A conversation with Christopher Owens from 2009

The Girls frontman on NSFW videos, escaping cult life, crying over Biggie biopics, and getting compared to Elvis Costello

Oct 24, 2024

Welcome to stübermania, where I dig into my box of dust-covered interview cassettes from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to present bygone conversations with your favourite alterna/indie semi-stars. This is a newsletter in three parts: The Openers (links to recent writings, playlist updates, and/or other musical musings), The Headliner (your featured interview of the week), and Encores (random yet related links).

This is a free newsletter, but if you really like what you see, please consider a donation via paid subscription, or visit my PWYC tip jar!

THE OPENERS

Notes on this week’s additions to the stübermania 2024 playlist:
- Yves Jarvis, “The Knife in Me”: We’ve come to expect the unexpected from this Montreal avant-pop shapeshifter, but this single surprises on multiple levels: Just when you’re growing accustomed to the freshly scrubbed, club-ready production and uptown-funk grooves, the song magically transforms into a CSNY-style campfire serenade, all in two minutes flat. (The video is wild, too.)
- Japandroids, “Alice”: The ~~reviews~~ eulogies are pouring in for the Vancouver duo now that their fourth and final album, Fate and Alcohol, has dropped, and while the bittersweet late-stage-Replacements vibe is palpable across the record, this old-school, revved-up ripper actually counts as the saddest moment for me—because, with no farewell-tour plans on the horizon, we’ll never get to witness the stage divers pop off when Dave’s drums kick in at the two-minute mark.
- Heartworms, “Warplane”: This week, a new LCD Soundsystem song surreptitiously premiered on an online radio show, and I can’t say it’s worth the extra effort required to track it down. For a far more exhilarating hit of strobe-lit post-punky electro, check the latest single from London’s Jojo Orme—a.k.a. Heartworms—who, with each release, consistently proves herself to be among the most fearlessly freaky artists to emerge from the Speedy Wunderground scene.
- Papa M, “Ode to Mark White”: After 2018’s all-instrumental A Broke Moon Rises, the perennial indie-rock MVP steps back to the mic on the upcoming Ballads of Harry Houdini (out Nov. 22), as he wraps his ragged voice around a grungy shanty that sounds kind of like Tonight’s the Night-era Neil Young stumbling his way through “Auld Lang Syne.” Get this man an MJ Lenderman opening slot post-haste!
- Franz Ferdinand, “Audacious”: This year marks the 20th-anniversary of Franz’s eternally effervescent debut, but this single has no designs on recapturing its decadent disco-punk energy. That said, it does execute a sneaky structural change-up on par with “Take Me Out”: What begins as a low-stakes indie-pop romp suddenly blossoms into an “All the Young Dudes”-scaled anthem, as if the walls of your messy flat had fallen away to reveal that you’re actually inside a majestic opera house.
- Anthony Moore, “Earthbound Misfit”: Among the ‘80s-era song sketches unearthed on the Slapp Happy founder’s forthcoming Drag City archival release, Home of the Demo, is this DIY soft-rock slow burner, whose chorus hook feels uncannily familiar—because Moore’s buddy David Gilmour incorporated it into Pink Floyd’s 1987 comeback single “Learning to Fly.” So now you know what A Momentary Lapse of Reason might’ve sounded like if it had come out on 4AD.

Click here for the Apple Music version of the playlist.

THE HEADLINER:
A conversation with Christopher Owens

The date: November 2, 2009

Location: Phoner—I was at the Eye Weekly office in Toronto, Christopher was at the Matador Records office in New York.

Album being promoted: Album

The context: When interviewing a new band touring their first album, inquiring journalists are forced to resort to such corkers as “How’d the band get together?” and “Who are your influences?” There was no such dilemma when speaking to San Francisco indie-pop dreamers Girls, where the line of questioning veers more toward “How did you adjust to life after escaping that religious cult?” and “What kind of drugs did you sell to make ends meet after quitting your personal-assistant job for an eccentric Texan millionaire?” and “Is that guy in your NSFW video for first single ‘Lust for Life’ really lip-synching the song using his boyfriend’s erect penis as a microphone?”

Yes, even before releasing his band’s first record, Girls figurehead Christopher Owens had lived enough crazy lives to fill a year’s worth of TV-movie-of-the-weeks. But all those fucked-up experiences—which, yes, did include a childhood spent traversing Europe in the notorious Children of God cult and an extended mentorship with infamous patron-of-the-arts Stanley Marsh 3 in Amarillo, Texas—resulted in a simple, beautiful album with the simple, beautiful title of Album, on which Owens couched lyrics about life’s great uncertainties in the nostalgic, ghostly sounds of a golden-oldies radio station.

Since its release in 2009, Album has rarely strayed far from my turntable—it’s a record that feels every bit as vivacious and mysterious to me today as when I first heard it. When it comes to pristine melancholic melodies from disheveled pop savants, I put it right up there with the best of Big Star and Elliott Smith. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that the two-minute closing section of “Laura” is the greatest coda in rock history. (Sorry, “Layla.”)

However, as Owens explained to me, even as critics were anointing Girls the new Beach Boys and crowning him the indie Elvis Costello, his heart truly belonged to Biggie and Lil Wayne.

So having just seen the NSFW version of the “Lust for Life” video, I have to wonder: are all of your friends so eager to get naked at your behest?

I don’t know, maybe. The thing with that video is we went to everybody’s house and said, “you’ve got a three-minute reel of tape—do whatever you want to do.” So, with some of those people, that’s what they wanted to do. I didn’t really ask anybody to do that. Some people really wanted to become the next sex-tape star.

One thing that strikes me about your videos is that they feel less like promotional devices and more like personal home videos of you and your community. Are you actively trying to document this specific moment in your lives?

Maybe subconsciously… the videos are all made by Aaron Brown and his friend Ben, so that’s kind of his thing. I know him really well—we’ve sat and watched a million videos together and talked about taste, and I know him so well that when he says he wants to do something, I just say, “do what you want to do.” All the pictures are just pictures that I take, kind of as I go along, and since I make all the covers and all the pictures, it has this aesthetic, because it’s just coming from one place. The main reason I want to keep doing it is I have total control over everything. It just stays consistent that way. When I take the pictures, they’re just in a way that looks good to me. I don’t know how to analyze it too much—I just do what looks nice to me, and makes me have a positive feeling and then go onto the next one.

It does feel like there’s a theme of simplicity that runs throughout your work…

Yeah. I think that’s just because I don’t know how to do anything. I’m not smart enough to be too conceptual.

Girls is technically a partnership with JR White—what’s the division of labour between you two?

He produced the whole album—he’s the audio engineer, he knows about equipment, he plugs it in, he dials all the knobs just right. He does all stuff that’s very complicated; I don’t know how to do any of that, and I don’t want to spend the time learning to do it. It’s the same thing as trusting Aaron enough to make these videos and just handing him the responsibility of it. It’s the same with JR: I know that he knows what’s good and what’s not and he knows how to get the sounds. It seems really easy, but a lot of the time it’s not. You can change one little thing, and the whole sound changes.

You can hear that on “Hellhole Ratrace,” which starts out as this lonesome serenade but then blows up into this grandiose anthem…

I said to him I wanted it to sound like [Spiritualized’s] “Ladies and gentlemen we’re floating in space,” where it starts out very quiet and all of a sudden it explodes. I played guitar five times on that song, and he just chops it up and layers it. I basically give him the raw material and then he cooks it up. He’s the chef, and I’m the vegetables and meat.

There’s been a lot of focus in the press on your upbringing in Children of God. Did you ever think twice about revealing your life story to the press?

No, it’s just talking about who I am. When you’re talking about yourself, it doesn’t seem weird. But then I’ve read back things and I’m like, “Oh, they’re making me look like a weirdo.” It’s almost made me want to become a writer. Like, when you send somebody a text, you can read it five different ways. It’s the same when somebody tells you a literal story—you can bend it however you feel like it.

Tracks like “Lust for Life” and “Hellhole Ratrace” deal in the very universal theme of wanting a better life, but are you concerned that people will interpret your songs as commenting specifically on your past?

I don’t worry about it too much. I know all about a lot of different famous musicians’ lives, but when I listen to their music, I listen to it for me, and think about what it does for me. When you really want music to affect you and take over, you have to surrender to it in the first place, and accept what it is: sound. I think [the backstory] will go away. This is our first album and people want to talk about “this is who these people are.” By the time we’re on our second or third album, it doesn’t seem like people will be talking about it… at least I hope they won’t. I’m just taking it one step at a time—I never even knew we were going to become a band. And if it gets too crazy, I’ll quit and I’ll go back to being a member of the serving class. And then in the wee small hours of the night, I’ll create a fake name and come out with a brilliant album, but I’ll never tell anybody who I am—I’ll be an enigma, because you all screwed it up last time!

Once you got out of the cult, did a normal 9-to-5 life seem desirable?

The first thing I did was get a job, within two or three days. I had never in my life up until that time spent money. It’s something hard to explain; I don’t think people will ever get it. I had never walked into a store and bought a Coke. I remember my first week of working—I was getting paid $5 an hour putting groceries on the shelf. This was Texas in 1996, when you could still pay somebody $5 an hour for manual labour. I got $125 and it was the best feeling. Not that I was some kind of capitalist, but it was the first time where not only did I have money in my hand that was mine, but I could go out and buy Guns N Roses and Marilyn Manson albums—all the things I was told not to do. It represented freedom. I worked up until half a year ago, when I became a quote-unquote“professional songwriter”—which I feel very fancy saying. But I truly worked full-time for 11 years, and I’ve done every kind of job you could imagine, including being a hustler [laughs]

What were you hustling?

Substances. I was out there like Biggie Smalls, man, just trying to stack cheese and make the bread. You know, I’ve read a lot of biographies and talked to a lot of musicians I think are cool and I’ve always felt very different from them. But I watched the Notorious B.I.G. movie the other day and I was crying—I really related to the idea of how his life sucked and he was hustling, but when he started to rap, people reacted to it and he could do something that was more fulfilling for himself and make a living doing it. And he just takes off—and I was like, “yeah, I feel the same way.” If I had Black skin, I’d look like Lil Wayne and people would understand what was going on. Because I appear to be a member of the white middle class, people are like “what is this guy doing, I don’t get it!” If you knew me, you’d get it, I’ve been struggling my whole life.

Are you afraid of getting snuffed out in your prime?

Just like Lil Wayne says: I’m more afraid of living than I am of dying. I’ve always felt if you had a successful marriage, then you do find that kind of satisfaction, but very few people have successful marriages. I have seen a couple, but the guy was gay in the closet and the wife knew, but he also loved her very much and she respected him—it’s like Cole Porter. I’m very much in love with a girl that’s a friend of mine, so there’s no chance for a physical relationship. And when all physical aspects are cut out of the equation, what’s left is just the concept of really loving somebody, and I think it’s amazing—it’s a huge reward I’ve been given. I’ve learned something important: you don’t have to be sleeping with somebody to really truly love them and care about them.

How are you dealing with all the press attention you’ve been receiving? Are you worried about getting too hyped too soon?

I’ve read these ridiculous reviews where people are like “their album sounds like the Beach Boys,” and while I’m like, “thank you very much for comparing us to one of the greatest bands of all time,” why would you do that to somebody? You’re just asking every other jealous aspiring musician to say, “no, these guys don’t sound like the Beach Boys—they suck!” Why don’t they just say “these guys are weird and they’re doing something genuine and they can actually play and it’s nice to listen and, hell, they even have an interesting backstory—check it out.” Spin magazine called us “the best new band of ‘09”—I don’t think that’s right. I have friends playing music who I think are just as good. Just say “one of the great bands of 2009.” Some people are a bit ridiculous with their accolades, and while I like just as much as the next guy to be called “wonderful,” you have to think about how people are going to react to that. People are downright lazy. I’ve had people ask me in interviews where I live—go on Google, and you’ll find a lot of information. Everybody’s dropping Elvis Costello references—I know the one song, “Alison,” that’s it. I’m more influenced by fuckin’ Gene Kelly’s tap-dancing than Elvis Costello.

ENCORES

The primary reason I opted to dig out this interview this week is that Owens just released one of my favourite records of 2024, I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair. I had gradually lost track of Owens’ work after Girls’ 2012 split—I was underwhelmed by his 2013 solo debut, Lysandre, and its two successors got lost in the shuffle as the daily deluge of new music ramped up in the streaming age. But from the opening jagged electric strums of “No Good,” I Wanna Run Barefoot hits the sweet spot between immaculate craft and raw catharsis that makes Album so transfixing and timeless. And even if you’re not aware of all the horrible events leading up to its creation—including the sudden death of his Girls partner JR White in 2020—it’s impossible to walk away from this album without feeling profoundly moved. While I’m loathe to reinforce the notion that an artist must go through hell in order to bring out their best, Barefoot is a powerful reminder that no singer aches quite as convincingly as Christopher Owens.
Six months prior to Album’s release, I caught my first glimpse of Girls at a South by Southwest day party at Club DeVille, where a visibly tired Owens admitted, “my brains feel like scrambled eggs right now.” But when a hungover band can still deliver the goods at one in the afternoon, you just know there’s something special about them. Thanks to Paste magazine, a pro-shot/multi-camera video of this very performance is available on YouTube—me and my 2009-era sideburns make an appearance in the crowd at the 3:33 mark.

When I listen to Girls, I’m often reminded of another ill-fated Chiltonian indie-pop project: Kevin Junior’s Chamber Strings, i.e., the wistful Windy City yin to Girls’ crestfallen California yang. The Chamber Strings released two exquisite, largely ignored albums around the turn of the century before fading from view; sadly, in this case, there will be no comeback. But 1999’s Gospel Morning remains a rainy-day soundtrack staple for me to this day.