I recently conducted an interview with Owen Ashworth of the one-man band Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. CFTPA is definitely worth a listen, as the Seattle Stranger notes that “CFTPA is the solo moniker for Owen Ashworth’s sentiment-soaked, deceptively simple keyboard pop–chronicling in straightforward vignettes the middling malaise of adult mediocrity.”
CFTPA- Young Shields
CFTPA- Bobby Malone Moves Home
CFTPA- Lonesome New Mexican Nights
Visit his website at http://www.cftpa.org
How did you come up with the title of your one-man band, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone? The “Casiotone” part is kind of self-explanatory, but how did you come up with “for the painfully alone”? Is that a self-descriptive title?
A lot of my favorite songs growing up were sad country and blues songs that my parents would listen to in the car or whatever. I liked the feeling a truly miserable, desperate, tragic, pathetic story gave me. Sad songs could be comforting in a way that happy songs weren’t. I liked the idea of there different music for different times and moods. When I started writing songs, I wanted to give other people that same sort of miserable and comforted feeling that my favorite music had given me. It only seemed fair to let people know they were getting themselves into, though. Casiotone describes the music, Painfully Alone describes the listener. If you’re in the mood for something cheerful, you should probably put on something else.
How would you categorize your music? I’ve seen labels from “indietronica” to the God-forbidden “emo”.
I don’t think I would categorize my music. That’s someone else’s job.
Why did you first start creating music?
I started making sound collages with a hand held tape recorder when I was 15 or so. It was a few more years before I tried to sing in front of anybody.
