Owl City Interview - Teen Scene Magazine

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Owl City Interview

Written by Ramona Cohen

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

You have been hearing the catchy song "Fireflies" on the radio for weeks now, but you are probably still wondering who sings it. That would be Owl City, an electronic/pop project of Adam Young. The 23-year-old singer created Owl City in early 2007 in his parents' basement in Minnesota because of what Adam says was a number of sleepless nights. This one man band has come a long way from a basement, Owl City has had more than 10 million plays on MySpace and the album "Ocean Eyes" has reached number two on iTunes.

Before ever achieving huge success and a major label deal with Universal Republic, Owl City was already a fan favorite on MySpace receiving millions of plays. Owl City's debut album "Of June" reached #20 on the Billboard Electronic Albums chart. The next album “Maybe I’m Dreaming” was released in 2008 which peaked on the same chart at #16. Quite a feat for a struggling newcomer. Despite all the success without label support, Adam tells us that the record deal with Universal Republic was still exciting. "I jumped up and down on the furniture in my living room with my ice skates on, then punched a huge dent in my refrigerator door!"

Adam says some of his influences are disco, European electronic, 1980s synth-pop, and New Wave music. Owl City's sound is totally unique on the radio nowadays and is on the forefront of the electronic/techno movement. Adam tells Teen Scene he is honored. "I'd be a lying snake in the grass if I said I didn't think Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello didn't play a wonderful part in bringing electronic music to the forefront of pop music today. I think what they did a few years ago was huge and I also feel like it left a lot of listeners and artists asking "what's going to happen next?." They started a tidal wave of intrigue and those who aren't riding it have their surfboards in hand. A lot of people liken Owl City to The Postal Service, and while that was never the intention or the initial concept of the project, I'm totally honored. I couldn't be more excited to see how big the realm of electronic music eventually becomes."

So, what's next for Owl City? "Touring is the plan for the near future. After that, it's more writing and recording," Adam says. Before we let Adam get back to making great music, we were going to ask Adam the signature Teen Scene question "if you were a fly whose wall would you land on?" but instead we mixed things up. So, we asked Adam if he were an owl, where would he go and what would he do? "If I were an owl, I'd go to Wal*Mart. I'd sneak in through an open loading dock door so no one would see me, then I'd hide myself deep in a khaki pants rack in the men's department all day until the store closed. As soon as the lights switched off and the last person left, I'd make a beeline for the food department and eat ALL the Little Debbie's snacks. Then I'd go home and jump on the trampoline in my pajamas." We couldn't have thought of a better answer ourselves.

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Comments (2)

	Written by enat on 01-27-2010 14:26 - Guest
	.. site aint bright enough

	Written by clare on 11-02-2009 03:53 - Guest
	..

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