Garrett Owen

Garrett Owen plays the Cactus Cafe on Friday, October 30, with the show starting at 7:30 PM. It's a single-bill night, so he's the only one on the program.

If you're not familiar with him, Owen's background is a good place to start. Born in San Antonio, he spent less than three of his first twenty years in the United States. His parents were pastors, missionaries, and church builders who later earned doctorates in psychology and worked as regional therapists for a missionary network in Latin America. His earliest memories are set in Tanzania, and by the time he was ten, the family had moved to Mandeville, Louisiana. He held onto that 'preacher's kid' credential until he was nineteen, when he returned to Texas to pursue music full-time.

That childhood in East Africa still shows up in his writing. His first EP is titled Slightly Foreign, and much of what he writes draws on those early years, including the times he and his sister Claire crossed the Serengeti Plain. He's also pointed to 'Sad Eyed Son' as being based on a true story: he accidentally drove his bike off a six-foot cliff and broke his nose and an arm.

It's a Texas-born songwriter with a childhood spent mostly outside the country, and that distance comes through in the songs. He'll be playing at the Cactus Cafe, 2247 Guadalupe St, Austin, TX 78712, on Friday, October 30, at 7:30 PM.