1. He drummed in a heavy-metal band. The band was called Isle and based in Sioux Falls, S.D., where Owl City guitarist Daniel Jorgensen also played metal. Young was about 18 then. "To this day, we'll plug in a [metal] CD when we're on tour," he said, mentioning Norma Jean and As I Lay Dying as favorites. "I think all musicians, at least the male ones, have to go through some kind of metal phase, and be angsty, loud and aggressive."
2. He's also into hip-hop. Sort of, anyway. The new Owl City record features a guest spot by Los Angeles rapper Shawn Chrystopher on the song "Alligator Sky." Said Young, "I am influenced by A Tribe Called Quest and some of the early stuff, songs that were a little more abstract and not thuggish or whatever the word is. I'm so much a beat guy. I love good rhythms and drum loops."
3. Damn right he gets mad about stuff. Sort of, anyway. "People ask me that a lot: Do you ever have bad days?" he said. "If I get really mad, then I usually just get quiet and want to be left alone."
4. He did actually flirt with Taylor Swift. Just not in person. "I felt like a totally ignorant, uneloquent person," he said of his encounter with the pop starlet backstage at an Owl City show in New York in 2009. Things went a little smoother when they talked via e-mail. "The e-mails weren't crazy like, 'Let's date each other.' They were a little flirty, is all, as friends more or less. I remember writing the word 'wonderstruck' to her, and she said she had never heard that word used before. So it was funny how that wound up in her 'Enchanted' song."
