait until everyone has heard it.”
With a clear goal of taking the world created on his debut album and asking how to subvert it and push forward, ‘The Heron’ is “weirdly, as an introduction to the [next] world, maybe the most similar to what people will know me for, which is weird”.
“I was always like, let’s put this really, really different song out first. Let’s [Foals’ single] ‘Spanish Sahara’ this shit. I say it all the time, ‘Let’s Spanish Sahara the shit out of this’. But ‘The Heron’ felt right as an introduction to welcome in what’s coming.”
“If someone else can do it, then I can do it too”
What’s coming is, as Antony describes it, “more future-facing”. Pointing to the dance tones of acts such as Gorillaz, Jamie xx and Four Tet mixed with what he’s grown up on with Jarvis Cocker and Alex Turner, the countless incredible moments and surprises that have filled Antony Szmierek’s story to date are ready to inspire a chapter looking for signs in the universe and the journeys that can’t be explained. They come to you at the times you may not see coming.
“It’s about, if you’re seeing those signs, is it true and something to believe in or is it like, well, no, no, no, you’ve gone mad? You’re assuring yourself and your actions with something that just isn’t there, and it’s chaos,” he explains, where there’s a joy in the process of simply working out what it is.
He takes a moment. “I think something I learnt on the first album was that sometimes something I talk about, which is deeply personally specific, can be very universal. When you think it’s something or somewhere that people may never have experienced or been to, there can be an understanding and connection with the feeling behind it. I took a lot of comfort in that.”
More than anything, Antony is excited, excited to put his hand out into the world and revel in the connection it brings, excited with the knowledge of what being Antony Szmierek can be and the idea that there’s no cap to what could happen next.
“I’m really, really ambitious, and I think about it all the time,” he smiles. “Thankfully, or I hope that, I’ve managed to retain a little bit of being silly and being in awe of this all still, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want this to be as big as it can possibly get. What’s coming is bigger, and we’re playing bigger rooms, and yeah, I’ve always had this feeling of: well, if someone else can do it, then I can do it too. There’s no reason why I’m not allowed to do it if someone else is allowed to do it. The fact I’m here talking about new music and the past year shows that I’ve done it and I’m in the door and I’m here.”
“Yeah, we may not have the budget that others have, but we’ve done it, y’know? Maybe it’s been a bit harder, and the door is a bit heavier to get in, but I’ll just push harder going through it. Like, if I can get this all done in my own way, I’d be really happy. I’m so lucky that I really know myself now, what I’m willing to do, and I’m not worried about whether people think I’m cool or not. I don’t think this is a particularly cool project, but it’s just about keeping that honesty about it all.”
“I want to do it all. I want to do a Tiny Desk. I want to play Glastonbury and be on the telly. I want to do it, and I want this music to reach people. I like it. It makes me happy, and I think it can make some other people happy, so yeah, I want it.”
Antony Szmierek purses his lips. “Hmm, maybe I should start being a bit less specific about herons…”
It all starts with a walk to the dancefloor, never alone.
Antony Szmierek’s single ‘The Heron’ is out now. Catch Antony on Dork’s Round the Houses tour on 11th, 12th and 13th March.
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