Spend an “Hour In The Forest” with Garrett Owen’s Soothing New Single [Premiere]

As a man who is well-acquainted with nature and the outside world, it’s only “natural” that Garrett Owen’s brand new single is titled “Hour In The Forest.” With his southern style mustache and cowboy hat, Owen looks like someone who knows his way around the woods, with his southern folk sound reflective of the environment in which he grew up.

The new single is one of his most expansive creations yet, a full-on epic that starts off like your typical folk tune before breaking out into an all-out boogie, with a vintage solo provided by blues prodigy Matt Tedder. Each of “Hour In The Forest’s” three verses were inspired by three very different situations that have arisen in Owen’s life, which he describes in detail below. With such a diversity of subject matter, it’s quite clear that Owen has got a lot on his mind to draw from when it comes to songwriting…

With some background on the lyrical motivations behind “Hour In The Forest,” Owens commented, “It started out being inspired by this woman that took some photos of me in the woods outside Denton, Texas.  I didn’t know her well but we mostly talked about meaningful things, pretty personal things, bad decisions.  I was infatuated with her for a minute, thus the first verse was inspired by her. The second verse was inspired by a relationship that started out in a way that it shouldn’t have.  The third verse was inspired by a girl I saw everyday when I had a job unloading trucks in my early twenties, but I never spoke to her.  She had a very memorable tattoo on her arm of Harriett Tubman holding a machine gun and Joan of Arc holding a sword.  I’ve thought about her and her tattoo often since then.  Musically, it’s one of the more complicated things I’ve written.”

“Hour In The Forest” will be found on Owen’s brand new full-length record Quiet Lives which is due out on September 18th. Even though he is still a young artist, Owen has lived a very interesting life thus far. The son of Christian missionaries in Africa, he grew up with wildlife all around him for the first two decades of his life. By age 19, he had relocated back to Texas with his family where he found it difficult to find his place within American culture. Owen felt so disillusioned that he even attempted suicide. It was a short performance at a songwriters’ night in Fort Worth that convinced him that making music is what he was meant to do. With this new sense of purpose, Owen pushed on and recorded his debut record, which is now being followed up with the release of Quiet Lives. As an album, Quiet Lives is focused on growth that’s influenced by the perspective one starts to gain through life experiences. Musically, it’s the most experimental thing he has ever done with complex chord changes and melodic dissonance the backdrop to some rather intriguing storylines.

Informed by his experiences, Owen is pushing on through and happy to have you along in his unpredictable journey forward through music, and life.

Artwork for “Hour In The Forest” by Garrett Owen