Jenny Owen Youngs Calling Her Own Shots for New Album

Posted on Jul 21st 2010 2:00PM by Emily Tan
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Shervin Lainez

While many artists admit that being on the road has inspired them to write tons of new material, singer-songwriter Jenny Owen Youngs has had a way different experience.

"Because I travel so much and I don't find traveling and writing to really go together, what I tend to do is collect little scraps of beginnings of songs over a period of time," Youngs tells Spinner. "I've done for [that] the past year and a half, since the last record and when I've been touring, so there's a pool of 25 or 30 song fetuses."

In the midst of working on her third album, Youngs decided to do things on her own and started a fundraiser to finance the new material. Although calling the shots can be daunting, Youngs is excited to really have a say on this project. "I won't have anybody looking over my shoulder on this record," she says. "It's really exciting because I can do whatever I want. Dan [Romer, producer] and I might end up taking things a lot farther than we have in the past."

With some new material in the works, Youngs has started choosing which songs will make the cut and how "they're going to be thematically unified."

"I've definitely been motoring on in the writing department already and have some preliminary arrangements, rehearsals with my producer, Dan, and with Elliott [Jacobson] playing drums," Youngs says. "It's sort of like 'bang out and get a feel of the vibe for everything' before we actually start working."

Youngs has also decided to take a different approach to making the new record. Instead of putting her songs through every new piece of software or technology, she wanted to give it a warmer feel.

"I thought it would probably feel better for the listening experience if it started from a more organic place. That's my goal -- to have it feel more like you're listening to record from the '60s," Youngs says. "People were all in a room together [to] hopefully not have that chilly tinge that comes from Pro Tools. All the freedoms that are afforded to people like myself, all the technological advances can be chilly and less organic sounding."

Having complete control over her work, Youngs knows that this could all also backfire on her and will take full responsibility for it. "If I make a record and everyone hates it, then there's nobody I can blame but myself," she says.