Matt Owens

Matt Owens is a singer/songwriter who shot to fame playing bass in the band Noah and the Whale who had a number of hits including L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. I first met Matt through my work with him doing his Livewired events and the first video I did of him was this live version of Too Far Gone. Right away we got on like a house on fire. Matt is all about music, talks a good game, and just a real genuine guy.

Having filmed for Livewired for six months Matt asked me to film a video for his song “Match Day”. Matt is the king of trying to make something out of nothing and so this was filmed on a hot summer afternoon, anywhere that would be kind enough to let us film for free as well as a few cute setups borrowing a few of Matt’s kid’s toys.

In 2020 Matt’s album “Scorched Earth” was released and was a bit of a Nostradamus moment for him as the album explores a number of themes that would become inextricably linked to the pandemic. Securing the location of The Forum in Bath, we filmed a set of videos for the album. From the get-go we were dead against making any of the videos about Covid, using visuals such as rainbows, masks, clapping etc.. as it would be forever dated and dragged down by that connection. The “lockdown album” is a cliche that is certain to emerge and cliches are not what we do. So the first “Cargo for the Road” is a song that talks about the solitude that a musician can experience with life on the road and missing loved ones back home. I wanted to communicate that feeling of a musician packing their bags by the front door, tuning up in the dressing room and stepping on stage. The next “I Will Be There”, is actually a song about being there for someone in a romantic sense after a relationship has ended, but on hearing Matt sing the chorus and knowing how much he does to support fellow musicians, I wanted to turn it to being about the loss of camaraderie felt between musicians as Matt explained to Maverick Magazine. In both cases, the spectacle of an abandoned 1,640 capacity concert theatre acts to articulate a feeling of isolation and a loss of connection between people whilst at the same time providing a quiet acknowledgement of the loss of live music and the plight of live venues, a theme that I would delve deeper into through the short documentary “Crobar: Music When The Lights Go Out”.

For his follow-up album Matt roped me in once again to produce the videos for ‘Cactus Flowers‘, ‘Beer for the Horses‘, ‘Go Easy on Yourself‘, and ‘Drinking by the River‘.