Since we last spoke with him almost three years ago, Edinburgh-born Dean Owens has not let the grass grow under his feet. At that time, he had released SINNER’S SHRINE, a collaboration with Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico. His latest album, SPIRIT RIDGE, was also born out of Owen’s love of travel and experimentation. Having encountered the desert sands and burning skies of Tucson, Arizona, for SINNER’S SHRINE, he ventured to the hills of Emilia Romagna in Italy, the land of his ancestors, where he worked with producer and band leader Sacri Couri, Don Antonio, to record SPIRIT RIDGE. It was an inspired chapter in Owens’ globetrotting career, as he explained to us when we recently chatted with him.
How did you end up recording your latest album, SPIRIT RIDGE, in Italy?
I had been introduced to the producer Don Antonio by John Convertino from Calexico. One night John and I had been talking about Italian heritage and I remembered this Italian band that Calexico had done some work with called Sacri Couri. I had one of their albums and was asking John about those guys, he knew Don Antonio, made the introduction and the next thing was I was invited out to the studio in Italy where Antonio works. When I went out there on my first trip, I discovered that it was the area that my ancestors had come from. Antonio had recently lost his mother and my mother was poorly at the time and it got me thinking about my own life now that I’m in my fifties, not necessarily consciously but a lot of SPIRIT RIDGE reflects the move from the city to the country for me and my wife. I was born and bred in Edinburgh and we moved out to the Scottish border a few years ago where there is a lot more nature, wild life and solitude. For me it is a very spiritual record without being in any way religious.
There are parallels to be drawn between your work with Don Antonio and previously with Calexico.
I think so, we are all probably digging in the same hole. I got a connection listening to Don Antonio’s band Sacre Couri’s instrumental records there is a strong cinematic landscape to them similar to Calexico. I have been drawn to that sound for many years and was lucky enough to work with Calexico, one of my all-time favourite bands. To then find Antonio and discover that we had strong musical connections was a real added bonus. He is seeped in and has such knowledge of American music and has worked with a lot of American artists.
Your great-great- grandfather was a lion tamer in that part of Italy which reads like something out of a John Irving novel. Were you aware of this prior to going to Italy?
Yes. There is an album of mine called INTO THE SEA where I sing about my grandmother who came from a circus family. The circus was called Salvona Circus started by my great-great-grandfather; a lion tamer named Ambrose Salvona. There has been a similar thread of family on all my records since INTO THE SEA. In my early days doing music and in interviews when I started to get a little bit of success people would ask if any of my family were in the arts. I would have to say no, I knew my granny liked to sing but that was as far as the arts went in my family as far as I knew. It wasn’t until I made that album that I started to research the family tree that I discovered that I come from all these freaks and circus acts, it’s hilarious. One of my ancestors was a clown, one was a lion tamer, I think I fall somewhere in the middle.
You followed the same pattern with SPIRIT RIDGE as your previous record SINNER’S SHRINE by releasing a trilogy of EPs prior to launching the album. Was this simply a case of having recorded so much material for both albums?
It’s simply that. THE DESERT TRILOGY seemed to go down so well, I just had so much material. When you’re making a record, it is really hard, I usually start off with about thirty songs and then whittle it down to the ones that we are going to record, which is usually fifteen or sixteen. For SPIRIT RIDGE, myself and Antonio picked the ones that we felt sat nicely together. But then there were the other songs that I loved and felt that since THE DESERT TRILOGY worked why not try the trilogy option again. People seem to like it; it includes stuff that’s not going to be on the album plus a little taster of what is to come. There is always a big wait between recording and putting the album out and it’s like little flares that you put up to let people know that I’m still here and it works well as a model for me. I’ve noticed that quite a few other artists are doing the same nowadays.
Travel and displacement appear to be a regular feature in your writing and recording.
Yes, its probably in my DNA, the traveller and the troubadour, I love travelling. When I meet people and they say ‘you must come and visit me or work with me,’ I always warn them that I will actually come. That’s how I ended up working with Will Kimbrough, the guys from The Mavericks and Calexico. I try to say ‘yes’ to most opportunities and I also like being displaced. It helps to keep me focused. When I’m working on an album I tend to go away for three or four days at some point and be in a cabin or somewhere like that and write songs. I could easily do that here at home but there are distractions, everyday things. Whereas if you go and isolate yourself its easier to stay focused.
Had you written and finished the songs for SPIRIT RIDGE prior to going to Italy for the recordings or was the writing influenced by your time spent there?
The simplest things can inspire me. When I knew I was going over to Italy the first time just to look at the place, Antonio sent me a link to Cranile Studio, which is a six-hundred-year-old farmhouse that sits up on a hill. Crinale means ridge in Italian and I was looking at its website and there was a beautiful photograph on the website. Within in a few minutes I had this song written called On The Ridge, which ended up on one of the trilogy EPs. Antonio is very much rooted to that area, Emilia Romagna, and when I went out to Italy on the recognisance trip and one of his friends said something to me that really stuck. I was trying to arrange a meeting with a mutual friend in Bologna and his friend said ‘I don’t think you will be able to get Antonio away from his beloved hills.’ Bingo, I had another song title, My Beloved Hills. Things just seemed to be falling into my lap. I got a line from graffiti on a wall outside Bologna, it may be from a poem, it just said ‘free the spirit, let it go.’ I jotted it down in my notebook and it found its way in the song My Beloved Hills. Its amazing, the tiniest things that can inspire a song. You just have to keep your antenna up all the time.
Lyrics aside, did Antonio inspire the musical content for the album.
Yes. Antonio runs the show in that studio, it is full of his Italian analog instruments and recording gear. When I was going to work with Calexico in Tucson, I knew exactly what sound I was going for, that’s why I was there. Working with Antonio there were a lot more colours to choose from, it was endless, I would not have been able to do it without him. I generally credit myself with the production on my records but with this one it was very much a co-production; Antonio carried a lot of the weight.
You ended up with Antonio’s players on the album, was that intended?
No, when I went on my first trip there, to my surprise, Antonio had a couple of his musician friends there, who ended up playing on the album. They just happened to be there working in the studio and Antonio suggested we just have a little jam. I’m not really a jamming kind of guy but we went into the studio room and the drummer Piero Perelli and the guitar player Luca Giovacchini was there. We started to jam and it felt really good instantly and I knew after a few songs that it was exactly where I needed to make a record.
Given the location, music aside, I can visualise evenings outdoors feasting on wild boar, rabbit and local cheeses accompanied by generous amounts of red wine.
Antonio’s family have a vineyard and I was only there about twenty minutes when red wine and cheeses appeared. Even during the recording sessions Antonio would say ‘Do you mind if a few friends come around this evening, we’ll still be recording. ‘It ended up that there was about thirty people around, there was a long table and everybody brought food. There was all this cooking and a great family gathering atmosphere created just outside the studio. Antonio and I were still recording and slipping out for some wine, it really felt as if I was been welcomed into a family. It was certainly a different experience to any other recording experience that I have had.
My favourite song on the album, My Beloved Hills, which you previously referred to, has a noticeable family theme running through it.
Yes, and it has taken on a different meaning and dimension for me now. There is a line in it ‘I can hear my mother, her voice in the wind,’ which I had written thinking of Antonio’s family. Since I recorded it, my mother passed away last September so when I sing it now, it has a completely different meaning for me.
Tame The Lion is obviously directed towards your great-great-grandfather.
My father worked up in the highlands for many years, he was a civil engineer and the company he worked for built one of the main roads through Scotland, the A9. He was up in the Inverness area for three or four years and we used to visit him when he was working there. I used to roam the hills when I was there and it turned out that Ambrose Savona spent the days of his last years there and that is where he is buried. Whether you are walking in the highlands of Scotland or in the hills of Emilia Romagna, you may be walking with the ghosts of your ancestors, without even knowing it.
You went all funky on Burn It All. That caught me on the hop, it wasn’t what I had expected.
It wasn’t what I had expected either. That one was contentious as to whether or not it would make the album because it felt like such a curve ball. When we started working on that song and playing it that is just how the guys fell in, I think the recording is the first time we played it and for me it had a little bit of The Stones’ Miss You in it. Since it has come out a number of people have mentioned The Average White Band and that Scottish connection, so it is the ‘very’ Average White Band. It’s quite nice to throw a little grenade into an album to mix it up a wee bit.
I actually got a Scottish vibe with Light This World. For some reason, for me, it sounded that it would not be out of place on the Trainspotting soundtrack.
That’s really funny, I’ll make sure I send that to Irving Welsh, we’re good pals and he has been very supportive of me and my music. That song was inspired by a lot of my favourite records when I was younger. Albums like The Waterboys’ THIS IS THE SEA which for me was very spiritual and I was trying to get across that ethereal quality with that song like The Waterboys and Talk Talk, on their later albums. Another connection with Antonio and me is that we are huge Mark Hollis fans, and other points that we connected on were Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits.
Interview by Declan Culliton