Taking It To The World

“It's just a second single release really,” the down-to-earth roots/blues singer-songwriter and guitarist Owen Campbell explains, talking about his new single, Remember To Breathe, lifted off his second album, The Pilgrim, released mid-last year. “I wrote that song when I was living in a city, and any city I find I'm just not a fan of,” he laughs, “so the song is about hating cities and the clip is similar, me just running around a city on a sleepless night encountering various people and places.”

The album debuted at #1 on the iTunes Australia Blues Albums Chart, reaching #1 in the iTunes Blues charts in Canada and New Zealand. His debut album, 2012's Sunshine Road, peaked at #1 on the overall iTunes charts that year, so things are building nicely, regardless of his contentious departure from Australia's Got Talent's 2012 grand final. Considering he'd already been touring independently and internationally for almost six years before he entered, you'd have to wonder why he even bothered. “That served a purpose, and I did well out of it, so I'm happy to have moved on from it.” Not that he did all that well from the experience. Campbell had just set up for another bout of busking when he took the call from The Music. “Before I did the album I was busking on Pitt Street. To get finance even to get a tour started you need a lot of money. Things are going well, but I'm broke!”

The busking was also how Campbell took himself around the world – over the past eight years he's performed all over, from the highest blues festival in the world in Kathmandu to Ireland, Europe, the UK, India and the US. “I just decided, right, I'm going to go to this country and see if I can book some festivals or gigs, and sometimes I'd just busk and then get gigs that way. The busking funds all of the touring, and the touring satisfies an itch, I suppose!”

The new clip's all well and good, but the more important release for Campbell is an EP he's put together called Songs For Syria. “A hundred per cent of the proceeds are going to the Red Cross over in Syria. It's one of the biggest refugee crises since World War II – it's between 4,000,000 and 6,000,000 people homeless or displaced or fled the country, and our media and governments of the Western world have taken a very flaccid approach to it. I suppose it's geopolitical stuff that's keeping their hands tied so I just thought, well, instead of sitting there yelling at the radio, I want to do something about it.”