INTERVIEW: Jenny Owen Youngs Finds Endless Collaboration on Deluxe Avalanche

Jenny Owen Youngs never really slows down. Last year's album Avalanche was her first solo album after years of immersing herself in Los Angeles' collaborative musical milieu. Youngs wanted to give the album a bit more air, and released a deluxe edition of Avalanche in November. She spoke with us about what's coming next, what she's learned from making the album, and why she felt it had much more to give.

We spoke on the podcast about how this album came together. Do you have any further reflections on Avalanche, now that you have some distance from it?

I am just so proud of the record. I love the songs, I love the arrangement and production, I love the album artwork. I feel like every record I make in the future will be informed by the things I learned from the creation process. 

You also hinted at some interesting musical projects...don't suppose I can ask how that's going?

What a fair and reasonable question!! I can't officially update you on new musical projects just yet – various albums and concepts remain simmering on the stove, but I can share two things that loom on the horizon: 

-I just announced an upcoming vinyl pressing of EXHIBIT (a museum-inspired serial song project I created in 2012, previously only available digitally from bandcamp) 

and

-I co-authored a book (Slayers, Every One of Us) with my Buffering the Vampire Slayer co-host that is coming out April 8th.So that should prevent my hands from growing idle in the first half of 2025... after which Operation: A Zillion Projects All The Time will continue full speed ahead.

The re-release has a few unreleased songs and mixes. What made it feel like they didn't make the cut at the time?

The only proper B-Side on the Deluxe edition is "Someone's Ex," a song I recorded with Josh Kaufman during the original Avalanche recording sessions. When we'd finished mixing and were preparing to go into the mastering stage, we worked together to find the right order for the tracks. The eleven songs together came in a little longer than would be ideal for cutting to a single LP, so we decided to trim the album down to ten tracks.

"Someone's Ex" presented itself as the obvious choice, not because it felt less good than the rest of the songs (I love it!), and not because it didn't align thematically with the rest of the record (it does!), but because sonically it felt like the biggest outlier. The same palette of sounds and players is present, but it's just slightly more raucous (relatively speaking) than the rest of the record. We knew immediately it was the one to hold back, always with the intention to release it eventually. 

Some songs from the album have also been remixed and covered by a range of artists. How did you choose whom to invite to take a stab at these? How did those conversations go?

Because so much of my work in music is collaborative, asking friends to be a part of the Deluxe edition just felt like a very natural way to expand the universe of the album. I'd worked with Generationals once before (they remixed my song "Dungeons and Dragons" previously.) I've written and toured a bunch with John Mark Nelson, Ben Thornewill of Jukebox the Ghost, and Jess Abbott (added bonus of accessibility, Jess and I are married so she's usually just a room or two away; it was a fairly easy ask). Ruen Brothers are my labelmates on Yep Roc, and I love what they do so much. It really felt like a getting a bunch of my friends to join the party. 

How has it been to tour on these songs? Has it been helpful to have fans give you feedback?

Writing and record music can feel a little isolated. I think songs need oxygen to really tell you what they are. Getting into rooms and performing these songs for real live people has been an absolute blast, and has deepened my understanding of the songs. There's no litmus test like a room full of people!

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