Brian Young - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Over the last decade, Brian Young has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the world's premier power-pop drummers. He first gained attention as a member of the legendary Posies, one of the most influential and respected bands to emerge from the early-90's Seattle scene. After recording and touring with the Posies for the first half of the decade, he then joined New York's Fountains of Wayne in 1996; the group has since recorded five highly acclaimed major label albums, were nominated for 2 GRAMMY Awards and toured the world numerous times. Typifying the kind of critical praise heaped on the band, Mojo Magazine recently described Fountains of Wayne as almost better than anything, ever.
In Brian's playing, one can often detect classic influences like Cheap Trick's Bun E. Carlos, Ringo Starr, and Blondie's Clem Burke, combined with a hard-hitting, aggressive style befitting todays modern rock. But having worked in two prominent groups with two eclectic songwriters each, Young knows how to give exactly what is required to support any kind of song that is thrown at him. On the Fountains of Wayne album, Welcome Interstate Managers, he can be found switching styles effortlessly, from straight-ahead rockers like Bright Future In Sales and Little Red Light to the 60s-style psychedelia of tracks like Bought For A Song and Supercollider; from the 80's New Wave pastiche Stacy's Mom to delicate ballads like Hackensack and Valley Winter Song and also the percussion sans-drumkit Hey Julie.
Indeed, Brian's diverse abilities allow him stretch far beyond the world of power pop. In his spare time, he has also managed to record and/or perform with artists such as Jim Carroll, Burt Bacharach, The Walkabouts, America, Greg Dulli, Mark Lanegan, Japanese pop megastar Junko Yagami and numerous others.
He is currently on a world tour with Fountains of Wayne through the end of 2008.

My Blog

Tributosaurus LA becomes THE KINKS, Friday May 23rd at Molly Malone’s

Hey Everyone --I've been invited by the Tributosaurus folks to sit in with them at Molly's, May 23rd (see below). You can visit their MySpace here.Hope to see you there!-----------------------------Ve...
Posted by Brian Young on Tue, 13 May 2008 10:33:00 PST

News You Can Abuse -- April 08 ...

A couple things -- I recently played on a record by a band called The Meadows and it's really turned out fantastic. It's a pop-duo songwriting team comprised of Todd Herfindal and Kevin Houlihan. As o...
Posted by Brian Young on Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:30:00 PST

Fountains of Wayne Spain and NYC Dates Posted ...

1.11.08 Murcia, Spain Murcia Auditorium 1.12.08 Valencia, Spain Mirror Club 1.14.08 Santiago, Spain DC Capitol 1.17.08 Madrid, Spain Joy Eslava 1.18.08 Bilbao, Spain Kafe Antzo...
Posted by Brian Young on Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:49:00 PST

Other recent happenings ...

Played a holiday show recently with Amy Farris who opened up for The Knitters at Safari Sam's. For those of you who might not know, they're comprised largely from members of the seminal group 'X'. It ...
Posted by Brian Young on Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:44:00 PST

Final 07 News ...

Just finished producing a tune for a Posies tribute record. I always thought it'd be fun to do a full-band arrangement of Coming Right Along ... the original Frosting on the Beater version is a fairly...
Posted by Brian Young on Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:33:00 PST

Recent Projects Anat ...

Was wanting to post some on some things I've been working on lately -- apart from the new Fountains of Wayne stuff of course. (see previous BLOG entry).AMERICA -- I worked on their forthcoming disc t...
Posted by Brian Young on Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:53:00 PST

Fountains of Wayne Release Traffic and Weather

Our new album, Traffic and Weather, was released yesterday on April 3rd ... Make sure to pick up a copy (link below) -- also, check out our new Yellow Submarine flavoured website.http://www.fountains...
Posted by Brian Young on Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:58:00 PST

Modern Drummer and DRUM! Magazine Interviews

I have interviews this month in Modern Drummer and DRUM! Magazines, a 4-page feature and awrite-up in the VIBE section, respectively -- check them out if you can. I haven't seen or read transcripts my...
Posted by Brian Young on Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:00:00 PST

New Fountains of Wayne Record Release + Recent Musings

The new record, TRAFFIC AND WEATHER, is due to be released April 3rd, 2007 ... links to pre-order the album, along with sound clips, can be found at our Official Website. There's a clip of a song that...
Posted by Brian Young on Wed, 07 Mar 2007 02:58:00 PST