Q: “Town Line” is an intimate and vulnerable piece of work. What was your creative process in making this EP, and the greater album it is a part of?
YOUNG: My songs are stories. I can’t imagine telling a story about people, places or events without its originating within one’s self and being shaped by one’s own experiences, perceptions, emotions, understandings and imagination. To me, even stories told about the lives of others necessarily take on a certain intimacy and vulnerability in the telling. So I say just let intimacy and vulnerability happen. Open the heart’s doors and let them go.
As for creative process, the sudden isolation of the pandemic shutdown provided the catalyst and structure. What had been my daily routine abruptly shifted from commuter trains, office meetings and courtrooms to walking the surrounding fields and woods with my dog, passing by the streams and our river, and osmosing the life and history of the land. The shutdown gave me a time and place for exploring what brought me to this point and contemplating what is to come next. As we walked day after day, I found myself refining old song sketches and composing new ones in my head. I would write down the ideas and lyrics when I got back to the house and sitting, often on the porch with my guitar, would develop chord structures for them. By the time the shutdown was over I had finished over thirty songs in this way. Some of them became the EP “Town Line”.
Q: Did any real-life events occur in your life that inspired the EP?
YOUNG: Not any one event specifically. But a series of events inspired me to commit to recording the stories that came to be the album “Muddy River” and the EP “Town Line”. In the early 2000s I spent a few winters gathering and recording stories of Indigenous elders of the Northern Plains. They sang and talked about everything from personal experiences and historical events to the principles by which they lived: their relationship with one another, with the Earth and with the forces of the supernatural world. It was deeply moving. I would not be so pretentious as to think that my small stories about relationships and reconciliation are of that same weight and significance, but that experience very much inspired me to tell them.
Q: Was there a pivotal moment in your life when you decided to follow your path as a musician?
YOUNG: The notion that I might actually be on a path as a musician gives me too much credit. If that’s the case, it’s certainly been a circuitous path. But I have always had a love of creating musical patterns. And if there was a pivotal moment, it was the time spent with my UCLA classmate and dear, late, friend “Engineer” Geoff Cooper. He was always deeply immersed in sound and music. He dragged me with him into that world where I came to echo his love for it.
Q: Your songwriting really shines through all of these songs. Who are your biggest influences?
YOUNG: John Prine and Lyle Lovett. I have been around a while, so there have been many living influences over the years, in all genres of music, from the 1950s to the present. But I have always loved the use of songs for storytelling and these two greats exemplify that.
Q: What is coming up next for you?
YOUNG: Completing “Muddy River” took over four years. Now that it has been released, the first thing I want to do is reboot. I haven’t done gigs for years and I am at a point in my life where I don’t plan to start up again. But the juices are still flowing. And with enough going on in our world to keep a storyteller going for years, I plan to be back in the studio by the fall of 2025.
Q: What would you like to tell your supporters out there?
YOUNG: It’s not just about me. Listen to the great stories that are all around you. There are universal truths to be found in the most personal of stories. And whether they come from family, your people, or the others of your world, they are key to understanding the past and helping you to contribute to the future. Oh, and please follow me on Bandcamp. If you like, contact me through the link at owenyoung.bandcamp.com.
Interviewed by Taylor Berry
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