Last summer, in the middle of a set, Hannah Owens passed off her guitar to fellow performer Guthrie Kennard, with whom she was sharing the bill, for him to play a few of his songs. As she ceded the stage to him and was walking off, she missed a poorly lit step at the edge of the riser and fell, unabated, nearly 5 feet to the concrete floor. The gruesome fall broke both her elbows, split her lip open, and even caused a brain bleed. The accident put her musical career — and her life in general — suddenly and completely on hold.
“It was rough,” Owens said about the physical and emotional trauma of the situation. “I was inside for so long. I think my mental health took a giant nosedive for a while. Even afterwards, once I was healing and getting back out, my social anxiety was wildly high. Even before I could play again, I didn’t want to see many people because of the way that I looked and the way that I felt.”
Now a year later and fully healed, Owens is more than ready to move on from the experience. She admits she’s been challenged by some performance anxiety since resuming playing, but it’s gotten much easier for her. Earlier this month, she released a new single, “Kites,” and it’s her first new music in more than three years. It’s the most definitive step so far in turning the page on the ordeal.
“With my songwriting, and with me as a performer, I’m sort of coming back to life,” she said. “I’m focused on giving people something to talk about other than me breaking both my arms,” she added with a laugh.
For Owens, “Kites” has become a fitting musical surrogate describing the changes and growth she’s experienced over the last few years, both as an artist and as a person. She began writing the song toward the end of the COVID lockdown, picking it up and adding to it in pieces over time. The finished product sits now as a tender expression of rising above it all. “I bring myself back down to Earth / Staying high with the kite feels more worth it to me,” she sings over the refrain, reflecting on how high she’s climbed.
“I was just taking the time to reflect,” she said of writing the track, “on things both in my control and out of my control. In a time of craziness, it’s so easy to want to dissociate from everything, but you can’t do that. You have to face it, be happy with it, and move on.”
“Kites” was recorded by drummer/producer Clint Kirby (Jacob Furr, Ryan Tharp) at his home studio this past spring. Joining Kirby in backing Owens on the track was bassist Ryan Bradetich and country crooner/guitar virtuoso Matt Tedder, centering the song with his atmospheric lead lines.
“The recording process was so easy and comfortable,” Owens said. “It was so cozy and natural, and [the players] are such all-stars that I knew I didn’t have to worry about anything. I’m definitely sticking with this collection of musicians for the next few songs because it’s all been so easy, and everything has come out exactly as I wanted.”
Owens said that “Kites” is the first of a series of singles she plans to release over the next several months, and that represents a change of direction for her musically that’s reflective of the evolution she’s gone through as an individual.
“I think this new stuff that I’m putting out moving forward is different and will show how I’m kind of changing, too,” she said. “Some of it is going to be kind of fun, which is not what people are used to from me when they listen to my songs. I don’t know that I knew how to write a happy song to save my life,” she joked. “I want to make songs that make you want to dance as well as make you cry.”
The next single, a track she describes as “fun and poppy” called “State I’m In” will drop on November 15 with Owens marking the occasion with a rare full band performance at the Rusty Nickel, backed by Bradetich, Kirby, and Tedder. She said she’s looking forward to what’s in store.
“I think my confidence in being creative and being out of the box has grown — getting to make whatever kind of music I want to make,” she said. “I think I’ve just got that confidence in the last couple of years. I love my last record, and it was exactly the music I wanted to make at that time. But I’m looking forward to my music growing along with me.”
Photo courtesy of Zach Moffatt.
