OWL CITY… Live footage from the show Friday night!

OWL CITY w/ LIGHTS/ DEAS VAIL @ House of Blues on Friday, February 5th


“Hello Seattle”

“Fireflies”

Please allow yourself to be introduced?
Adam Young

What exactly is Owl City?
A city where happy owls live, work, breathe, ride bikes and fly kites. They pick flowers, sing in the shower, salsa dance, swim in pools, knit sweaters and read dreamy books with happy endings. They roller skate, watch romantic movies, drive clean cars to church, hold hands on the beach and run on treadmills after they eat a lot of pizza. They enjoy vanilla skies, swinging on swing sets, walking in the rain, pajama parties, wearing fuzzy sweatshirts in the winter and imagining what it would be like to breathe underwater. Owl City is an innocent place where life is pleasant and enjoyable. It’s a place where pretty owl girl flight attendants smile at handsome boy owls at 30,000 feet. It’s a place where little owls sometimes get lost in grocery stores but they always find their momma’s again.

What inspired your synthesized soundscapes?
I was in a few different bands in high school and eventually got bored with the traditional guitar, bass, drums setup. I was always a huge fan of electronic music and it was a new medium to experiment with. I got a sequencing program and just started making songs.

So no child prodigy or family ties involved?
Neither of my parents were musical so I experimented with different instruments and genres until I felt at home. It’s completely nerdy but I have to be honest and say I played video games growing up and the soundtracks to some of them have subtly influenced Owl City. You’re entitled to make fun of me now.

For listeners digging for lyrical meaning, are they specific or metaphorical to you?
Most of them are metaphors for things I’ve gone through or situations I’ve dealt with, although some songs were written with more of an abstract approach. I’m an admirer of non-representational visual art so some of that influence finds its way into my music. Being a normal guy involved in average everyday scenarios, I find it really interesting to write about typical, mundane things in somewhat “idealist” ways. I’m a daydreamer and a total optimist and I suppose that fuels the way I write more than anything.

How come a lot of your Owl City songs mention the ocean in them?
I have a fascination with the ocean and everything related to water. Sailboats, dolphins, piers, islands, sea towns, scuba diving, beaches, inlets, harbors; they all seem so enchanting to me.

Do you enlist bigtime producers on your records?
I’m the farthest thing from a pro but I have fun and that’s far more important to me. I just like making songs. Writing music is like tasting the sky. It keeps me dreaming in color.

What about drum machines and other techno ghosts?
No. I make all my drum tracks from scratch and I sample quite a bit of sounds from field recordings I’ve made as well. Something about creating rhythm from natural sound is fascinating to me because it embodies such a unique mood. It puts a bit more “art” into the music in my opinion.