Born in 1971 in Chichester, West Sussex in England, Antony Hegarty is the second of four children. He and his family moved to Amsterdam and then to San Jose, California by the time he was 10. His mother was a photographer and his father was an engineer. In San Jose he found his Catholic School harder than in Britain as people seemed to single him out for being different. For his eleventh birthday he received his first keyboard and from then started to figure out songs from bands such as Soft Cell, Yazoo and other new wave bands developing out of the late 70s and early 80s. In school he sang both in the choir and in death rock bands.

He grew up as a performer, going from his Catholic school into a high school for performing arts. By his late teens he was staging plays based on John Waters movies while at the University of California in Santa Cruz.

1988 brought about the cult documentary film “Mondo New York,” a tour of the city’s underground music and performance-art scene which influenced his move to New York in 1990.

In New York Antony enrolled in an ‘Experimental Theatre’ course, which he says was “about as useful as a degree in knitting.” Antony staged plays and musicals but wanted more, so in 1992 he went in search of a community to attach himself to, which brought about the “blacklips”. They were a theatrical troupe who put on barely-rehearsed plays almost each week as well as musicals. They regularly appeared at the Pyramid Club, in New York’s then vibrant East Village. As a drag queen, he molded himself on Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet, and on the bald drag queen pictured on the sleeve of Soft Cell’s 1982 single Torch.

His drag queen role landed Antony an appearance on the documentary “Wigstock: The Movie”, playing himself. Wigstock is the annual New York drag festival.

During the mid 90s Antony started solo; after originally producing songs with the Blacklips and other late-night cabarets he had a number of songs to work with. Then the Johnsons came about in 1995, playing to small crowds in the same community he had around New York. He produced Cripple and the Starfish (which also appeared on the Johnsons’ debut) in 1996. It was released on a compilation album devoted to drag queens in 1996, “God Shave the Queen”. Antony then received a NYFA for “performance art/emergent forms” which he used to record the Johnsons’ first unreleased album “Blue Angel.”

In 1999 the Johnsons played with the band Current 93. David Tibet (CEO of Durtro and the only constant member of Current 93) was introduced to Antony, who handed him his unreleased album “Blue Angel” (A song with the same title appears on the Johnson’s debut album – any relation to the film or song Blue Velvet?). It instantly became one of David’s all-time favourites. David took on Antony and released a split single with Current 93; the track used for this was again “Cripple and the Starfish”.

Later that year David had Antony and the Johnsons in to record their debut album which was then released in May 2000; that year, Antony appeared in Time-Out NY magazine in a list of “20 people to watch in 2000”. The negative theme is clear throughout this album, especially the song Hitler in my Heart. Rapture from this album is to appear on Steve Buscemi’s independent film “Animal Factory”; Antony was asked to sing this song in front of a roomful of prisoners.

In early 2000 the Johnsons released I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy, a 3 song EP which includes covers of Mysteries of Love (Appeared originally on the film Blue Velvet) and Soft Black Stars.

It then seems that Antony and the Johnsons disappeared to write more material and tour for two years. In 2003 they released another split album “Live at St. Olave’s” with Current 93. This included two new songs from the Johnsons, the first being You Stand Above Me, only one minute and thirty-six seconds long but containing all the melancholy and drama one would expect from the Johnsons. The other new track was The Lake which was an 1827 poem written by Edgar Allan Poe beautifully adapted to song. The Johnsons appear with Current 93 again on a 7”, with side B including the song Virgin Mary. This was limited to 500 copies, both released May 12th, 2003.

It was around this time that Lou Reed heard the “I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy” EP. Reed then recruited Antony for his album The Raven for guest vocals and took him on tour in 2003 which meant that Antony appeared on Lou’s live album Animal Serenade. With the band now attracting wider attention, Antony and the Johnsons signed to US based label Secretly Canadian. Secretly Canadian then reissued the band’s debut to a wider audience in the USA.

The Lake was released the following year through the new label. It’s another 3 song EP including “The Lake” - Lou Reed appeared on Fistful of Love with guest vocals and guitar. The Horror Has Gone seems to be Antony expressing the end of a depressing phase in his life, a real positive lyrical change from his debut style.

In February 2005 Antony and the Johnsons released their second full length, I Am A Bird Now. It has guest appearances from Rufus Wainwright, Devendra Banhart, Lou Reed and Boy George. It went on to receive great critical acclaim in the UK and won Antony the Technics Mercury Music Prize for 2005.