The rock band that turns lifestories into dark musical experiences
BIO
Ant Blackbones is a poet. After years of addiction and madness, he was homeless and destitute. Rescued from the streets, given shelter and casual work, he got a boat and lived on the Canal in Camden Town. Anthony had taught himself to play a guitar and composed his first album Stick A Sock In It, recorded in London and produced by James Le Huray.
The journey of building a band began and formed naturally with its own magnetism pulling together an incredible group of creatively free individuals whose chemistry is an alchemy.
Shackle Free is a band unshackled. The name refers to its unbound attitude of freedom from a servitude to conformity. Formed in London, Ant Blackbones was joined by James Le Huray (Producer & Bass), Simon Mouchard (Rhythm & Lead Gtr), Peter McNamara (Violin) and Raoul Khayat (Drums) to record their first album as a band, Happily Unhinged.
Shackle Free’s sound is an unusual fusion of psychedelic folk rock, with a carnival atmosphere and punk attitude. There’s nothing obvious about their style, it’s unlike anything else. But it has aspects and glimmers of similarities here and there to Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel, and songs from the musical Oliver Twist.
The songs are stories told by lyrical poetry, projecting paintings in the mind of musical landscapes. Songs about emerging from darkness into the light, taboo subjects, poverty, the shadow self, outsider alienation in society, addiction, madness, suicide, violence and abuse, love and the strength to overcome adversity and shine. Transcendence.
