Last of The English Gentlemen: When the Universe Conspires to Introduce You to Exceptional Music
Sometimes the best musical discoveries happen when the universe decides to give you a gentle nudge. Or in this case, a series of increasingly obvious hints that even the most oblivious music journalist couldn't ignore.
It started with a casual conversation over wine with Robin from the Broadway Massive. "You know he's doing his music now," he mentioned with characteristic nonchalance about a mutual friend. Two weeks later, Jimi Strange sent me a gig poster featuring that same name. The message was clear: pay attention.
That friend was Chris Shannon, the architect behind Last of The English Gentlemen – a moniker that's both tongue-in-cheek and deliberately theatrical. "I was trying to invoke characters from history and literature with theatrical sobriquets," Chris explains, citing influences from The Scarlet Pimpernel to Stede Bonnet, the 18th-century Gentleman Pirate. It's a name that sets up a conceptual framework allowing him to embody the characters within his songs.
The Grove: Where Stories Come Alive
Having lost touch during the pandemic years when Chris relocated to Sweden, I was curious to see how his sound had evolved. After spending an afternoon in the garden working through his 55-minute Spotify catalogue – a collection of indie folk that draws clear lineage from Nick Cave, Tom Waits, and Leonard Cohen – I knew this wouldn't be your typical Wednesday night gig.
The Grove at Sneinton Market provided the perfect intimate setting. Chris arrived straight from Cornwall, luggage in tow, stopping for a quick catch-up on Broadway's iconic veranda before heading down for soundcheck. The venue had thoughtfully arranged chairs for those wanting to properly absorb the power of indie folk storytelling.
What unfolded was a masterclass in solo performance. "Normally I play this one with a band," Chris would interject between songs, but you wouldn't have believed him. His vocals blended seamlessly with intricate guitar work, creating a sound that felt complete and purposeful. From the moving "The Cloud" to "Do You Remember Tulsi" (which carried echoes of Neil Diamond), each song was delivered with effortless precision.
The Art of Musical Storytelling
Chris's approach to songwriting is refreshingly methodical yet organic. "It takes me months to get a song done," he admits, describing his process like "growing a house plant" – starting with a seed of an idea and nurturing it through daily attention until it blooms. Most telling is his practice of keeping his guitar "as far away as possible" until the song has established its identity through lyrics first.
This literary foundation shows. His songs are described as "electric-infused folk fables with a literary lilt," and they nod to everyone from Shakespeare and Melville to DH Lawrence and the Romantic poets. "The literary references are like little gingerbread crumbs along the journey," he explains, creating those satisfying "ah ha!" moments for attentive listeners.
The influence of his Christian upbringing is evident in his fascination with Biblical language and symbolism, something that drew him particularly to Leonard Cohen. "Here was someone using the Biblical language that I grew up with, taking those symbols and that deeply spiritual language, and using it to express human longing," Chris reflects on his late-teens revelation that transformed his approach to writing.
Nottingham Roots, Swedish Seasons
Despite his Swedish residency, Nottingham remains deeply embedded in Chris's creative DNA. "Notts has crept its way into a bunch of my songs," he says, citing local characters like blues busker Sam Lindo and Frank Robinson the xylophone man. He's crafted a murder ballad called "Flying Horse Walk" and references "Mogs who played saxophone on Albert Street, 'the saxophone cat in his trench coat and hat dressed like Al Capone.'"
These aren't just nostalgic name-drops but mythologizing of lived experience. "They're fictions, but they're true fictions," Chris explains of his songwriting approach. "The emotion at the centre of the song is always real."
The Philosophy of Absurd Poetry
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Chris's work is how he balances melancholy with moments of levity. His philosophy – "even suffering is finite and often worth laughing at" – was tested when he and his partner lost their second daughter during birth. "We had to make a conscious choice to refuse despair, to attempt to live within the absurd poetry of this tragic event, and to laugh together," he shares with remarkable candor.
This experience forced him to practice what he'd been writing about: "It is one thing to write about laughing into the void, and quite another to put it into practice when confronted with deep mourning."
Live at The Grove: Raw Honesty in Action
Back at The Grove, this philosophy manifested in performance that was simultaneously heart-wrenching and uplifting. Chris closed with "Neon Cicada," a standout track from his 2022 debut EP "Insomnia Literature" – written during his struggles with addiction and sleepless nights filled with "relentless streams of consciousness."
The crowd's complete silence throughout the set, followed by enthusiastic calls for an encore, said everything. My hastily scribbled notes – "heartfelt," "emotional," "raw," "honest," even "modern-day Bob Dylan" – felt inadequate to capture the evening's impact.
What's Next
Chris is currently working on his album "Songs of Innocence," with his latest single "Footsteps" – a Brothers Grimm-style fairytale about ghostly lovers – setting the tone for what promises to be his most cohesive work yet. When it's complete, he'll be back for more shows.
For now, his first two EPs are available on all streaming platforms, offering a compelling introduction to an artist who proves that great songwriting and honest performance can still cut through the noise.
Sometimes the universe knows what it's doing when it keeps putting something in your path. In this case, it was introducing us to one of Nottingham's most thoughtful musical exports – a true gentleman storyteller whose tales are worth the telling.
Here's our complete conversation with Chris, offering deeper insights into his creative process, influences, and philosophy:
Full Q&A with Chris Shannon (Last of The English Gentlemen)
1. Let's start with the name – Last of the English Gentlemen. Where did that come from, and what does it mean to you personally?
It's a fairly tongue-in-cheek name, but I was trying to invoke characters from history and literature with theatrical sobriquets…The Scarlet Pimpernel, Caspian the Seafarer (from the Narnia novels), and, more obviously, Stede Bonnet, an 18th century sailor known as The Gentleman Pirate.
It lays a certain conceptual framework for the music, hopefully, and as a performer it allows me to embody the characters within my songs.
When I do shows with the full band, we encourage the audience to come dressed in their finest attire, to dance around, to become part of the performance. The intention is to have a touch of carnivalesque flair, to create an environment in which identity can become fluid, and they can live more freely within the world of the songs.
2. You're clearly steeped in storytelling – your songs are described as 'electric-infused folk fables with a literary lilt.' When did words start to matter as much as melody for you?
Partly it's from wanting to be a novelist but not having the attention span for actually writing a novel, but mostly it is because my own listening habits have always favoured storytellers and lyricists.
Growing up I would always sit with the album sleeve of records and read along to the lyrics. When you find out about the 'hidden message' in 'Stairway to Heaven' when it's played backwards, or try to understand the strange disembodied voices floating around in 'Dark Side of the Moon', it draws you deeper into the music, and I became fascinated with the way in which language was loaded with meaning.
Simultaneously, I was deeply involved in Christianity all the way through my childhood, and of course the language of Biblical myths exists on a fine thread between the literal and the symbolic. I spent a lot of time examining that web of meaning, the way stories written over hundreds of years interacted with one another, the multiple interpretations you could have of a single passage. So when it came to music I was always drawn to artists whose words had a certain weight to them, who made you do a little bit of work to figure them out, where the meaning was hidden, glimmering somewhere beneath the surface and you had to do some digging.
3. You've drawn comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and early Tom Waits – not exactly lightweights. Are they conscious influences, or do you find yourself aligning with them more by coincidence than design?
Certainly when I first discovered Leonard Cohen in my late teens, it was a revelation of sorts. Here was someone using the Biblical language that I grew up with, taking those symbols and that deeply spiritual language, and using it to express human longing. And his writing style was so sparse, so disciplined…each line was crafted perfectly. I studied him pretty diligently for a long time, and that completely transformed my approach to writing. So he was probably the most conscious influence to begin with.
Cave and Waits obviously both do something similar, but their work is very much more about the existential melodrama, they've built worlds full of sailors and preachers and gutter dwellers, a kind of apocalyptic Shangri-la. The imagery is so much more visceral, you're a visitor in their fever dream.
So yeah I would say they're all artists I find myself aligned with, and I'm not unhappy when those comparisons are drawn! I think when you try to write songs that are ambitious lyrically, those are the paragons of that kind of work, and it's little easier to give context to your own music.
4. Your lyrics nod to Shakespeare, Melville, DH Lawrence, the Romantic poets, even the Bible – that's quite a cocktail. How does literature inform your songwriting process? Do the words lead the music, or vice versa?
The majority of the time, I start from the lyric, and try to keep the guitar as far away from myself as possible to begin with, until the song has a proper identity. Once the song knows what it is in terms of the story it is telling, the melody and rhythm and mood is already implied, and that side of things becomes far more intuitive and easy.
The literary references are like little gingerbread crumbs along the journey…or easter eggs, I suppose they're called. Sometimes they happen by accident, other times I'm really trying piggyback on the symbolic meaning or cultural weight that those things already contain, or to transform them in some way. So when you listen and recognise a quote here, or a phrase there, you get a very satisfying 'ah ha!' moment. Kind of like when you're doing a crossword puzzle and the answer suddenly occurs to you.
5. Your debut EP Insomnia Literature came out in 2022. What does that title signify, and how did that collection shape the artist you are now?
That title came from the name I gave to the notes I would make in the early hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep. I had years of really terrible sleep. I'd be lying in bed with a relentless stream of consciousness running through my mind. Most of it was just all the normal worries about life, existential angst, but very occasionally you have a thought or a phrase that feels significant, and you can either let those pass, or you capture them. So I had a notebook next to my bed, because those ideas never come back. If you say 'oh, I'll write it in the morning', it's gone. I think that's a pretty common thing for everyone. So that first EP was made up of material from that notebook, and one of the themes of the record, ironically, was dreams.
I'm still very fond of those songs, but I think the recording of them was symptomatic of the pandemic, in that I had a lot of time on my hands, a lot of guitar pedals and drum machines, and no one to tell me when the songs were done. They almost feel like remixes. So it's a little more elaborate than I would do it now, and perhaps down the line we'll record some versions that are a little more true to my sound. But it was an important learning process.
6. Since that debut, you've dropped several singles, including your latest track, Footsteps. What's the story behind this one? What inspired it thematically and sonically?
Footsteps is a kind of Brothers Grimm fairytale about the ghosts of two young lovers who meet every night to dance by a lake. It's a beautiful and seemingly innocent piece of magical realism, with a rather sinister Romeo & Juliet style subplot that is just hinted at throughout the song.
The initial version was a song I wrote ten years ago for a girlfriend. We both had a love of the macabre, and I was writing a Masters thesis on the Marquis de Sade, so sex and death were pretty constant contemplations at the time!
The line 'you know that she's wild, his scars are the shape of her teeth' was emblematic of the particular erotic chaos that we shared, and a contemplation on that very passionate- verging on obsessive- form of young love that tends to take on a mystical form in your mind and leave a lasting impression.
That song sets the tone for the themes of the album, 'Songs of Innocence', which I've spent the last few months recording, and which will hopefully be out before the end of the year.
7. There's a strong emotional thread in your music – themes of love, lust, regret, transformation. Where do those stories come from – lived experience, imagined characters, or somewhere in-between?
In some way they're a mythologising of my own lived experience without being directly confessional. They're fictions, but they're true fictions.
The emotion at the centre of the song is always real, because no matter what characters exist within the song, I'm always trying to get to know them through the lens of my experiences.
The 'Insomnia Literature' EP was probably the most directly autobiographical…'Neon Cicada' was written at a time when I was really struggling with life and attempting to hoist myself out of various addictions. 'The Dove' is about a couple negotiating their way through depression…'In Dreams' was about a friend who took his own life, and 'We May Be Strangers' emerged from the birth of my daughter, during which my partner nearly died. And whilst those songs don't directly reference the events they were inspired from, the nucleus of the idea carries their emotional weight.
9. You've got ties to both Nottingham and Sweden – tell us about that connection. How have both places shaped your work, creatively or otherwise?
I grew up in Nottingham, it will always be home. I try to visit at least once a year, as my parents still live here, and because I come back infrequently, I get the pleasure of seeing the place change and develop with each visit.
Notts has crept its way into a bunch of my songs. It's a city which just contains so many characters and such rich history, it's hard not to be inspired by it. I have one song which name-drops the blues busker Sam Lindo and Frank Robinson the Xylophone man.
I have a kind of murder ballad called Flying Horse Walk, and another song mentions Mogs who played saxophone on Albert Street, 'the saxophone cat in his trench coat and hat dressed like Al Capone'.
All these figures and places pepper my memory and had a sense of mystique about them when I was younger. So in due course there'll be an album that is quite recognisably based around these streets, I have a few of the demos already recorded.
I moved to Sweden five years ago, right at the start of the pandemic, as my partner was pregnant with our daughter, and she wanted to be close to her family. It's a very pretty city, and I spend a lot of time around the Old Town, which has all these winding cobbled streets and gnarly old bars down in Medieval cellars, right next to the harbour. It's great for the imagination; you can see the ghosts of drunken sailors stumbling down the alleyways late at night.
10. You were a regular presence on Broadway's iconic veranda – do you miss that scene?
I do really miss that scene! I worked at Broadway for a year or so, and spent many an evening after work sitting out on that veranda, putting the world to rights. It always felt like an environment ripe with creativity, and you never knew who you were going to end up chatting with.
11. There's often a glint of humour or irony that cuts through the melancholy in your songs. Is that intentional – a way to keep things human and grounded?
I feel as though it punctures the tension somewhat. Especially when you're performing material that is, on the face of it, quite dark, a well timed line or a general thread of humour creates a slight release in the room…it's also a good way to find out if the audience is actually listening!
12. What does your songwriting process look like? Pen and paper in the middle of the night, or do you craft things more methodically?
Obviously I use a quill made from a swan's feather, and write on old pieces of parchment by candlelight.
No, it takes me months to get a song done, though I do usually have two or three at any given time that I'm working on. I switched to writing on my phone because I move lines around like rubix cube blocks, and my handwriting is utterly illegible. I catch random phrases from the air and my task is to see where they fit.
It's like growing a house plant, you start with a seed of an idea, usually a single line, or an image…you keep watering the soil day after day hoping to see a little sprout emerge. Then as the song begins to take shape it suddenly gets these growth spurts, and if you just talk to it every day and encourage it, whisper sweet nothings, before you know it it's in full bloom and needs a little trim to tidy it up. But there is a lot of waiting and staring out of windows.
13. The phrase "even suffering is finite – and often worth laughing at" really stands out. Can you unpack that a little? Is that your philosophy, musically and personally?
I think what I was attempting to express was that if you recognise and accept the absurdity of life, and its apparent lack of reason, the fact that we're all just dancing in the dark, it gives you a certain dignity in the midst of suffering, and laughter becomes a defiant act in the face of despair.
My partner and I lost our second daughter during the last moments of her birth, in incredibly rare circumstances. It was inexplicable, unbelievable, utterly without apparent reason. She also happened to be born on the same day of the year as our first daughter, the 4th October.
We had to make a conscious choice to refuse despair, to attempt to live within the absurd poetry of this tragic event, and to laugh together. It alleviated some of the agony, filling that absence with what joy we could summon. So I suppose that event forced me to assemble a philosophy that was already present in my music, because it is one thing to write about laughing into the void, and quite another to put it into practice when confronted with deep mourning.
14. Finally – what's next? Any upcoming releases, gigs, or collaborations we should keep on our radar at NottsRocks?
I'm heading back to Sweden to play a few summer gigs and finish off the recording of the album 'Songs of Innocence'. It's still a long way from done, and yet feels tantalisingly close. So that's on the horizon, and when it is done, I'll be back here to play some shows. In the meantime, my first two EP's are on all streaming platforms!
