Adam Young isn't worried. While most pop stars would worry about trying to repeat the platinum success of his debut album Ocean Eyes and the No. 1 single Fireflies, the Owl City mastermind doesn't feel any pressure. In his mind, he's already won.
"If all this ended tomorrow, I'd still be a happy camper," Young says, calling from a tour stop in Nashville. "I'd still have cool stories to tell my son someday, and I'd get to say, 'Check out what I did when I was younger'."
It is not likely to end tomorrow, and the release of Young's sophomore album All Things Bright and Beautiful means he now has more stories to tell his future kids.
Of course, the kids may have some trouble believing their dad since even he can't really believe everything that has happened to him in the past two years.
"Before this started, I had never been on an airplane," Young says. "I had never seen the ocean ... I was working loading trucks. Now, I've played Madison Square Garden."
When it came time to record the follow-up to Ocean Eyes, Young could have pretty much holed up anywhere in the world, but he chose his hometown of Owatonna, Minnesota, in the basement of his own house about a mile from his parents' basement, where he wrote and recorded his debut.
All Things Bright and Beautiful builds on the synth-driven daydreaminess of Ocean Eyes with new layers of inspiration.
"I pulled ideas from a lot of different places," he says. "I was really into early Tribe Called Quest and I listened to a lot of Blink-182 in junior high. I wanted the new record to be a bit unexpected. I wanted it to go down some rabbit holes and off on some wild-goose chases."
Young says he has no idea if the next chapter will bring him more success.
"That doesn't even really register with me. I'm so out of my element in this whole career that I'm in right now ... I just want to stay out of the way and do my own thing."
