Adam Young – One of Many Artistic Aspies (Owl City)

Adam Young was born July 5th, 1986, in Ottumwa, Iowa and raised in Owatonna, Minnesota.

Right out of high school, Adam worked at a Coca Cola shipping warehouse as a truck driver. While loading trucks and working throughout the warehouse, Adam would compose melodies of songs he would later record in his parents’ basement and upload to MySpace.

Adam made a reputation for himself by responding to each and every question or comment on those early day posts and songs. This built him a reputation for having fantastic musical talent whilst still being approachable.

Adam holds very tightly to his faith and it’s that Christian background that made some of the songs he released later in his life like Galaxies from the album All Things Bright and Beautiful so special. And he has gone on record numerous times to say just how important his faith is to him and his work. Going so far as saying it would be a crime worthy of being thrown in jail to not make how important his faith is to him clear.

Within mere months, Adam was releasing songs with unusually high success for the industry. (Especially considering he got his initial fame from recording in a basement!) Within a year the second album Adam ever released: Maybe I’m Dreaming managed #15 on the Billboard Electronic Albums Chart (later managing the #13 slot). Such an accomplishment made his progress in the music industry truly exceptional!

Due to his massively accelerating popularity, Adam was working with massive record label company the Universal Republic in no time. The Universal Republic was quite worried they would destroy whatever Adam had that was working so well for him. So they kept interference to a minimum and ensured the release of Ocean Eyes. This album managed top 10 on US album charts with the song Fireflies managing #1 on the top singles chart for the UK.

This momentum obtained from a near-constant series of successful albums led to several more years of critically acclaimed releases such as All Things Bright and Beautiful, The Midsummer Station, and Cinematic. To this day Adam still releases music (albeit seemingly not in album form) and works on projects that manage to be both impressive and satisfying to his artistic itch.


Just to be clear as I’m wrapping up here, Adam has said he believes he has Asperger’s, based on the common symptoms associated with it. While this isn’t an official diagnosis, it is still sufficient for me to be confident he has Asperger’s. Of course, feel free to form your own opinion and please send any questions you might have to wouldaspie@gmail.com!

Thanks for reading! 🙂