10 August 2026 // PRESS RELEASE
CHARLIE OWEN RELEASES NEW ALBUM SEARCHING FOR CHARLIE OWEN
For a musician whose career has taken him through some of the most significant chapters of Australian music, it’s a refreshingly local affair — Charlie Owen, a guitar, a lifetime of songs and a room not far from home. Supporting Charlie will be Dan Brodie.
About Searching for Charlie Owen
A collection of songs revisited, stripped back and reclaimed by one of Australia’s most distinctive musicians.
Few musicians have left a mark on Australian music quite like Charlie Owen.
Across more than four decades, his unmistakable guitar playing, musicianship and instinct have been woven through the work of Tex, Don & Charlie, Beasts of Bourbon, The New Christs, Louis Tillett, Paul Kelly, Tendrils, Maurice Frawley & The Working Class Ringos and many others.
Now, Owen steps forward with Searching for Charlie Owen, a new album born from the acclaimed live shows of the same name.
Recorded in the Adelaide Hills with Mick Wordley, the album brings together songs from across Owen’s remarkable musical life — revisited, reimagined and, in some cases, returned to something closer to the way they existed before they found their way into a band.
There is no attempt to recreate the past.
Instead, Searching for Charlie Owen finds Owen bringing decades of playing, listening and living back to these songs. Stripped of their original settings, they reveal something different: the space between the notes, the stories behind them and Owen’s singular way of making a song entirely his own.
The record grew naturally from the Searching for Charlie Owen live shows, which have taken Owen around Australia playing intimate rooms and sharing not only the music, but the people, places and sometimes unlikely moments that have shaped his life in music.
Warm, funny, raw and occasionally heartbreaking, the shows have offered audiences a rare opportunity to hear the stories behind a career usually spent just outside the spotlight.
The album captures that same spirit.
“These songs are a nod to the past without living in it. Songs, like people, keep changing. I wanted to play them as they feel to me now.”
— Charlie Owen
From the beautiful restraint of Tex, Don & Charlie to the ferocity of Beasts of Bourbon, Owen has always resisted easy categorisation. His playing can be brutal one moment and extraordinarily tender the next — sometimes within the same song.
That contradiction remains at the heart of Searching for Charlie Owen.
This isn't a retrospective or a greatest-hits collection. It is Charlie Owen looking back from where he stands today — celebrating the songs and experiences that brought him here while continuing to search for whatever comes next.
Searching for Charlie Owen is out in August 2026.
ABOUT CHARLIE OWEN
Charlie Owen is one of Australia's most respected and distinctive musicians, guitarists and producers. His career spans more than four decades and includes work with Tex, Don & Charlie, Beasts of Bourbon, The New Christs, Louis Tillett, Paul Kelly, Tendrils, Maurice Frawley & The Working Class Ringos, among many others.
As a player, collaborator and producer, Owen has built a body of work defined less by genre than by instinct — always searching for the heart of a song and never sounding quite like anyone else.
MEDIA / INTERVIEWS / REVIEW COPIES
Kylie Greer
kyliegreer31@gmail.com
0423 225 182
ALBUM:Searching for Charlie Owen
ARTIST: Charlie Owen
RECORDED: Adelaide Hills
WITH: Mick Wordley
RELEASE: 2026
