Tin Shack Blues
Here is where you get to meet one the band members of the Tin Shack Blues Band!
This page is dedicated to drummer and band founder, Tony Bryant
Tony Bryant
Tony Bryant was born in Brixton; South London in 1961 and he started to play the drums from a very early age; in fact his first drum was the body of a banjo, which was converted into a snare drum by his uncle, when he was just ten years old..
His early influences came from drummers like Gene Krupa, Ginger Baker and Charlie Watts.
By the time Tony left school he was playing for a local rock band, but it was to be the late 1970s that saw him begin a roller coaster ride on the music scene.
In 1976 Punk rock exploded onto the scene in London and Tony was drumming with a band called the Ego Trips, but this was to be short lived and Tony was soon poached by a local "up and coming" Punk band The Vice Creems, who went on to play support for such bands as The Clash and Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
During the 1980s Tony worked as a session drummer in a small recording studio in Buckinghamshire, where he was to rub shoulders with the rock band Marillion; the bass player Pete Trewavas was a good friend of Tony's at the time.
Tony spent many years playing drums for numerous bands throughout the '80s, he also made a few records, although these were not to make him his fortunes.
In 1994 Tony hung up his drum sticks and moved to Málaga in southern Spain and it was here that he became hooked on a musical style that was so different to the music he had grown up with.
This music was flamenco and Tony dedicated the next five years to learning and understanding as much as was humanly possible about flamenco. He travelled all over Andalucia in search of the mysteries and secrets of the art, interviewing artistes and filming as much genuine flamenco as he could find. The result of his research was his first book on this fascinating art, Flamenco; an Englishman's passion, which was published by the Museo del Baile Flamenco in Seville.
He has spent the last few years working as a music writer for an Estepona based company that deals with all aspects of life in Andalucia., He also conducts interviews and writes articles about flamenco for a few of the local English language newspapers in Spain.
He has also recently finished his second book covering the art of flamenco, A Tale of three cities, which he hopes to publish in the near future.
Since the publication of his first book, Tony has made friends with many leading flamenco artistes including Cristina Hoyo, Daniel Casares and José Losada - "El Carrete", as well as many of Malaga's leading artistes.
One thing that Tony noticed was the many parallels that exist between flamenco and the blues, and he soon realised just how much he missed being behind the drums and playing his beloved blues and rock. This prompted him to start a blues venue called banjos & fiddles in Montemar, Torremolinos, and he was soon looking to form what would become the resident band at the club.
Tony was introduced to a few musicians by Terry Clear, the blues man at Onda Cero International, an English language radio station in Marbella that Tony also contributes to with a weekly flamenco show.
Tony contacted Terry Roberts, (now the bands front man) and guitarist Simon "Grumpy" Barraclough, and the result was the birth of The Tin Shack Blues Band.
Tony hopes to make banjos & fiddles a successful blues venue and he also would like to present some live orthodox flamenco sessions there in the future, as he believes that these two styles are the base from which much of today's music has sprouted...
Tin Shack Blues