Lights, Vogue Theatre, Tuesday, Nov. 15. Sold out.
LIGHTS knows exactly where she wants to go with her pop music. To the dark side.
Unapologetic about messing with a successful formula the Canadian electro-pop star likes to keep things interesting and moving forward. Her new album builds on sounds she's been developing for quite some time but also takes the material in entirely new directions. As a kid her family moved around a lot and Lights' music follows the same restless trajectory.
"It was amazing. I feel very blessed I was raised that way," she says on the phone from a tourstop in rainy San Diego. "We lived in the Philippines for a few years and Jamaica for a little bit. I was pretty young but it helped to build a solid family foundation and kind of set me up for this lifestyle where it's up and go all the time. At a young age I learned it's not about where you are or what you have it's about who you're with that determines your happiness."
Some of Lights earliest memories revolve around soundscapes. Her parents were missionaries and music played a big part in their everyday life. She remembers taking road trips with her dad and singing at the top of their lungs all the way. In the Philippines he would sing her to sleep with his music. "You hear things in the night that you probably shouldn't be hearing," she recalls. "My dad would sit down in the living room and play his acoustic guitar and help me fall asleep. At a young age I was aware music had that kind of power and was special like that. I think maybe, subconsciously, it was always something I wanted to do and when my fingers were strong enough he taught me how to play. I started writing and playing when I was 11 and I never stopped."
Lights father raised her on Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and Beatles records. "He's a big fan of good pop and rock'n'roll," she says. "I think his music emulates that a little bit but he does like worship stuff (with his own music). The idea of worship music is to be memorable. You learn it halfway through the song so you can sing along by the second chorus - really simple, really melodic and really anthemic and that is in essence what pop music is. Pop music should have all those properties as well I think. He taught me not so much theory as just to play it by ear and go by your instincts."
North Shore News: You started working as a musician at a very young age.
Lights: I met my manager when I was 15, Jian (Ghomeshi), and we've been a great team ever since. He's so trusted and such a good friend.
I've been so blessed to have people around me that teach me the right things. Gary and Dave at Sony/ATV in Toronto kind of took me under their wing and tried to show me what a good song is. I'd been writing songs I guess at that point about five or six years, just on my own kind of indulging me and knowing what I like, but not necessarily knowing how to tailor it to what other people are going to like.
It's important as an artist to have boundaries and set yourself guidelines. There's a formula and that's not bad - it just makes it more of a challenge to work within a certain frame that will be understood by the listener. That's the beauty of it and that's what I was taught by them, and from there I've just kept going.
North Shore News: Siberia changes things up quite a bit. What led to the shift in the music?
Lights: It's basically a representation of where I am right now musically. I think it's important that the music catches up with you wherever you are in your life and surprisingly it's trickier than it sounds - especially when you have one record out and you have fans and expectations of how your second record is supposed to sound. It was a bit of a struggle to actually even let myself make something I really wanted to. The safe place is to make the same thing over because you know it worked but we didn't do that thanks to the awesome people around me like Jian. They encouraged me all the time to make sure I was not afraid and was doing the music that was right for me at the time. Naturally we keep on progressing - a little grittier, a little heavier electro stuff, a lot of dubstep stuff. It just started to ring in my ears that it would be a perfect marriage - a hard gritty contrast with the soft pop melodies that I'd been making before. How cool would that juxtaposition be? So naturally I started to go that way with the music and then obviously bringing Holy F___ into the picture really helped direct that as well.
North Shore News: What was it like working with them?
Lights: It was amazing. I'm so fortunate. We met them at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. I wouldn't have at that point figured we would work together but once I decided I wanted to go a little darker it was Jian's suggestion, 'Why don't you collaborate with Holy F___?' So we got together and just jammed for the first day which isn't the way to create electro music. Typically electro is perfectly organized and structured and when you record you can go back and fix it. (With Holy F___) you're sitting in the dining room and they have all their junk spread out on the table, all these wires everywhere with this little keyboard that's strung through the drum machine, which is strung through a compressor, which is strung through a gainer. Every chord I was playing was affected by the distortion pedals and the drum machine itself so all these things are happening and it's all happening live and it's all invented as we're creating it. From that jam session came the bed tracks for "Siberia" and "Everybody Breaks A Glass" and then the last nine minutes, where this nine-minute instrumental ends the record, called "Day One." So we went from perfectly structured pop tunes to complete chaos which we were patching together to make songs and it brought this life to it that maybe wasn't there when everything was so perfect.
North Shore News: Shad comes in on a couple of tracks.
Lights: I've respected his work for so long, his delivery, he's so natural and he's such a humble character. We wrote this song - I was in the studio with Thomas and Jason from USS and they were helping us build some beats. It's called "Flux and Flow" and it's gritty and soft at the same time. It's a great representation of the record as a whole even the process of creating the record which is the unknown ups and downs, the flux and flows. The bridge came along and I thought, "I want Shad on this." But it wasn't because I wanted a rap on it I wanted Shad on it. Shad is in a category of his own.
North Shore News: How's the reaction been to the new stuff?
Lights: It's been awesome. I knew that I wanted to make a little bit of a change but I was extremely proud of the change and very confident that this was the way to go. It can be construed by fans a bit differently and I was prepared for some adversity but I have been so blown away by the response. People seem to be latching on to it and totally down with the evolution of me as an artist and the way that the songs are. All the songs can be stripped down and played acoustically so it doesn't matter what you put on there, there are songs there, and that's the most important thing - the music - that's what this industry is founded upon. People are really on board with it. It's exciting we're three weeks into this tour and live the new songs are so fun to play. People are already singing them and today marks the one month anniversary of this record being out and people already know so many of the words.
North Shore News: On the 15th you will be here at the Vogue.
Lights: I can't wait. I'm hoping that Shad can join us for that show. Plus my family's going to come out for it. Vancouver is one I always look forward to.
