Owl City

Following the success of his east coast tour in 2011 off the back of the 5 x Platinum & ARIA #1 single Fireflies, indie-synth-pop sensation, Owl City, is returning to New Zealand this November. The highly anticipated The Midsummer Station World Tour will be kicking off around North America and Europe in September, before finishing up with a string of shows in Auckland, Melbourne and Sydney this November.

The Australasian dates for singer, song-writer and multi-instrumentalist, Adam Young, will start in New Zealand on Friday 16th November at Auckland’s Powerstation (Licensed All Ages).

Back in May of this year, details of Owl City’s new full-length album, The Midsummer Station (available to pre-order now on iTunes), were announced for an August release. When it came time to record The Midsummer Station, Adam Young’s third album as Owl City, the Minnesota native set himself the following challenge: “Over the past several years I'd become fascinated with trying to capture magic in a jar through simple, concise pop songs,” he says. “I saw it as a great challenge to try to come up with catchy, unique, and memorable songs because it was a new method of songwriting I'd never approached before. I believe artists should never look back or repeat themselves and this was a new frontier for me.”

Owl City took a bold step forward on the new album by choosing to work with co-writers and outside producers for the first time, enlisting the help of Matt Thiessen (Relient K), Stargate (Rihanna, Wiz Khalifa) and Robopop (Maroon 5), and the teamof Josh Crosby, Nate Campany, and Emily Wright (Dr. Luke’s engineer). In addition, Young is joined by two very exciting guests on the new album. On Dementia, Young is joined by one of his heroes, blink-182’s Mark Hoppus. The song documents some of the more psychotic thoughts and feelings Young dealt with in the wake of his platinum debut album Ocean Eyes and one of the more rock-inspired cuts on the new album. And onthe album’s first single, the incredibly infectious pop gem Good Time (written and produced by Adam Young, with Matthew Thiessen and Brian Lee as co-writers), Young is joined in a duet by Call Me Maybe star Carly Rae Jepsen.

Good Time debuted this week on ARIA charts at #15, hit #1 on iTunes and the RIANZ charts in New Zealand, and is also a Top 5 US iTunes hit. When asked about working with Jepsen, Young said “I love Carly’s song Call Me Maybe. I remember hearing it for the first time and immediately became a huge fan of hers – it is absolutely contagious. A bit later, I actually found out that she had known of my music for a while and even went to a couple of shows of mine in Vancouver so I definitely knew I wanted to collaborate with her. And Jepsen had this to say about working with Young “This song is pure, sweet summer. Big thanks to Adam for letting me sing on it. I hope it makes people smile. Abandon all plans and take an impromptu road trip!”

Though the songs were written during various sessions in Los Angeles, New York, and Nashville, Young recorded The Midsummer Station at his own Sky Harbor Studios in Owatonna, as he has all of his albums. “I've learned a few tricks over the past few years as a producer that have allowed me to better capture the sounds I envision in my head, and I think this album sounds a lot more polished than my previous records and it's been great to see the evolution of Owl City as a project with an aesthetic change over time and evolve from one thing into another,” he says.

Indeed Young has come a long way since his days posting his musical experiments on MySpace and YouTube, launching both an online savvy and radio-friendly career that the New York Times called “a textbook illustration of how the music business needs new and old forms of media to make an artist a star.” Before becoming an Internet sensation, Young, the only child of a mechanic and a schoolteacher, attended community college and worked dead-end jobs, including one in a warehouse loading Coca-Cola trucks. He began creating melodies and beats on his laptop as a way to combat insomnia and eventually self-released an EP, 2007’s Of June and an album, 2008’s Maybe I’m Dreaming, both of which reached the Top 20 on Billboard’s Electronic Albums chart.

Come experience Owl City’s catchy tunes and experimental beats this November.