Creative Showcase: Slowlife

Meet Slowlife (Dan Bowen) an indie/folk act based in Colchester. Dan is kindly coming to perform for our Creative in Colchester event on Thursday 23rd February.

We got Dan to come in and create an ‘I make’ picture for our ongoing photography project capturing members and local creatives in the town. To find out what makes Slowlife tick we asked a few questions:

Tell us a bit about your journey and where you are today.
I spent the first 18 years of my life in the north Suffolk town of Lowestoft and began playing the guitar around the age of 12. I was more of a lead guitarist at first, but started writing my own songs around the age of 15/16, but didn’t really perform them for a few years after, whilst I studied, travelled and lived around a few different places. Having been in a couple of bands, last year I formed Slow Life and played a few shows around Colchester on my own for the first time. I decided that I didn’t really want to be a stereotypical acoustic performer and after an inspiring trip to see Gruff Rhys live, I went out and bought a loop pedal and a selection of instruments to perform my songs as you might hear them on record. So on stage I am accompanied by guitar, percussion and melodica and I literally build some of my songs. I’m now gigging in Colchester regularly and am focussing on performing around the country and getting my music heard.  

What do you think of our membership hub and Colchester’s growing Cultural Quarter?
I think its great! I moved to Colchester two years ago with an offer of decent employment and knew very little about the town, and knew no-one who lived here! I was pleasantly surprised by the active music and arts scene, and made several friends and was able to develop my own music and get involved with events. Its a nice little community really and most people seem to be keen to help each other out, which is nice. For a town of it’s size I think Colchester punches above its own weight in a cultural sense and theres a lot of talented people here….

Give us a sneaky peak of what you are working on right now.
I have just finished recording a debut EP at Long Track Studios with producer Nathan Wacey, which is going to be called BEAR. Its being mixed at the moment, and I’m looking to release it within the next few weeks. It has six songs on it, and I have played every instrument with the exception of the drums. Its a mixed bag of songs really, theres a couple of melodic tracks, with the vocal line leading the song, a couple of reverby guitar-led tracks and also one track which is built up on a multi-guitar, percussion and vocal loop. All songs have catchy hooks and I’d like to think are easy on the ear! Inspiration for the songs comes from protest movements, cross-european adventures and socialist German football teams!

Cheers Dan. Great to hear you are inspired by socialist German football teams. All members are invited to our event on the 24th to hear Slowlife play and enjoy architecture themed talks from Hat Projects & Studio Can Can. Visit our meetup page for more.