Owl City

0:26with MSN.ca we got Adam Owl City. What should I call you? Owl City? Should I call you Owl City? Call me any of the above. I'll respond. We'll go with Adam though. I feel like that's more personal. So you did something that I've been dying to do for my entire life and probably everyone in our generation has been dying to do and we'll talk about this new record in a second but the DeLorean on the last one, what was that like man that wasn't been awesome. It was great you know those DeLoreans though they're like kind of notoriously underpowered. Don't get me wrong it was incredible but there's not that much power under the hood so. You were actually driving it wasn't like a green screen thing. It was half kind of real half kind of on a trailer so I got to pull it around a little bit you know I didn't get to go about whatever 88 miles an hour but you know but. You never know what happened if you did. Exactly I wouldn't be here now. So let's talk about this new record

1:14I mean especially the song of the summer Carly Rae's got all these huge songs of the summer and you April Thunabra for a tune so let's talk about that one how come her? I had just finished producing the instrumental for for for good time and I thought I had this empty verse two and thought it'd be great to get a strong female lead and I remember thinking if I dream too big it'll probably be a setup for disappointment you know but I thought I'm just going to throw it all to the wind and do it and what if I got Carly Rae to sing on it and lo and behold my manager had known her manager actually grew up with her manager and they put us all together and somehow my track found its way to her inbox and she heard it and loved it and she just caught her her vocal you know recording parts and I think she was in Ottawa at the time and sent them back to Minnesota where my studio is and just kind of dropped him in and that was it and it was great and I remember introducing myself on email and said I'm Adam this is what I do and she actually said yeah I

2:02know I had actually been to two of your shows in Vancouver and I had no idea and it was really cool. What you started playing first because you play everything right? Started playing drums in high school actually believe it or not I actually played in a metal band I played drums as a metal drummer with a double kick drum and all that stuff. You've never fun to play drums for that kind of stuff. Yeah yeah so that's where I started and I think that's where my love of like hip hop influenced kind of beat making and kind of the quirky producer side of it came from is the drum stuff so that's what I started. I'm talking about the quirky producing stuff on Gold you have that oh is that an editor is that a piano key that you've put your voice on or how did that actually it's actually just a vocal line all just kind of cut up on the grid it's just you know just sang the part just go all the way out and just cut that up and it's just kind of a cool fun thing.

2:49That's awesome your voice it's all over the place on this record so are you trying to get away from that voice and and adding more stuff. Just kind of trying to add more bells and whistles to what's always been there and you know I think when I started I hadn't been a singer per se for very long and I don't really consider myself a singer even now it's just like I finish a track and it needs lyrics and it needs vocals and I'm like who's gonna do this I guess I'll just sing it you know so so just trying to trying to perfect my craft and just kind of the more you do it you kind of find ways of projecting more and all these techniques that I've never studied I'm never taking lessons so it's all about figuring out where you're at while you're doing it. We know some of the tunes on the record. Dementia. Dementia there's one called embers as well it's

3:35kind of a sister song to it so yeah. On that topic of that tune did you write it with Mark in mind because it sounds like a blink tune at times. Right I'd written the track and and the top line you know as very inspired from a blink when it needed to track and I actually hadn't really thought of having anybody feature on it or you know let alone get Mark and there again it was just like dream really big and see what happens and I had an empty verse too again and I thought what if I got Mark Hoppus and sing it's like yeah right no it could never happen and I talked to my manager and he said yeah I'll try to find a way to get the track to him and somehow he lives in London heard the track and Len lighted enough to fly to New York and we spent a day in this in the studio just recording his parts and the coolest guy ever yeah it was great. Five quick questions one more to answer is Roder Studio. Studio. Lennon or McCartney. When you hear a song what usually hits

4:24you first lyrics melody or rhythm melody song you've written your most proud of dementia and in one word owl city pizza. Thank you very much. Thank you.