Struggling with a bout of insomnia at his parents' house in suburban Minnesota, Adam Young posted a few musical experiments onto MySpace eight years ago under the name Owl City. Now, the 29-year-old is about to embark on his third mainland tour, coming to Guangzhou on May 19. One of social media’s first music successes remains among its biggest, a fact that still baffles its mastermind.
“Ultimately this sort of life found me,” says Young. “When I was younger, my dad had the oldies on a lot, so I listened to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel and the Beach Boys. There’s something about them. All of the songs are catchy, rich with harmonies and so well-arranged. It was a big influence.”
At 16 years old, he started the pop-punk trio Windsor Airlift. The group would shift to ambient post-rock, part of a musical journey that saw Young experiment with disparate genres from electronic screamo to comedy rap with self-released projects like Charlton Heston and the Blast Beats, the Wellington Giggle-Bomb Experience and Apes with Guns.
“When I started making music, I had to dig around to figure out what felt right,” he explains. “I wound up in an electronic pop music world with Owl City, and couldn’t stop writing upbeat, hopeful sounding music that has a bit of whimsy. Until it starts becoming uninteresting – which I hope it never does – I’m going to keep on trying it.”
Thanks to an accessible web presence, Owl City’s following rose alongside MySpace. By the time they signed a record deal with Universal Republic in 2008, their MySpace page had been viewed more than five million times, while their first independent hit ‘Hello Seattle,’ was listened to more than 3.5 million times.
Online success translated into the real world when the 2009 single ‘Fireflies’ topped the charts in 26 countries en route to selling more than 10 million copies. That year, Young made his first trip outside North America to perform sold-out shows in Beijing and Shanghai.
“It was all so new to me,” he recalls. “When I showed up to the venue, there were all these fans who knew all of the lyrics to the songs. It was so surreal and continues to be whenever I come back.”
Despite early criticisms that Owl City was treading on the same electro indie-pop terrain established by hipster-approved The Postal Service, the group has soldiered on. In 2012, they scored their second US Top 5 hit with the Carly Rae Jepsen assisted ‘Good Times.’
Collaborations have been kind to Owl City, which has worked with electronic music superstars (Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyke) and pop-punk icons (Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus). Recent singles have featured violinist performance artist Lindsey Sterling, Christian pop star Britt Nicole and Japanese rockers Sekai no Owari.
“I usually pick up on some kind of melodic sensibility that makes each song,” Young explains. “It could be a vocal melody or the way the synthesizers or guitar tracks are arranged. I usually gravitate towards really catchy music and try to further that.”
There will be even more collaborations on Owl City’s fifth studio album, tentatively slated for a summer release. Young is elusive with the details, but has trouble containing his excitement for the disc.
“There’s a lot of variety on the album, but I try to make sure each release is a continuation of the one before it. I want every album to feel current but also have a timeless quality,” he says.
“I pay attention to what’s going on with the music world and EDM has become really popular on American radio. It was fun to try to channel that in my own way. It’s very dynamic and punchy.”
With the album “really close to being wrapped up,” China fans can only hope that a few new songs will make an appearance during the show. Regardless, Young promises that the touring quintet is a much different entity from the records, which he says have “more of a producer or DJ sound.”
“The live sound is bigger and more like an anthem,” he explains. “I have this great guitar player who is so good at translating some of the synthesizer lines from the album onto guitar, so it’s more rock oriented. There’s more of a band feel where we switch around and play different instruments.”
// May 19, 8pm, RMB380-680. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (en.damai.cn)
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