“Guitar saved my life… I need to do this for myself” Yvette Young is embracing her own power
Yvette Young will throw herself into the deep end – literally. You’ll see from the photoshoot for this Guitar.com Cover that the Californian guitar wizard was not shy about diving into a Los Angeles swimming pool, instrument in hand, so we could get the shot.
But that spirit of throwing caution to the wind and embracing new things also applies to her music career. You probably first witnessed Young through her head-spinning polyphonic tapping in the math-rock band Covet. Lately, she’s been trying other things.
Yvette Young is on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Aubree Estrella for Guitar.com
The guitar on James Gunn’s new Superman movie soundtrack, including the wonderfully trippy, synthy guitar that lifts its version of that iconic John Williams theme into the stratosphere? That’s her – along with fellow guitarist Andrew Synowiec – but that’s not the half of it. At the tail end of last year, Young began releasing new music under her own name for the first time. As typified by latest single, Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind, it’s a far cry from what fans might have expected: it has vocals, and it’s a pop song… albeit one with some sick guitar work in it. It feels like a bold new direction.
“I like everything, y’know?” Young tells us from a sofa in her home and studio in the mountains outside LA, her rescue dog Bub happily curled up on her lap. “To play it safe is to find the one thing you’re good at and do that the rest of your life. But is that fulfilling? I don’t think so. I would like to explore my own potential as much as I can and try to find out how I can feel fulfilled.”
Image: Aubree Estrella for Guitar.com
And that means not constraining herself to one project, one genre, one anything. Whether it’s composing music for hit movies, video games or even an alarm clock – she’s just finished creating some ambient sounds for use by smart-sleep device maker Hatch.
This varied musical existence is “the key to not becoming cynical,” she reflects. “A lot of people end up at a point in their career where they’re like, ‘I know everything and I figured out everything’. But like, hell no. There’s always new music coming out, and so much to learn and consume and be inspired by. I just want to continue pushing myself to grow and find new sounds, to make myself uncomfortable and challenge myself.”
“I don’t want to be a background character in my own project anymore”
Comfort In Sound
Making yourself uncomfortable creatively is one thing: it’s another to experience that in a professional context. Fans of Covet will know that the trio’s lineup was overhauled in 2022, and that the band hasn’t released any new music since 2023’s pointedly titled Catharsis. The fact that Young is now releasing music as a solo artist doesn’t feel like an accident.
“I’ve had a really rough time with my band,” she admits wearily. “Just getting screwed over. I’ve encountered a lot of really bad situations with all that. So now I really want to carve out a work environment that feels safe and healthy.”
Image: Aubree Estrella for Guitar.com
Part of that involved her reframing her relationship with her artistry, and her band. “I was very shy about even calling myself a musician,” she reveals. “Recently I’ve been more comfortable embracing my own power and embracing that Covet is music that I wrote.”
To outsiders, Young may have always seemed the focal point of Covet, but she never wanted to view it that way.
“This is gonna sound weird, but I wanted it to appear like the illusion of a band,” she explains. “Because I was too shy to be like, ‘This is my project.’ I was very averse to being the frontwoman. I wanted it to be egalitarian. But I don’t want to be a background character in my own project anymore.”
Image: Aubree Estrella for Guitar.com
While she’s going to head out on a short west coast tour with Covet later this year, she’s also keen to defy the pigeonholes that technically exceptional guitar players can often find themselves in. “In this world, it’s so easy to be put in a niche,” she agrees. “And then everyone labels you as that. Like that’s the only thing you’re capable of doing. But I just want to keep on throwing people for loops.
“I want everyone to know that I can write pop songs, but I can also do all the guitar for a film… That’s why, I guess, I put this music out under my name. Because I’m trying to make people more aware that, hey, I’m not just tappy shredder girl!”
“No one’s going to translate the weirdo vision you have in your head better than you”
Surgical Precision
Her trajectory from classically trained violinist and pianist to “tappy shredder girl” and social media phenom is “crazy”, Young says now.
“I was a teacher, and I just made a bunch of technical tapping videos, because that’s the music that I was into at the time,” she recalls. “That’s just kind of how my ADHD brain works, you know? And they went viral.”
But that’s also a version of Yvette Young that’s over a decade old. “I’ve grown a lot. I’ve developed a lot. I’ve consumed a lot of music, I’ve played a bunch of music, and I think I’ve matured a lot as not only as a musician, but as a person.”
Making music of such remarkable technical precision creates its own pressures – one that Young realised was sapping the joy she gets from performing.
Image: Aubree Estrella for Guitar.com
“After touring so much, I do not enjoy sweating bullets, having to nail every little surgical run,” she admits. Smartphones, and the prospect that every gig might live forever online, heaped further pressure on to her, creating sky-high expectations she’s trying to sidestep with her new material.
“Am I the mirthful, hopping around on stage, happy person who’s making playing music look fun, expressive and happy? That’s how I want to be.”
Treating music as a quest for perfection can thoroughly damage the psyche. Young, who entered many classical competitions as a child, knows this better than most.
“The reason why I hated music when I was younger was because it was sold to me as a sport,” she insists. “I was constantly measuring myself up to other people. I think it leads to a lifetime of general unhappiness if you’re always examining yourself relative to other people. Music should be the antithesis of that. Music should be something that uplifts you.
Image: Aubree Estrella for Guitar.com
“I’m here to hammer home that it’s about having fun. It’s about self expression and exploring your identity. It’s about discovering your own voice and trying to carve your own path. And that is the most fulfilling, the most sustainable path you can take in this career.”
Young is at pains to emphasise she’s not ungrateful for the career that social media and fans of her more overtly technical stuff have helped her carve out – “I have what I have because people believed in me” – but she also wants them to respect her need to grow as an artist.
“I need people to know that guitar saved my life,” she explains. “When I was deeply depressed and struggling with mental health, it was the thing that I clung to – my life jacket during that time. So I need to do this for myself. I can’t listen to what people want me to do… I’m a people-pleaser in every aspect of my life, but music is the one thing that I’m like, I’m sorry. I’m not gonna take orders.”
“I’m here to hammer home that music is about having fun”
Where The Heart Is
To do things on her own terms required an uprooting of sorts. Young moved to the woods and with the help of her partner, Welsh musician Novo Amor, built a studio in the loft of her house. It’s a space full of soft light, pale wood and cool gear – and it came along at just the right moment.
“It’s been life-changing for me,” she enthuses. “Through years of experience going to studios now, I realised I am a very particular person. And because I write all the music and I have all these ideas… no one’s going to translate the weirdo vision you have in your head better than you.
“This is the most Californian shit I’ll ever say, but I really do absorb the energy of everyone around me. I’ve been in studios where someone’s grumpy or someone says something that’s kind of mean. People made me cry in studios just by being a bully or misogynistic. That is the least inspiring environment. I know sometimes people benefit from tough love. I don’t. I need a very welcoming environment where I don’t feel judged.”
Image: Aubree Estrella for Guitar.com
Having her own space has not only freed Young up to make the music she wants to, but to take on all kinds of projects, from her own solo material to the Superman recording.
“It’s crazy how life works,” she remarks. “All these jobs that I’m getting, I would not have been able to do in my bedroom. So the fact that I now have a studio, it’s almost like the universe was like, ‘Hell yeah, now you’re ready’. And they released the floodgates.”
And now that those floodgates have been thrown wide open, the natural question is to ask what’s next for Yvette Young. She’s sure about what isn’t – the “relic of the past” that is a typical album-and-tour release cycle – but otherwise, she’s staying open-minded.
“Life throws you surprises,” she says. “I just want to make music I’m excited about now and put that out while I’m excited about it, and then see what happens… I freaking love making things. It makes me feel whole. Maybe it’s dangerous to put my self-worth on that, but unfortunately, that’s just how I’m wired!”
Words: Josh Gardner
Photography: Aubree Estrella
Glam/Styling: Yvette Young
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