Name: Kelly Lee Owens

Nationality: Welsh
Occupation: Producer, composer, songwriter, vocalist
Current release: Kelly Lee Owens's latest single "Sunshine" is out via dh2. Her new album Dreamstate will follow on October 18th 2024. Catch her live on tour at one of the following dates:



If you enjoyed these thoughts by Kelly Lee Owens and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, and twitter.

The following thoughts about various aspects of her work are sourced from several interviews Kelly Lee Owens has given over the years. For a deeper dive, follow the links to the full versions.

For interviews with past collaborators or artists she's remixed, read our Max Richter interview, Sebastian Plano interview, VOCES8 interview, Lasse Marhaug interview, and Daniel Avery interview.



About her Youth in Wales

"Wales is known as "land of song." Even the literal landscape — there’s mountains, there’s huge hills, there’s valleys, and these peaks and troughs, I think, even influence my voice. Like, I love a good chorus, [laughs] and I feel like that’s no coincidence.

I think for anyone who’s left home, it’s an interesting relationship you have with the place that you’re from, and sometimes it takes space to understand its majesty and all the gifts it’s actually given you."
From: Vulture

"I grew up in a working class village in Wales and choirs were part of everyday life. It’s almost like National Service; everybody has to join a choir. People talk about this idea of finding your voice and I think that’s what happened when I was listening to those choirs. Hard men, ex-miners in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, singing with so much passion.

Music had never hit me like that before. It made me want to explore my own voice. How could I express my emotions with this sound?"
From: Music Radar

"There was always this introspection within me that wanted to find a way out. And growing up in Wales, poetry was another way of doing that.

There’s this thing we have every year called the Eisteddfod, which is a place where people come together to recite poetry in Welsh, sing in Welsh, act in Welsh, and show off the arts that come from our culture. Connecting with people, and understanding from an early age that it could bring people joy, as well as myself, has definitely stayed with me."
From: Grammy.com


Kelly Lee Owens Interview Image by Samuel Bradley

About the connection between healing and music

"My great grandmother, Gwen Owens, used to read tea leaves, and people would come to her for psychic readings. It was quite common, but she hid it from most of her family for a long time, especially from her husband. So when her husband went out to work, local women would come over and have their tea leaves read. […]

I think my dad noticed from an early age that I had certain senses and intuitions, and things that I would dream would predict things. He then started to open up about Gwen and her history with that stuff. So yeah, I was even discovering my own family history via psychic mediums, which is kind of weird. But I feel like she’s a guide, in a way."
From: The Quietus

"Working as a nurse and music are way more connected than people think. It’s about nurturing, caring and helping others. Music [also] does that for many people – it literally saves lives.

When I was working in a cancer hospital, I remember thinking – where can these people go to express themselves? So the creative aspect was always going through my mind. In my 12 week breaks, I would go and help bands in the live scene and festivals. At first I felt I was always living this duality in my life, but actually I realised it’s just one thread anyway."
From: Glam Cult

"I feel like my purpose is to hold space via sound. I used to think that my favourite thing was to be in the studio, creating. But the whole point of that is to gather as many people together as possible in one space and to share those moments. I feel so incredibly privileged to be able to do that."
From: The Face

"We've become so disconnected from ourselves, the planet, and the ability to be able to use sound as medicine. I think I talked about it, [around] the first album — [doctors] shattering cancer cells with specific resonant frequencies. Sound can be used in a very visceral way to actually help, to make people well. […]

This is what's sad to me: all of this stuff, that's so basic, has been mocked for a long time. Maybe that's one of the trickeries in itself: making someone out to be a hippie, giving things bad names and bad labels so that people rubbish it. That’s one form of trickery in itself. I am a grounded person.

All I'm saying is, I want people to be able to deal, to thrive, to not be in survival mode. To feel a sense of community and home. And if that's New Age-y and hippie and mocked in a bad way, so be it."
From: The Fader

"I can only hope that the music I make taps into that same collective vibe. That’s maybe where I have a connection with clubs. I understand the importance of the ‘moment’. A kick drum or a bassline or a melody that unites 2,000 people on a Saturday night.

That’s why people go to clubs every week. It’s like going to church; a religious experience."
From: Music Radar

"Just because we go through something traumatic doesn’t we always learn lessons from it. It takes work. There’s no magic trick, we have to be mindful that it’s an ongoing process. There’s no full amount of perfection that will ever be realized, and I think that’s a very positive thing to acknowledge. We’re consistently a work in progress, and that’s a beautiful thing.

I do feel a lot more centered in myself. My life experiences have shaped me, I hope, for the better, and I’m constantly looking at myself."
From: Grammy.com

About her Dedication to Music & Ego

"I’m always on. I never switch off. I’m not good with boundaries when it comes to work. It is my entire life. I think that my friends and family suffer because of that. I always want to give everything I have, which sometimes comes at the expense of myself and my inner world."
From: The Face

"After the four hour point I find myself staring out of the window, thinking about food. Something will distract me so I need to take small breaks because I work in such intense bursts.

Right now I am working with an engineer. I have been learning to use Logic more in-depth. Before I just couldn’t get the sound I wanted, I have had to learn to be patient with myself and other people. I like to find that balance, otherwise you start to feel jaded."
From: Interview Magazine

"I have said before that the best way of being of service to others is by going into what it is that you feel is right and needed, and not trying to people-please from the offset. I kind of am trying to understand, and we all are really, what I’m here to do. And my journey is about being of service to others by connecting with myself first."
From: Vulture

"Usually when we think of "ego" we might think of someone who is big-headed, but ego is there to serve a purpose too. It comes with boundaries. That’s an experience that’s been very, very important for me in the last few years—figuring out boundaries on an emotional level, so that’s what perhaps comes through sometimes in the lyrics, a strengthening of those boundaries.

It’s the same in the production. My vocal is on top for a couple of reasons. First of all, when I played with Four Tet a couple of summers ago in Tennessee, he asked me why I was hiding my vocals. He told me to show them off more, which was a boost of confidence. And I also felt the messaging had to be heard more clearly this time around."
From: Grammy.com

About the Pleasures of Imperfection

"I think being present is the thing that allows artists to channel and be like the conduit. I know that’s cheesy shit, but it genuinely feels that way sometimes—that I’m just this vessel that things come through. Sometimes the process is a bit of a blur because it really feels like you’re somewhere else."
From: bandcamp Daily

"I can’t read or write music. I learned to play drums, that to me is the most primal thing on earth. I love the bass and the sound of the frequencies, so to play bass was cool but you’re restricted to holding this thing and being in one place if you’re singing and playing rhythm, which isn’t that easy. In The History of Apple Pie it was OK, the basslines were simple."
From: The Line of Best fit

"What is perfect? A lot of time in the studio seems to be spent reintroducing variation and accident. I suppose you might call it humanness. Nudging things forward, nudging them back, dipping the volumes, trying to keep the listener engaged. If the music goes nowhere, people will switch off. OK, I know what this song is doing, I don’t need to listen anymore. Analogue keeps things interesting. It rebels against stability.

I’ve heard stories of classically trained piano players that can’t actually improvise. If you sit them down and say, can you put a piano line over the top of this track, they’ll ask for the music. That’s crazy! It’s almost as if what’s been taught out of them is the ability to trust their own ears. To tap into your own ideas and explore what you’re interested in.’"
From: Music Radar


Kelly Lee Owens Interview Image by Samuel Bradley

About writing Lyrics

"I’ll have a new notepad every month or so ‘cause I’m just constantly jotting down my thoughts, my feelings, and my observations of the world. It’s a really good way for me to try to understand things a bit better in myself and in the world. When it comes to an album, I buy a big book, and it’s like all these fresh pages where I can pull in all of these ideas.

The music is the first thing, it’s usually already been written and loosely arranged. The sound informs me of what needs to be said, so I’m trying to find the right words and message to match the music. It’s kind of like finding the pieces of the puzzle."
From: Vulture

"I'm ALWAYS going deep personally with my lyrics. I can't help it. But sometimes I'm also trying to touch upon collective themes ... which I actually feel aren't separate from the individual.

That being said, it's always a collaboration between the music that's already been written ... I feel like often the music is informing me of what I need to say, and i just have to find the missing pieces or something ... which I really enjoy doing!!"
From: Reddit

About Music as a Response

"It’s not about the amount of time it takes [between records], but it is about the intention, and it is about the right timing and headspace to be able to create."
From: Vulture

"I think my first and second album, I was referencing Bjork, because she did ‘debut’ and ‘post’, which were one and the same thing in that she needed to get it out of her system in order to then go forward into whatever she did next. I feel like the first and the second, it's this beautiful continuation and growth of someone who's always wanted to do this, but is quite new to it. You can kind of hear and see the progressions in the sound, you know.



So whatever is next is going to be something quite different. I do like to keep people guessing and surprised, really, because I now know what people would expect from me – potentially – with the third album. So I absolutely will be going in the opposite direction to that.

That's just because, even just from a personal creative perspective, taking that left road is just more exciting to me now. So yeah, I absolutely bounce off my own creations. I think that's what should keep any artist moving forward, really.
From: Clash Music

About Music and Technology

"Humans are not separate to nature, we found another way to express ourselves, and therefore, so has nature.

I’m always looking for the humanness in synths, when they go kind of wonky. There’s so much wonk in my album, where I’ve got the sequencer, and the MIDI notes going, and then all of a sudden, it just goes off, completely, in the wrong notes. And I’m always like, Yes, perfect, that’s amazing."
From: Vulture