RESPECT. Follows Dylan Owen on the Road to His New EP ‘There’s More To Life’

I guess our generation’s musicians are lucky that their voices can project so clearly across the world as long as people believe in them. Artists like Dylan Owen make it clear that no amount of commercial marketing can quite replicate the potential of a microphone, a laptop and a strong team of supporters.

“Today, there’s no wall between artist and audience,” he says, as he shows me around his apartment in Greenwich Village, New York. The small living space has at times doubled as his studio for demoing and recording new material.

It’s the summer of 2014 and Owen is working on his latest project, an EP he’s calling There’s More To Life. Thanks to a fan base that has supported him since high school, he‘s releasing the project independently.

“10-15 years ago my music would have to go through a major label system to really get any traction and get people to hear it,” he says, “Now music can go more directly from artist to audience.”

Owen’s independence has allowed him to write and record music on his own terms. He’s got varied influences ranging from the heavy weights of the hip-hop genre like Eminem to indie rock acts like Bright Eyes. His songs are also intensely personal. Touching on childhood friendships, hometown nostalgia and high school relationships, his songwriting comes off like a lyrical scrapbook of his life.

The creative freedom has translated musically as well. He’s worked almost exclusively with close friends and contacts he’s met over the years. His producer Nico Marchese, who goes by Skinny Atlas, in particular has been able to give Owen’s songwriting the right soundscape, with production centered mostly  around live instruments.

Despite the intimate approach Owen and his tight knit team have taken to music, they’ve pulled together more audiences than many mainstream artists can claim to have. Barely out of high school he played a set for the Bamboozle Music Festival. More recently, PepsiCo invited him to perform at their promotional event for Super Bowl XLVIII.

When we first met in New York City, Owen is a couple months deep into the writing process for the EP. Over a yearlong series of conversations, he gave RESPECT. a look at his creative process, and shared some stories from his life as a musician.

Owen can recall some big moments from his relatively young career. He got a high five from rapper Grieves, one of the artists he grew up on, when they played Bamboozle. “You’ve got to be chill in those situations,” he tells me, “you can’t be too star struck.”

Listening to his beginnings, Owen sounds a lot like the typecast for an Internet generation artist. He was able to use the right combination of local buzz and Internet fandom to reach a wider audience. One of his high school releases, the album Senioritis, managed to crack the iTunes charts.

“I used to use school as a way to promote the shit out of myself,” he laughs, “I was just not bashful at all.”  As social media sites gained popularity, the local fan base transitioned into an online following that was eager to connect with him and share his music with their friends.

What’s turned into a success story with the buzz of big stages and the bright lights of the city started out in the small town of Goshen, NY, largely forgotten by the hip-hop world. “Where I grew up there’s no real hip-hop scene,” he says. “It was just me on the internet digging for underground music.” Owen also picked up inspiration going out to indie, hardcore and pop-punk concerts.

The diversity of his influences is pretty obvious throughout his discography, but it shows particularly well in the new EP. Many of the songs could draw more comparison to indie rock than hip-hop. The track “Land of the Brave” is produced with big live drum and guitar sounds for an anthemic feel. He splits vocal duties with Alaska Sun, a singer from New York with a sentimental voice that Owen has tapped into for a lot of his songs.

“It’s going to be a much more updated version of myself in terms of my sound and style,” he says, setting the scene for There’s More to Life. “The way that I see everything that I make is one continuing autobiographical story. You can expect to hear more versatility.”

After our interview, Owen shows me around the NYC neighborhood he called home for a brief stint during college. It’s an artsy place; a lot of the local venues have seen musicians like John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix come through their doors.  As inspiring as the setting has been for generations of artists, Owen’s songs are inseparable from his hometown experiences. When I speak to him again in the fall, this time over the phone, he draws a much stronger link between the new project and his beginnings as a musician in small town New York.

“This project is going back to my roots by being as stripped down and personal as possible,” he says. He described a lot of the songs as having a more “live” feel, straying away from prerecorded sounds and plug-ins in favor of incorporating more instruments. “To me that’s really interesting,” says Owen,  “I feel like I’m digging into my past as a writer, and on a musical level.”

After all, live performance is where Owen got his start. He performed with his brother’s band and other local musicians as a kid. “We’d go around to different coffee shops, cafes and open mics,” he says, “They were more like poetry shows than anything else.”

The small scale of his beginnings allowed Owen to connect with his listeners on a personal level. He’s carried this approach forward today by responding to posts on his social media accounts and being available after shows. “Its super surreal,” he says about meeting fans at concerts. “They will have traveled so far and they’ll connect with the music so much. It’s the most moving thing.”

Owen was able to maintain the momentum when he moved for college. One of the most standout tracks of his discography, “Ghosts”, was released during this time.

“It has all the elements of my style in it,” he says. The song combines a melancholy piano line, metaphorical lyrics and some really quick-paced bars. Owen owes a lot of his fast delivery to his experience battle rapping, which he experimented with at times in both high school and college. “It’s definitely two split sides of me,” he adds, comparing his aggressive delivery during battles and the more poetic approach in many of his songs.

There’s More to Life is different from his other project, Owen tells me. This is the first release he’s been able to work on with such dedication. After all, at this point he’s a college graduate working on music full time, much further along than when he started putting out music in high school or rapping in parking lots.

The new project does sound refined. Songs like “Everything Gets Old” and “Sail Up the Sun” have enough polish to anchor the record, making it a good listen even for anyone not interested in Owen’s songwriting when he’s at his most lyrical. The EP’s opener, “The Glory Years”, a particularly nostalgic track, is a good example of one that could easily be a skip for a listener waiting for a catchy chorus after the long verses.

The release also features guitar cameos by Boston based rock artist Animal Flag and, as a real treat for nostalgic music fans, scratching by Rob Swift from the DJ group X-Executioners on the final track.

When we speak again in May, Owen is ecstatic about There’s More to Life. He was finally able to break the news to his thousands of followers on social media that the EP is slated for release on June 8^th.

It’s been a long journey of writing and recording. Along the way there’s been videos and artwork that accompany the project. He’s also got ideas for a small tour to follow up the release. Despite the fan base that has supported him and the success he’s had in the past, Owen can’t speak about the future with absolute confidence. “That uncertainty exists for everybody our age,” he says, when I ask about his plans.

Despite the months of work that have gone into There’s More to Life, the release comes off as a low key affair. There’s no major media placements or hype machine to speak of. He’s not opposed to looking for commercial avenues to promote his music but the only thing in the cards for now, he says, is “making the best music possible.”

There’s More to Life is a well-crafted record. It’s one by an artist who might not be sure where he’s going, but is sure enjoying the journey. The intrigue will be in seeing how the world receives this introverted track list of songs. Regardless of commercial success, Owen has charted a path for people looking to stay in their lane, not compromise on their art and have a deep personal connection with their work. For anyone looking to do something creative for a living, what’s more to life?

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