Breaking Into Electronic Music Is Hard. Kelly Lee Owens Wants to Fix That

Growing up in North Wales, electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens didn’t have a lot of immediate access to live music.

“We had a community center, which was probably the closest that you would get to having some kind of stage,” she recalls, hours before playing the Cardiff date of her Dreamstate Tour. “The problem with North Wales is you had to leave to even go to a club.”

The nearest one was a 30 minute drive. Her family scrounged up the money to get her a little car for her 18th birthday, so she became the designated driver for her and her friends to go check out the “indie hour” at the venue. But since this was 2007, and they only had an hour of “indie” music, that mostly consisted of songs like the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.”

Owens found herself taking the train to Liverpool or Manchester to see more underground acts. “What a shame you have to leave your own country to find venues,” she says.

Access is part of a multi-layered struggle of entering the music industry that Owens has been highlighting lately. As someone from a small town, working-class background and also as a woman in the electronic scene, she felt like much of her early experience was trying get past the industry’s gatekeeping. Now, she says, it’s even worse, with so many venues facing closure and the general dire straits of the music industry.

“I’ve experienced firsthand the genuine struggle there is when you come from a place with a lower socioeconomic opportunities or support,” she explains. “I had no financial backing on my journey to becoming a musician and an artist, nothing to fall back on. So along the way, the venues that are the smallest are the literal stepping stones.”

Over the last few years, Owens has stepped into the mainstream, having signed to burgeoning electronic music label dh2, an imprint under Dirty Hit founded by the 1975’s George Daniel. She’s found herself gaining buzz from sets at Glastonbury and Charli XCX’s PARTYGIRL Boiler Room set in Ibiza.

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She’s currently touring in support of her 2024 album Dreamstate, and with access to the biggest stages thus far of her career, she’s offering opportunities to up-and-coming DJs to join her. Ahead of her tour, Owens put out an open call for local DJs to submit mixes to her via DM so she could pick someone for the opening slot. Owens, her management and a social media manger have been going through the “hundreds and hundreds” of submissions, compiling them into an Excel spreadsheet and choosing someone just ahead of each date to open for her.

“There’s so much talent out there,” she says with excitement. “It’s honestly been one of the most energizing things in ages for all of us that I’ve just felt like, ‘This is it, man, like. This is

that kind of grassroots shit. This is punk. This is DIY.’”

The process has also reminded her of the anger she’s felt towards the  increasing lack of stepping stones and access newer artists have. “There’s so many voices that are unheard out there, and many layers to that, and it’s infuriating to me,” she explains. She recalls her own difficulties as a woman in electronic music, and how much harder she had to work to be taken seriously in her own scene.

“I had to very much prove myself that I could DJ,” Owens explains. “I’m not going to name names, but there were bigger artists who could pre-prepare a whole DJ set in Ableton, matching the tracks in perfect, beautiful transitions, and show up at Fabric [in London] and play that. Whereas, as a woman, I felt like if I did that I would just be ridiculed. I had to make sure that I could properly beat match and properly DJ to be maybe taken seriously.”

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Owens had to find her own ways into the London scene when she relocated there. She worked at a record store opposite Fabric, which helped her build community and find a way in to playing at the legendary venue. But she still didn’t feel like she as taken seriously until 2019, when she worked with fellow U.K. musician Jon Hopkins. (They would collaborate again 2022.)

“It took a man in electronic music to put me on his bills and to collaborate with me for the UK to take me more seriously,” she says. “Honestly, after that, things seemed to open up quite a lot. I started being asked to play festivals, both live and as a DJ. That felt like a big step up.”

Owens is paying it forward beyond just her opening slot. She’s made sure she’s brought a mostly female crew on the road with her, offsetting the type of male-domination she’s experience both on-stage and off-stage in the club scene. “The only guy on tour is my sound engineer,” she says.

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The moment feels more pivotal than ever for Owens to highlight these issues; electronic music has reached a new wave of popularity, both underground and in the mainstream. There’s been a hunger for dancing, especially from younger people. Access has become as important for artists as it is the fans, with ticket prices skyrocketing along with the increased touring prices for artists. When she and Caribou had the opportunity to throw a free rave in small Welsh village last year, they took it.

“I’m excited about the future, because I feel like art and community always finds a way,” Owens continues. “Especially in the tough times, that’s when some of the most interesting stuff appears. It’s going to be as exciting to me to see what happens, whilst also still fighting the good fight and standing up for what we know is right by holding governments and the music industry at large accountable for reinvesting back into these spaces.”