Mark Owen
From his debut single "Child" to the recent single "Makin' Out" Mark Owen has consistently released singles often more individual, unique and alternative than those artists consider indie or alternative. His last album saw him working with a host of collaborators including Bernard Butler, Ian McCulloch and Arthur Baker and with that experience behind him he decided to go independent writing an album of which half were solo compositions and half were collaborations with his long-term guitarist. We caught up an upbeat Mark Owen to discuss his most optimistic and personal record to date.
Q: "Makin Out", a single which in typical Mark Owen
style is totally out of step and out of sync with what's happening musically
at the moment, which is a good thing.
A: Do you think so? It it quite a unique sounding record.
Especially the verses with the piano line running over the top, it almost
has a sense of a bit of a barbershop feel. It opens up a little bit from
that for the chorus. Yer know i've listened to that song a lot of times
and I also directed the video so at this point you'd think i'd be going
absolutely mental with it, but i'm still really enjoying listening to it
and it still sounds fresh. A few people have said it's a bit of a grower
as a song, but once you've heard it a few times it gets in your head and
stays around. I suppose I agree with that because it is different, but
it's an uplifting song and it makes me smile. There's a lot of freedom
in the song, it makes you feel quite liberated.
I'm really pleased with the whole album to be honest.
This is the third track I wrote. I started writing the album in January
and I just said i'd write 10 songs in the order they came out. This was
track 3 and as soon as I wrote it I thought this was the song to go with.
Apart from a lyric for track 10 were pretty much done with the album now
and for me it's the best i've written as an album. Maybe what was the problem
with the last album was that after the first single "Four Minute Warning"
there was nothing in that vein you could go with for a single. With this
album I already know the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and maybe 5th single.
Q: When you listen to a Mark Owen track you can tell
there's a real love of music. There's a similar thread throughout your
whole solo career from "Child" to "Makin Out" where you can immediately
tell it's Mark Owen.
A: It's nice of you to say that. It's took a long time
to get to this level, seven or eight years (laughs). It's been six songs
from "Child" to "Makin Out", but it's took us seven years (laughs). And
still to be able to hear a cohesiveness between the two is good over that
time. I am a fan of music, that is what I do this for. And I love writing
songs and I have my own little style going on.
For the first time now in my whole career I feel like
a songwriter, whereas even with the last album I still wasn't sure and
thought i'd got there through cheating and sooner or later somebody's going
to go "this guys crap". In the past people have said what do you do and
i've mumbled sheepishly music, but now I say i'm a songwriter.
Q: You're not alike musically. But if you look at someone
like Kylie who came from the pure pop background, went indie for one album,
but then had the instinct that she needed a hit again so went back to the
pop career. You've never done the easy route, you've stuck true to what
you believe in.
A: Yeah, the problem I have is I can't do that. Maybe
i'd be having a big career if I could, but I just can't perform those songs.
In a way maybe it's stubborn, but i've got to do what I want to do. If
I die I want to know that the songs I did I believed in and I was proud
of. I don't want to die in the future with 15 albums that sold 40 million,
but I didn't really like any of it. For me it's important that I stay true
to what I want to do and it's not always the easiest way to do it. There
are easier ways of making music. I could call up Cathy Dennis and ask her
to write me a number 1 hit, but she'd probably turn round and say I can't
do it cos' i'm writing one for Britney (laughs)
I'm glad I have stuck by it and at times the songs haven't
come out and haven't worked and i've struggled to write. But when I started
writing this album it was my most creative period. In 4 weeks i'd almost
written the whole album and the songs were just coming one after another.
I really really enjoyed making it and I think you can hear that in the
songs, there's a energy to it. And then the fact that we went and recorded
the songs out in LA. That was something I really wanted to do. I didn't
want to go back down the line of being in a studio i'd been several times
before already in England. I didn't want to record a song on a cold winters
day that to me was really uplifting. Inside I was like "we have to do this
track in LA". And as well I didn't go out there with any baggage. I didn't
go out there as the bloke who was in Take That. I was probably one of the
hundred artists that would work in the studio that year and I just went
in a bloke from England who writes his own songs and is doing his own album.
Q: On the last album you worked with so many names
- Bernard Butler, Ian McCulloch, Arthur Baker. Who did you work with on
this album?
A: Half the album is just me and the other half has been
done with my guitarist Paul. I've tried to keep it a bit more close to
home this time. The great thing is about writing with different people,
and I've always found this from Nik Heywood to Midge Ure to Ian McCulloch
to Bernard Butler, is i've feel like i've learnt a lot from them. On this
record i've tried to take all the knowledge from the past few years and
use it on one record. At this moment in time i'm confident enough and I
feel I understand what the song is really about.
Q: Do you sometimes think that with the whole performance
and selling "Mark Owen" side of things it would be easier just to write
songs for other people?
A: In all honestly it's something i've never thought
about till you asked about it. I'd like to write songs for other people,
but at the moment my minds so engrossed in what i'm doing myself that i'd
find it quite difficult to give myself wholly to something. I think it
would have to be a project that I really believed in and felt they were
being true as well. I can't just churn them out. I couldn't just sit in
a studio and say this week we're going to write a Busted track or a Kylie
track. I'd like them to be with us and work with them.
Q: Last time we spoke you were really into the Darkness.
You still keeping an interest in new music?
A: I bought the new Morrissey album and i've been listening
to that for the past couple of days. But when I wrote this album I stopped
listening to music for a little while, I really cut myself off. I really
wanted to have no influence from outside when I wrote this and just hear
what was inside rather than the latest drum beat on the new NERD track.
The stuff that i've bought is the stuff that people are
listening to anyway. I've bought the new Keane album, Morrissey record,
the NERD record. I bought the Funeral For A Friend record as well and I
really like his voice, great voice on that.
Q: What do you think of a band like Keane where you're
perceived as still "pop" and they're perceived as "indie", but at the end
of the day your records as more inventive and alternative material than
them
A: I really like the Keane single, but have only heard
the album once. I got a bit of a feeling of Travis off it in a way. It
sounds really terrible but i'm a bit bored of music at the moment, Keane
have nice songs and nice melodies but with my record I just wanted to have
a bit of fun with it - sometimes musicians can take themselves a little
bit too serious. I just wanted to liven things up a bit with this record...but
you know they'll probably say the same thing about me anyway.
Q: How is it this time doing the whole release independently?
It must be quite different?
A: Yeah. It is, but its quite exciting to be honest with
you. I feel like I learning a different side of stuff at the moment. I
think main thing that has come with me doing this is the freedom and also
just plain old determination. I don't know what i'm determined for, but
I just want to do it this time. It wouldn't do the industry any harm if
someone like myself did something independently and succeeds with it.
What were doing now is about the whole package. I also
like the artwork, I know it bollocks and you probably don't want to hear
it, but the artwork is based around the video I directed and the old style
movie posters. There's not the usual picture of me smiling and there's
a lot of time been spent on each of the covers.
Q: What are your ambitions for this single and album
doing it independently?
A: If we went in the Top Ten i'd be ecstatic. If we weren't
in the Top 40 i would be really disappointed. You know how much work and
effort people put into it and you want your songs to be heard. It's alright
writing songs, but if nobodies hearing them it gets disheartening. If you
believe in something and you like something you want it to be heard and
the best chance of that is getting it in the charts.
From the writing side of things i'm really really happy. For me as a writer I couldn't ask for any more cos I do feel i'm writing the most creative unique stuff i've ever written. What it will do, you never know. If I could decide and it was me out there i'd go and buy the singles and the album. Were only about half way through the recording side of things so i'm hopefully gonna go back to LA at the end of June and finish off. It's quite a tight turnaround but im hoping to get the album out at the end of august / beginning of September. It would be good to get 2 albums out in a year.
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"Makin' Out" is out now
The album is expected later in the year
For more info on releases / gigs etc.
www.markowenofficial.com
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