Tony Bengtsson

Tony Bengtsson started his musical life quite late - at the age of 17 in fact.
Taking up the drums whilst studying for his A levels he spent the next few years of his life playing for various cover and original bands as well as studying his instrument at college.

However it wasn’t until a relationship breakdown back in 2004 that he started to put pen to paper and found that rather than sit and beat himself up about the disaster, he’d write about it!

Listening to Tony’s music is like reading aloud his diary. Everything he writes about is down to personal experiences.
Tony - “I’ve noticed people relate a lot more to the honest approach. Not only that but it makes for good therapy!”
Well therapy or not, 2009 brought a lot to write about. His father died in January, he lost his job in August and his fiancée left him for a member of her band just before Christmas, which in effect meant he lost his home too.

“As cold as the fire” was put together towards the end of that year, while still able to exploit the violin playing services of his fiancée! The album was a collection of experiences across the 2 years leading up to the end of 2009 and from December that year until now it’s been onwards and upwards for Tony.
Since then “As cold as the fire” has received amazing reviews, not least of all in the Americana music magazine “Maverick”, who gave it a more than respectable 4.5 stars out of 5.
He’s also firmly established himself as one of the top songwriter/performers around the north east of England today. Not bad for a bedroom songsmith from South Shields!

More recently Tony met Paul Jackson, a singer songwriter in his own right, at an open mic night. He was lucky enough that Paul found something in the songs and wanted to record an album of Tony’s original songs in his own studio in Sunderland.

Up until now Tony’s recordings have been very stripped back and raw, but the new album is a full band production on which he plays drums, bass, guitars and keyboards. Despite all of this, he adamantly regards himself as a songwriter, not a musician!

The album takes 2 songs from “As cold as the fire” as well as 10 brand new tracks.

If you like Ray Lamontagne, Ryan Adams and The Counting Crows you’ll love this guy.

The latest album, “Snake in the Woodpile” is available to buy from the Buy CD section of this website.

And that is Tony Bengtsson.

“I hope you like the stuff… goes down quite well with a bottle of Jack I find.” - Tony