Just four days off a tour with Icelandic band Kaleo, and before he embarks on his solo tour, The University Times spoke with English singer-songwriter Dan Owen. Chatting a couple of hours before his appearance at The Ruby Sessions, held in Doyle’s pub, Owen was relaxed and full of talk, presenting an air of genuine likeability and a real love for his art.
Relatively new on the recording scene releasing his first EP in 2015, the 20-something year old native of Shrewsbury, England, has been gigging since the age of 13. “I started guitar lessons when I was nine. My guitar teacher was a big part of getting me started. When I was 13, I started playing guitar for my sister, she was a year older and would sing. We would play down the pub in my guitar teacher’s band’s breaks and stuff. My sister went away to university then when she was around 17, so that was the first time that I started singing for myself”, Owen explains.
Gigging from a young age was crucial in shaping Owen’s love for music. His early gigs in the local pub are the ones he remembers most fondly: “The the older guys down the pub, they were the ones that really inspired me. I got a really good idea of what music was, the way that there would be guys straight off the building sites, out of doctor’s surgeries, cleaners, lawyers, all in the same place. So many different people there listening to the music. That’s what I think it’s really about.” For Owen, his career in music “just sort of happened”. Taking a rather different route than others into the business, Owen’s break has been a mixture of good and bad luck. He reveals “I never really thought anything of it, the gigs. It was just a nice thing to do, I enjoyed it. I actually didn’t think it would be a good idea to kind of pursue it. I wanted to go into making guitars instead, so I got an apprenticeship in a carpentry place like making guitars and stuff. When I was 16, I was in the workshop and a piece of wood flicked out of the chop-saw and hit me straight in the eye. I couldn’t really see properly after that. I tried doing the carpentry again but it just didn’t work, my eyes and hands couldn’t work the way they used to. This was hard to take at the time. I had spent a lot of my wages buying myself the appropriate tools and had spent a lot of time reading reviews on Toolsfirst to make sure they were the best ones I could get. I’d decided carpentry was going to be the route I was going to take, so to discover I couldn’t take that career path or even use any of my tools anymore was a real kick in the teeth.”
A testament to his strength of character, Owen did not allow this shocking blow to keep him down. He sold all of his tools and quit his carpentry apprenticeship, deciding to turn back to music instead. He decided to make money playing gigs from then on. He explains: “I got a pin and a piece of string and circled on a map everywhere within a two hour drive. I got all the pubs and stuff in that area and started ringing them all, I probably annoyed a lot of people! I might ring 40 a day and get one or two gigs. But, after a while, it got easier. There was a year that I did about 150 to maybe 200 gigs.” Owen admits that he was happy just gigging, and that it wasn’t until a video recording of him went viral that he ever considered he could take it all further. “I never really tried to take it anywhere, I never recorded anything. It wasn’t until after three or four of years of doing that someone recorded me at a music festival and put it on YouTube. I started to get a lot of messages after that and gigs started coming in.”
Owen has come quite far in a short period of time, touring with Birdy in the UK, Ireland, and Spain and with Kaleo around UK and Europe, he holds these experiences in high regard. “It can be difficult sometimes, opening for people. You are playing to a crowd of people who aren’t exactly there to see you, but when you get them to come around and they start enjoying you it’s amazing. You also learn so much being on tour with other people, even if it’s just what sort of suitcase to bring!”
We begin to talk about his upcoming solo tour and, while he is very excited, Owen opens up about how close his heart lies to home. “You are so busy when you are on tour that you don’t really have time to be lonely, but I really miss my mates when I’m away. I’ll see an Instagram post of them down the pub jamming and think ‘ugh, I really wish I could be there’, but they are probably thinking the same thing when they see pictures of me! I was just at home there til yesterday for two days playing gigs. Every Christmas I play a gig at home, it’s always great. I think that’s important.”
So pleasantly humble, Owen does not see himself as anything special, and is rather appreciative that his “job” is something he “has so much fun doing”. “Gigging is my favourite part. I like being in the studio, but the gigs are the best. I played a gig in Madrid with Birdy and it was probably the most amazing gig ever, even she said so. We played a duet during her encore, the crowd were incredible, so loud. I love times like that.” Owen tells The University Times that his creative process is a natural one, that songs may come to him at any moment: “People say it’s kinda like fishing, I think so too.” The singer-songwriter teamed up with Walking On Cars frontman Patrick Sheehy earlier this year, Owen says “I did do some writing though actually down in Dingle with Patrick. It kinda just came about through my label or whatever, but yeah it was great. It can be interesting writing with someone else.”
Talking about the months to come, Owen reveals that, despite his love of gigging, he is keen to get back into the studio. “I have about 100 songs written that I can start recording from so I really want to get on that and start releasing again. I have break in January and February so I’ll get to it then. Apart from that, no real plans, kinda just see what happens.”
Later that evening I had the chance to see Owen perform live upstairs in Doyle’s. The almost-too-full space was silent as Owen took the mic, playing four songs off his recent EPs that had those around me taking out their phones to record his incredible voice. Owen is an artist who deserves all the success that has come his way through his relentless work ethic. He is sure to grow in popularity in the coming months, so catch him while you can.
