Deep Voices 111: Christopher Owens

An interview with the former Girls frontman ahead of his new solo album

Deep Voices #111 on Spotify
Deep Voices #111 on Apple Music

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This edition of Deep Voices is an interview with the artist Christopher Owens, formerly of the band Girls. The above playlist contains some of my favorite of Owens’ songs, including three from his upcoming album. I love his music deeply and am proud to bring you this conversation. If you find it, and Deep Voices, valuable, please consider a paid subscription which gets you access to exclusive newsletters and playlists.

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In the last decade, Christopher Owens has seen the death of his bandmate, the dissolution of his relationship with his trusted manager, a broken engagement after a near-decade relationship. He’s been in a bad motorcycle accident, had his camper van stolen, and lived in his car. Though he never stopped writing songs and playing guitar, he has not released an album. 

That, at least, will change next Friday with the release of a new solo album, I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair. Owens is almost confusingly sanguine about all this “trouble,” as he calls it. His music is a tribute to triumph over adversity, fueled by his seemingly inborn optimism. 

I first interviewed Owens, along with his partner in the band Girls, JR White, 15 years ago. What I found then was a skinny, longhaired rock and roll devotee, convinced not unfairly that his exultant bursts of song could change the world. On an ecstatic early single, “Lust For Life,” he opines for things with stakes of all kinds: a pizza, a father, and a relationship with a girl named Kayla. “Maybe if I really tried with all of my heart/Then I could make a brand new start in love with you.” His music dripped with tragedy and earnestness, as, I found out, did he. Though Owens is American, he was raised by his mother as a member of the Children of God cult in Europe. He did not attend school. When he was a teenager, he made his way back to America, ending up in Texas, where he fell under the sway of artist Stanley Marsh, before making his way out to San Francisco, where he eventually met White and started Girls. 

I was not the only one enamored with Girls’ music. When we spoke in 2009, he said he had ambitions to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, and it seemed for a brief moment that might not be an impossible dream. I saw Girls perform at the Hollywood Bowl, opening for Phoenix. They sold out shows internationally, were written about in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian. Owens’ ability to tap into humanity’s timeless desires and synthesize them in sweet, plaintive songs made him an idiosyncratic idol for modern times, but he was so sympathetic a character he coasted easily into higher and higher echelons of success. 

But a decision to break up Girls and pursue a solo career didn’t work. He pledged fealty to a manager who may not have had his best interests in mind. His solo albums had moments of brilliance but lacked cohesion and punch. They were not hits. A brief attempt at mounting a new band, Curls, did not last. 

After some time apart, Owens approached White about producing some of his music. White agreed, and they began to enter the studio with tentative plans for a reunion. But White, in poor health, died at 40, before they came to fruition. 

Now under the wing of a new manager, and after a whirlwind marriage, Owens is now living in New York City, eager to release to the world the album he calls his best work. I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is certainly his best solo album, and the one musically closest to his work in Girls. Lyrically, it is much more pained, with abundant references to struggle and death.

When I asked Owens about this moribund turn, he refuted it, pointing out many of the album’s cheerful moments. It didn’t seem like naiveté or denial necessarily, just another example of his desire to look on the bright side. 

I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair will be released on True Panther Records, the same label who first championed and released Girls’ music. Owens and I spoke last week. Note: This interview contains discussion of suicide.

How do you feel about this album and where you are in life now? 

In life, I feel extremely happy. I’m living in New York now, which is the greatest city in the country. I thought San Francisco was the most beautiful city, and I was glad I was there, but it got ugly. I also got married out of nowhere, just accidentally, by playing a show in L.A. The sister of the girl who’s band opened the show is now my wife. She came out [to New York] with me after three days. She’s just amazing. She gives me that example of seeing somebody live in the way that I did before I got so hurt which reminds me that, yeah, I like living that way too. It makes it easier to start at least cosplaying it. 

I love the album. I think it’s the best album I’ve ever made. I’m not embarrassed of anything on it, where with my old records I can find a line here and there. I think after you’ve done things for a while, you’re supposed to get better at them. So I think it’s a really great record. With the singles coming out recently, 100% honestly, people have blown my mind. I expected the core fans to be like, “Yep, he’s still got it,” but what I’ve seen is that I went from something like 6,000 Spotify listeners per month to 50,000 to 60,000, and it’s probably higher now [it’s currently at 42,500]. I’ve had young kids coming up to me in New York that are clearly not old enough to have gone to Girls shows that are talking about the Girls songs in really meaningful ways. And it touches me. There’s nothing that’s happened to me that’s been anything but a reminder that I’m doing the right thing. 

I know it was a few years ago, but I wanted to say that I’m really sorry about J.R.’s death. 

I feel like I’m still experiencing it all the time. It doesn’t really go away. But, in an odd way, I have these wonderful feelings and memories that I didn’t have before. It’s like all the feelings have been turned up.

I go back and forth trying to find the prevailing emotion on this album. I think there is desperation, but I think at times there is joy. What feelings are you trying to convey? 

The first song on the record, “No Good,” is the first time I was able to talk about how I felt getting dumped, and it came maybe two years after the fact. For about two years, I could only write instrumental music. I couldn’t write any lyrics, and I’m maybe grateful for that now, in retrospect, because I don’t like writing a bunch of angry songs. But “No Good” is the one time where I really vent, and I think that it’s fair enough, and I think the song musically sounds awesome. That song, to me, is powerful.

Does writing a song like that help you feel better? 

I wanted to feel better, but I didn’t yet at the time. I still was very alone. I had no friends left in San Francisco. I was living in my car and by the time I wrote that song, things had only gotten worse. J.R. had died. I had one friend in the city that would let me come over and hang out in the evenings. I had good friends that were just ghosting me. I had strangers in businesses that when I walked in the door, they ask me to leave. For what reason, I don’t know. They though I was a homeless guy. And sure, I was homeless, but I had money. It was just gross. I came here and I achieved the American dream, show me some fucking respect. The whole thing was a really, really gnarly experience. I really wanted to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, but I just didn’t have it in me. I would sit around and think, “Man, it’d be really great if I could hang myself so that the people in my life that have abandoned me would know how I feel.” But I’m not going to do that. You know, at the end of the day, I don’t have it in me, but that’s how I felt.

I’m sorry to hear you felt like that.

So what did I do at the end of the day? I had to reason with myself on a day-to-day basis, on how to go on. And then I had the things that I loved to do, like taking photos and playing my guitar. I would play in the BART stations every single day. I would play in front of certain grocery stores when I knew they’d get busy, and people would come and hand me $100 bills. Young guys would come and be like, “You’re the best guitar player in the city,” not knowing who I was, and I liked that. After this terrible experience, I can play four times better than I used to and I’m so glad for that. I walked away from this feeling like I can get through anything. I felt just as good playing in the BART station than I did after a show. Maybe you have to be a musician to understand this, but if you can just be happy playing your instrument, I think that’s when you know you’re doing the right thing with your time.

Is there anything that you’re afraid of right now?

I’m afraid all the time. I’m afraid of the ocean. I would hate to make bad decisions later in life. I would hate to let people down. I don’t want to ever do that. I want to be a father, and that’s a huge unknown. I’ve got to maintain who I am all along throughout that, which is hard enough right now. But what I’ve found is that when you have somebody else, things get a little easier, and then the two of you can then take on something more.

You have a song on the album called “Do You Need a Friend,” which I find to be really beautiful but in some ways so electric that it can be hard to listen to. Are you singing to yourself?

Think about the bridge. It picks up a note on purpose, because it’s a positive. [Owens sings:] “You need to learn to try and love again. Yesterday doesn’t have to be tomorrow. What about today? Do you need a friend?” I’m saying, I could be that friend, even in this state. “You’re gonna have to let go of sorrow, because crying only feels good for a while. Then you’re gonna have to smile if you want to love again. Do you need a friend?” I’ve always been honest about how I feel. Like, look, I believe we can get somewhere better together. Or I think, right now, even the music is taking us to a better place. 

You have often written tributes to the power of playing music

I’ve only written about four songs in my life, over and over and over again, trying to finally write the perfect version. “This Is My Guitar,” that’s the “Darling” of this album. 

I remember talking with you years ago about goals and you said you wanted to play the Super Bowl halftime show. Your career really exploded, but you didn’t get there. What are your goals now? 

I’ve had to ask myself this and analyze this. I have integrity. Musicians love me. My fans are the best people in the world. My fans are always beautiful, broken people, positive people, generous people but good people, the best people in the world. I would rather have that than to be headlining Coachella.

Maybe to bring this in tighter, what are your goals for this album? 

I just wanted people to see I was back. I want people to be moved by the album in some way. And I want to go forward. I mean, I still have Girls songs that haven’t been recorded yet.

When you say, on “I Think About Heaven,” that you “think about heaven and smile,” why is that? 

I can’t remember who said this, but somebody said hell is a place where everybody’s sitting at this long table to eat, but they have their cutlery tied to their hands and they can’t bend their elbows, so they’re picking up their food and they’re like trying [unsuccessfully] to eat, right? That’s hell. Heaven is a place where everyone’s in the same predicament, but they’re feeding the person across the table. [Owens is referring to the allegory of the long spoons, which has an unknown origin.] That’s all. So “I think about heaven and smile,” I’m saying that I’m thinking about when things are going to be better. I’m thinking about when it works. I’m thinking about when it’s groovy. I think we’ve experienced both heaven and hell in this life on Earth. 

Do you feel like this is an album where you are the narrator in a more literal sense than in other songs before?

People say they thought [this album] was about me dying myself. You know, people think a lot of things. 

I think there’s more on this record about death than about life.

Well, there’s the song “Two Words.” To me, that’s a beautiful song. I’m feeling down again, same old pattern. This song is to my ex-girlfriend who had just made me feel “no good” earlier. This was a few years later, when she explained herself and apologized and we mended the friendship. I’m saying, if I could choose two words to say to you they would be “true happiness.” That’s beautiful to me. That’s beautiful. I think there’s plenty of simple, beautiful concepts on [the album]. “Beautiful Horses” is the first time where I’m thinking, “What would I need from somebody to have a good relationship?” It’s straightforward; please don’t nag at me, and I’ll be strong for you. It’s me saying, like, Look, here I am, a testament. You can’t control stuff sometimes and at the end of the day, I’m fine with who I am. Don’t come at me about smoking. I want to smoke, and I’m happy. If I died right now, I’d be fine. I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved. 

You clearly have achieved so much with the craft of your music in the face of a lot of hardship. 

And this craft is fairly new for me. For a long time, I just worked minimum wage jobs and kept my head down. It was about meeting people and figuring out who I wanted to be.

Who do you want to be? 

I want to be exactly who I am. I would never switch places with anybody.