Today I turn forty. A new decade. But 2020’s energy is telling me, in some not-so-subtle terms, that this is not the year to be partying. No, 2020’s energy is distinctly telling me that in fact this is the year to stay at home with a bottle of champagne and the audible of Mariah’s newly-released The Meaning of Mariah Carey in which she will peruse, perform and hopefully even purr through her life’s memoirs. And you know what? I’m not mad about it.
Someone else who is all about taking their cues from the universe’s energy and understanding the signs the Earth is presenting to you is Kelly Lee Owens who dropped one of my albums of the year, Inner Song. Every time I listen to the album, it’s a total journey she is taking me on. A journey that takes you to the ice caps in Antarctica and shows you the damage being done to the glaciers, a journey that takes you back to her homeland of Wales to meet her Nana and a journey that culminates in an intense night of clubbing with strobe lights, a hot, sweaty crowd and…bass. A night that will happen again.
Inner Song is Kelly Lee Owens’ second album and this week saw the release of its latest single, ‘Corner of my Sky’ featuring vocals from The Velvet Underground’s John Cale and starring actor Michael Sheen. So today I’m speaking with her to find out more about the makings of Inner Song, how she’s defining her own genre and that time she recorded vocals on the mic George Michael used to record ‘Faith.’ Icons only.
First up, I love that we are speaking while a thunderstorm rages outside my window here in Barcelona. It feels very on brand.
Yes, I just conjured that up specially for the interview, just to bring the vibes!
It would only be appropriate. What about you? Where are you?
I’m at my home in London, I’ve just finished my coffee and doing some DJ mixes. I’m also slowly venturing into movie scores. There are also a couple of tracks that didn’t make the album that I am working on as well. One’s probably going to come out next year because it’s a big summer dance track – really uplifting.
There’s another one which is a bit darker. It’s very political actually, the lyrics don’t beat around the bush. I wrote it in response to seeing what Trump is doing, seeing people held in cages on the Mexico/US border, the dehumanisation of people and how that is being used as a weapon. Some of the lyrics are, ‘Divide. Deprive. Dehumanise.’
I love how you balance important social issues over a four to the floor beat.
Absolutely. I think it’s about uplifting and empowering people. I believe our bodies store trauma somatically and that moving the body to music is the most amazing way to release that rage.
Where have you been dancing in 2020?
I’ve always been a ‘dancing in my bedroom’ kind of girl. I was much happier being in my own weirdo kind of bubble, than hanging out on street pavements in cold Wales, smoking cigarettes.
Totally. Growing up in Wales, I imagine good places to dance were hard to come by.
Yeah, as a white girl growing up in a tiny working-class, welsh village, there was nowhere to go. So I ventured out to Manchester which was like a sixty minute drive away. I was definitely clubbing underage but I was just so hungry to soak up that live energy. For the most part I was watching bands. Then I slowly began to appreciate the production of groups like The Knife, I loved the melodic aspect. That was a deep part of how I expressed myself. Wales is the country of song.
Then in 2009 I moved to London and worked in a record shop opposite Fabric. People would ask me to come but I’d be like, ‘What’s Fabric? A dance thing? Oh, I don’t know about that.’ I didn’t connect to the energy of it. I wasn’t ready.
I think music finds you when you need it. There’s no rush. There are artists like Alice Coltrane, who I just didn’t understand at twenty, but now I love her and there is a resonance I connect with. We could spend our lives being music fans but not appreciate something like death metal until we’re seventy. Music is a journey.
I remember having that hunger for new music when I was a teen and in my early twenties. Then I got kind of lazy and just listened to music I already knew, for the nostalgia. It’s only recently that hunger has returned. Festivals like Primavera & Sonar here in Barcelona have definitely been a part of that.
I discovered a lot of new music live first and I think that stays with you forever. Then when you listen to the single or album afterwards there is this whole other depth to it. And this is especially relevant to the closure of small clubs and venues at the moment – it’s really important to remember what that does for us in the sense of discovery.
When it comes to writing a track, what comes first for you – the music or the lyrics?
I write the instrumental first. I feel I’m a conduit for whatever needs to come through. Then I take my piles and piles of notebooks that I’ve had forever, with all of my lyrics – such a Virgo – into my little bedroom and spend like a week exploring all my thoughts. They can be about a personal situation or a collective one that I’m observing. The vocals come last for me. Sometimes it doesn’t even need my voice squawking on top of it.
For me, as a writer, I instantly turn to words to express emotions. There’s your song, ‘Jeanette’ about your Nana and it’s an instrumental. How do you go about expressing such specific emotions with no lyrics?
I definitely feel I can express myself better sonically than in words. When I’m speaking, I’m always thinking, ‘Did I say that right?’ I’m most at ease when I am allowing whatever needs to flow through me to develop. I am in my deepest meditation. I feel most at peace.
It’s beautiful when I find the right words to say too, and sometimes the audience get the lyrics wrong but it’s about what it means to them. There’s a Paul Young song that goes, ‘Every time you go, you take a piece of me with you.’ I used to think it was, ‘Every time you go, you take a piece of meat….’ I was so confused but I was a kid so I was like, ‘Yeah, ok cool.’ Haha…
Maybe he was a butcher…on your Reddit AMA someone asked you what genre you identified with and you said Welsh witch-tech which I am totally here for.
Haha…yeah, I mean if people are going to force me to create a genre for myself, because people love to put others in boxes, I would be quite happy in that one. I’d like to think I’d be there by myself taking up all the room.
I know Wales is a big part of you. I wondered what your favourite Welsh word was?
Ooh….’Bendigedig.’ It means fantastic. It’s such an uplifting word. There’s also ‘Ych a Fi!’ which means gross. The Welsh have always been almost disgusted at everything. We had to come up with a word for it.
You’ve also been mentioning the book, Women Who Run With Wolves in interviews and it sounds so good that I’ve just ordered a copy off eBay!
Oh my gosh, yay! It’s been like my bible. I’ve read it three times and every now and then I open a page and just read a part at random. It’s almost like doing tarot where I click in and a message might come out of it.
The author goes about undoing the psyche of women, but I think it can relate to human beings in general and I think this is why it came out in the album, in ‘Re-wild’ especially. It really stood out to me about being unapologetic and tapping into your rage. A lot of us were taught to suppress that rage and I think that actually causes more damage.
I read that you were recording in Margate and put down some of your vocals on the same microphone that George Michael used to record ‘Faith’?! Say what?!
When I was told that I was like, ‘Oh my God, he has breathed into this microphone’…as I was breathing heavily into it myself. It’s known as one of the best microphones for females to record on. I think that’s why it gave him some of those nice high tones.
Did you pick up on his energy in the room?
I don’t know but I tried to be mindful of, and connect to, the magic of something that had history. I do believe in energy and how it’s stored. I think just going into those sessions I did fundamentally understand that I was very lucky and that I was doing something very special.
My Dad is obsessed with George Michael. He kind of looks like him. He bought a purple suit and everything. He sings. So when I told him he was thrilled.
Finally, Loverboy is named after the biggest selling single of 2001, so I always ask everyone – what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
Oh my God. That is a lot of pressure!!! I do love ‘Heartbreaker’ but there are so many good ones. What I love about her is that she doesn’t give a shit. I actually watched Mariah’s World and it was kind of bonkers. It was a real insight. She’s obviously super sweet and it seems like she has been through a lot. I really admire her.
People are always quick to judge women who continue to work and say, ‘Oh God, she should just retire.’ They wouldn’t say that to a man. It fucking riles me up. Respect to any women that were big in the 90s, who are still just doing their thing unapologetically. I’m all for it.
Plus she writes a lot of her songs, that’s another thing. She’s not just a fucking pretty face. The way we think about women in relation to their art really irks me. It’s like, ‘She can’t be part of the creation of her own art…’ How dare people! I’m going to say ‘Always Be My Baby.’ I know it’s a classic but they are all classics.
Inner Song is out now.
Kelly Lee Owens’ European tour begins in March 2021.
www.kellyleeowens.com
