Girls

Oh, the glamour! An hour and a half before San Francisco’s Girls performed a stunning set at Manchester’s Ritz, Dan Stubbs caught up with sleepy frontman Christopher Owens in the bar of the local Travelodge, where he’s stirring three – three! – sugars into a coffee in the hope it will jolt him into action.

How’s the tour going?

“Really good. It’s not that far in yet.”

Have you spent enough time in Britain not find it a strange and amusing place?

“I find it normal and amusing. I’m amazed how difficult it is to find wireless internet.”

Tough times for a prolific Twitter user…

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to Tweet at all. I’m getting withdrawal symptoms. I’ve been saving drafts to Tweet when I get wi-fi access, but by then the moment has usually passed.”

You do Twitter Essays. What are they?

“I think I might have invented the concept. It’s a series of numbered Tweets that join together to form a long piece.”

You could do that with your saved tour Tweets.

“Well, I already do a video tour diary for every tour.”

Are you an over-sharer?

“I guess. It’s just that there are a lot of things that are really no problem for me to talk about. I feel very normal. Everybody I know does the same thing.”

Your new album, ‘Father. Son. Holy Ghost.’ is startlingly personal too.

“My songs are all very personal because those are the things that move me to write something. If I suddenly got moved to write a song when watching sports, I’d do that too.”

You do Tweet about being moved by FC Barcelona…

“I do. But you know what I mean. I have the luxury to go about my time and write songs when I feel like it, when something makes me feel overwhelmed.”

A lot of the songs on the album date from before your debut, ‘Album’. Do you still feel the same way about them years down the line?

“Yeah. Fundamentally, people don’t change. My life has changed completely but I still feel the same about everything.”

I get the feeling you’re sick of talking about your childhood in the Children Of God cult, but calling the album ‘Father, Son, Holy Ghost’ invites people to ask those questions.

“I’m not sick of talking about it as a rule. It’s just frustrating because people find it so interesting and bizarre, but nobody ever really wants to talk about anything interesting regarding it. They just want the headlines, which makes me feel it’s a bit empty and meaningless. It’s really not the time and place to talk about something so heavy in a 20-minute interview that’s supposed to be about the band. But what am I going to do, write a book?”

It’s interesting to think of you coming out of the cult at 16 as a cultural alien with little knowledge of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Is that why the album sounds like you discovered the whole of classic rock in one go?

“Yeah, I guess it is my classic rock album. I’m still catching up with music.”

Girls – Lawrence by PIAS Entertainment

Your new single, ‘Lawrence’, is an instrumental tribute to the man behind the group Felt. They’re hardly My First Indie Band…

“No, but I had all the Felt records before I had any Beatles records. Most people who grew up playing the guitar had a poster of their favourite band on the wall and the concept was, ‘I’m learning to play guitar so I can be like those people’. I grew up playing the guitar in the same way that people prepare breakfast for their family. It was something all of us in the community knew how to do. When I moved to San Francisco I met a guy called Matt Fishbeck and we became really good friends instantly. He made me feel like I should be a musician and invited me to join his band, Holy Shit. One of the first things he did was recommend bands to me, and one of the first bands he told me about was Felt.”

What was it about Felt that appealed to you?

“It wasn’t the mythology, the idea of Lawrence as an outsider. They just sounded the best.”

You’ve delivered this track with an open letter to Lawrence, inviting him to record vocals for it. Has he been in touch?

“He came to our show yesterday. He brought me a response letter and said, ‘Read this later after I’m gone.’ It was very nice – just a response to my words. The main thing was I just wanted him to like the song, and to not think the whole thing was annoying that I sent him a public letter.”

I’ve heard you write a song in the time it takes to play it. Is that true?

“Usually, yeah. That’s why I’m doing it for a living. I was 27 when I started writing songs, which is very late. I was trying to be a painter in a serious way for at least five years, but every painting I did I knew I was copying somebody else. I don’t paint at all now. There were a lot of things like that – all kinds of hobbies that I had to drop because it was all forced. I kept a few – I still collect stamps in a very serious way, for example. The reason I’m doing this band with some success is because it’s very genuine – the songs come very easily, I like them a lot, I don’t fool around with them and I don’t change them.”

You’ve had a lot of band members come and go. Are you difficult to work with?

“The only times it gets difficult between me and someone else is if they’re coming in with some kind of agenda. Like, if their idea of working with me is trying to do something creative [laughs].”

So all the creative input has to come from you?

“No, this album has eight people’s input on it, but it has to be where I want it. I say, ‘Here’s your solo, John,’ and he’s allowed to be creative in that 30 second slot. And if he would have said, ‘I feel like soloing over the whole thing,’ we would have a problem.”

So it’s a dictatorship?

“Well, this is funny and all, but there have been times with certain people where things have gotten difficult. And it’s always because they’re trying to do things I haven’t asked them to do.”

You’re a huge Michael Jackson fan. What do you make of Conrad Murray being found guilty?

“I’m not surprised. People are awful and the fact that they’re doing this to that doctor is awful. Michael Jackson was a drug addict. If the doctor hadn’t administered those shots, he would have fired him. His family are being awful now, just as they’ve always been.”

Is it true you’re also a fan of Justin Bieber?

“I really like him. I’m not a superfan, a Belieber. I don’t have Biebonic plague.”

What are you listening to at the moment?

“‘When The Sun Goes Down’ by Selina Gomez & The Scene. It’s actually really good. I’ve come to like her as a singer. There’s a song called ‘Love You Like A Love Song, Baby’ which is probably my favourite song right now.”

She just happens to be Justin Bieber’s other half too…

“I have a lot of feelings on that subject. I saw them interviewed on the red carpet and decided he was desperately in love with her but she never gave a shit about him. He’s on tour and tweets, ‘I miss you so much, baby’. She tweets back, ‘I miss you guys too! Hope you’re having a good tour!’ Like, what?! I don’t think she was ever really in love with him.”

What do you make of the Bieber baby scandal?

“I really don’t care what people are saying, I just want him to be OK. I guess it means he and Selina Gomez aren’t together again any more, so that’s good news.”