On the eve of his late-night debut, bedroom electronica tinkerer Adam Young also talks about making it in music despite remarkable odds. "For a small-town boy, it's crazy," says the Minnesota native.
For a guy who’s toured with Maroon 5 and topped the pop the charts in over ten countries (including the U.S.), Owl City, aka Adam Young, hasn’t had a lot of luck getting on the radio or scoring a much-coveted slot on late night television.
But that’s about to change as Young makes his late-night debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live this Wednesday.
“TV stuff has always been scary to me,” the Minnesota resident said last week in between dates on a busy U.S. tour. “Owl City live is a lot less ‘intimate’ in the sense of whispery molasses-sweet vocals and delicate synth filaments, so I'm sure the loud rock element [on Kimmel’s stage] will suit me just fine.”But that’s about to change as Young makes his late-night debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live this Wednesday.
Young’s surprising success is now something of legend in the indie rock world. The 25-year-old first found fans on Myspace circa 2006. Despite the fact he had no record label at the time, the purveyor of bedroom electronica along the lines of acts such as The Postal Service managed to crack the upper echelons of Billboard’s Dance/Electonica album chart with his debut Of June back in 2007.
Since then, Owl City’s career has been on a skyward trajectory, with several notable stops on his way up (signing with Universal Republic, platinum certification for his 2009 release Ocean Eyes, and inclusion of that record’s surprise smash “Fireflies” on a commercial for Sony).
As of late last month, Ocean Eyes has sold 1,036,000 albums and 6,298,000 digital songs -- a staggering number considering many American music fans over 30 haven’t even heard of Owl City.
Yet Young isn’t ready to rest until even more are won over by his breezy brand of electro-pop. He still tours as if he’s an indie artist attempting to woo new fans. “I live in a small town in Minnesota so I love traveling and seeing the world,” he says. “The shows [this summer] have been a blast and the new songs have been going over really well. I'm so thankful I get to tour the world during a time when the music industry is as shaky as it is.”
This month, Owl City continues his U.S. trek (he plays July 21 at Los Angeles' Club Nokia) before heading abroad next month and into the fall, where he will morph into true popstar mode, playing dates in cities such as Osaka, Auckland, Sydney, London, Paris and even Jakarta, Indonesia.
“Outside the States, the band is absolutely massive in Indonesia and the Philippines. For a small-town boy, it's crazy,” he says. “Every night it seems more and more people are singing the words along with me,” he says of the current tour. “I love performing a new song and watching the reactions on people's faces. Some listen intently, others don't know what to do, and some just grin the entire time. It makes me happy.”
A growing part of Young’s success in reaching new fans is his collection of clips that remain hot on You Tube. Late last month, the artist dropped his latest video for “Deer in the Headlights,” which is already at nearly a million streams.