"I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and Zeppelin and asking my mom to help me make bellbottom pants": Bones Owens on growing up, touring on a Harley and living the dream

(Image credit: Robby Klein)

To celebrate the release of his second album, Love Out Of Lemons, Bones Owens hit the open road for an intimate tour around his native Midwest, travelling from show to show on his Harley-Davidson with his guitar strapped to his back.

“Honestly, that was dual purpose,” Owens says, laughing. “It looked cool but it also gave me something to lean back on.”

The tour, which was called Goin’ Back Where I Came From, was named after the second single from Love Out Of Lemons.

“It was a little over two thousand miles a week, six shows in eight days. It was nostalgic in a lot of ways – we stopped by my grandfather’s farm, hung out with family, friends, old classmates,” Owens says. “The song Goin’ Back Where I Came From is about being over city life, the anonymity, the lack of connection. It’s about going back to a simpler time.”

With its blend of classic rock groove and alt.rock edge, Love Out Of Lemons feels like the perfect summer soundtrack. There’s a sense of nostalgia in tracks like Summer Skin, while rockier numbers like Goin’ Back Where I Came From are heavy on the riffs.

Although he’s been based in Nashville for 20 years now, Caleb ‘Bones’ Owens (his nickname was initially coined by his grandad, because he was such a gangly kid) grew up in a small rural town in Missouri. He started playing guitar at the age of 10, and by 13 he was writing his own songs. Music was all around him. Country was in the air, while at home his parents had their own favourites; his mother loved bands like the Carpenters, his father loved classic rock.

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“A lot of the records from his collection really resonated with me,” Owens remembers. “Steve Miller Band, Creedence. It was more the mellow side of rock, but it was a gateway into other things.”

As a teenager he discovered his own favourites.

“I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and Zeppelin and asking my mom to help me make bellbottom pants out of regular pants, dressing like a seventies kid [laughs].

“But at the same time I was listening to punk, and all the nineties alternative and grunge stuff as well. I didn’t feel like I had to be pinned down.”

Owens started his career in Nashville as a session and touring guitarist, working for artists including Carrie Underwood, Jelly Roll, Yelawolf and Bon Jovi.

“But there was always a focus of doing my own thing,” he says. And he finally got his wish when he signed to Thirty Tigers to release his self-titled debut in 2021.

Owens is currently supporting southern rockers and labelmates Blackberry Smoke in Europe, having completed a run of UK shows. “They’re a band who have done things their own way and I respect that,” he says.

Love Out Of Lemons is out now via Black Ranch Records/ Thirty Tigers

Hannah May Kilroy has been writing about music professionally for over a decade, covering everything from extreme metal to country. She was deputy editor at Prog magazine for over five years, and previously worked on the editorial teams at Terrorizer and Kerrang!. She currently works as the production editor for The Art Newspaper, and also writes for the Guardian, Classic Rock and Metal Hammer.