ANTONY Raine's debut album, Farewell to Arms, is inspired by his days in the army. Realising he could sing only in his late teens the 30-year-old has taken a leap of faith and is now pursuing his dream of having a music career.

Since May Antony has been a full time singer and songwriter. He came out of the army in April and has been working hard to get his musical career off the ground.

He said: "The last few years I have been doing the odd gig when I can.

"I left the army in April and before then it was just a hobby. I had been doing gigs here and there when I could.

"I made a conscious decision after I came back from a tour I did that music is what I wanted to do.

"I have been preparing for it for the last year or so. I released the EP at the end of August."

And at the end of November he is going in the studio again to record another album.

Antony's parents live in Hughenden where he lived when he was on leave until he moved to London.

He joined the army in 2007 and did Reconnaissance work. He said: "It was great life experience. You have to grow up quite quickly.

"You make some incredible friendships. We went to lots of different places."

And it was about when he was 21 that he started writing music, after learning to play the piano and acoustic and electric guitar.

He said: "I found out later on that I had a musical ear. I didn't know I could sing.

"It was quite late on when I was about 19."

Antony is now an independent artist and he describes his music as British Americana. And being in the army really inspired his music.

He said: "My writing has been affected. My experiences- not just mine but others too.

"The EP is not necessarily about me but more about what is going on out there in our name and the difficulties that soldiers have to face. "It is very much thousands of miles away.

"People's attention is dwindling which is obviously because people are fed up of it.

"What is going on out there has been handled pretty badly, in my opinion.

"A lot of people are going to have to deal with that for the rest of their lives."

He served in Afghanistan for seven months.

He added: "You have a lot of time to reflect when you get back on what we were doing there and what we achieved.

"I, like most soldiers, will feel like it was very little.

"The media, the politicians and high ranking generals like to portray things are fine and things are changing but I think things will be very different when everyone leaves and there is no money and a huge void is left."

Antony said his music is a bit like the poetry soldiers during World War One would write.

He said: "I am doing something I really believe in."

His song Desperate Times has proved a BBC Introducing in Yorkshire favourite, and Casaparaiso has recently had BBC Radio 6 airplay on Tom Robinson's Introducing Mixtape show.

He plans to go on tour next year. For more details go to www.antonyraine.com

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