Daily Discovery: Owls of the Swamp, “Shapeshifter”

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ARTIST: Owls of the Swamp (Pete Uhlenbruch)

SONG: “Shapeshifter“

BIRTHDATE: 15th May 1982

HOMETOWN: Melbourne, Australia

CURRENT LOCATION: Bournemouth, England

AMBITIONS: To reach my potential.

TURN-OFFS: Anytime someone settles for less than what they know they are capable of.

TURN-ONS: Anything that makes me feel in tune with that, which is greater than myself. And freshly brewed coffee.

DREAM GIG: To play Glastonbury Festival, at dusk. I visited the area recently and there’s definitely a vibe there that I think would elevate any performance to a higher level.

FAVORITE LYRIC: “And I walked through an infinite door, ’til I was no one at all”. From the song Cloudface by J. Walker of Machine Translations, an absolute musical genius.

CRAZIEST PERSON I KNOW: The one and only Ron Whitehead, an ‘outlaw poet’ whom I performed a concert with in Reykjavik last summer. He lives in hyperdrive, barely sleeps and is totally committed to his creativity. He’s done it all, and then some, including co-writing a poem with the Dalai Lama and hanging out with with Hunter S. Thompson. There’ll be a documentary soon about his life, and everyone will know how crazy he is, crazy good that is.

SONG I WISH I WROTE: “Michelangelo” by Emmy Lou Harris.

5 PEOPLE I’D MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: David Wilcock, Regina Meredith, Terrence McKenna, Kerry Cassidy, Manly Palmer Hall.

MY FAVORITE CONCERT EXPERIENCE: Take me back to Festival hall, Melbourne, 1998 when as a starry eyed teenager I first saw Radiohead on their OK Computer tour. The next day I quit the flute, picked up the guitar and resolved to start a band.

I WROTE THIS SONG: I’m still figuring out what this song is about, I really dove into my subconscious for this one. I love the idea of the ‘Shapeshifter’ in Shamanism; the ability to consciously assume many forms. I find it a fitting metaphor for everyday life, and especially relationships, where if you look closely enough everything is in a constant form of change. Even at the subatomic level, small energy packets are constantly whizzing in and out of existence. From the very start of writing this song I knew I wanted my close friend (Icelandic singer-songwriter Myrra Ros) to add her vocals, and it made me so happy to get the last-minute chance to record her for this track, for me it was the icing on the cake.