Owen and his family then moved to Brisbane, where he was "a bit lonely" and "just sat around in my room playing guitar". He formed a group with a saxophone player from music class at secondary school. Another group was OME (aka Original Music Ensemble), which was an improvisation group – most of his early playing was in musical theatre and jazz. He was also in Fabulous Dingo Family, co-founded by jazz composer David Pyle, and named after Azaria Chamberlain.