Strummerville first met Leon via Billy Bragg’s Jail Guitar Doors iniative and he came and played a campfire set for us in 2009 at Glastonbury.
Since then Leon has been busy writing and recording and gigging around the country and soon will release an EP.
Leon grew up in a small town called Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Drug use and unemployment were the norm and he grew up in a family of drug addicts. He grew up with a lot of love but had a challenging childhood and as a teen had a lot of anger and started to rebel at an early age.
Unfortunately but not surprisingly Leon started to dabble with drugs himself and the majority of his youth was spent battling addiction. As a result Leon spent many years on the wrong side of the law and consequently spent too much time at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.
Whilst in custody Leon was given a guitar by Jail Guitar doors and subsequently spent a lot of time writing songs about his life experience. In many respects this guitar helped him to turn his life around and he has never returned to prison since and music is now his sole focus the raw honesty of Leon’s music is truly an inspiration to many people in similar situatioins to his and hopefully he can help them to change their worlds …
