Christopher Owens talks Girls and solo album ahead of London shows

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Ex Girls frontman Christopher Owens has spoken about his former band and upcoming solo album release.

The San Fran musician, who is set to play a duo of London shows this evening and tomorrow night (10-11 December) has opened up about the group’s amicable split last July.

The singer told Pitchfork:

“From the very beginning, I felt that I was going to write songs for the rest of my life. I still feel that way. And the band is something I wanted very badly. I get the feeling people don’t really realize that. They’re like: “You broke up the band.” But I wanted it more than anybody else. The whole thing was my idea. I wanted Girls to last for a very long time.”

Continuing:

“The easiest thing in the world for me to do would have been to make another Girls album. It’s just not what I wanted. I wanted a real band. I wanted the Rolling Stones, the Beatles. But people just kept leaving, for whatever reason. I never fired anybody. Then there was this larger-than-life outside world that came into play.”

Owens also spoke about his new solo material.

“One of the great things about this record is that when I sing the songs now, I still feel exactly the same way. I’m fortunate for that. A band has a certain responsibility to work songs for years and stick to rules more. A solo artist can just do whatever they want, and also present themselves as somebody who’s just singing about their life. If I wanted, I could do a tour where I just played the guitar by myself and sang all the Girls songs and all my new songs for an hour. That could make sense for me now, but it couldn’t make sense for Girls. So that’s part of the reason for doing all this, too, to make sense of what I’m doing as a writer.”

You can read the full interview here, and listen to new music from Owens here.

Lysandre is scheduled for release on 15 January 2013 via Fat Possum and Turnstile.