Lights w/ X Ambassadors
Blue Moose Tap House — Tuesday at Feb 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Canadian singer-songwriter Lights (Valerie Poxleitner) plays the Blue Moose Tap House on Tuesday. Lights won over critics and fans alike with her 2011 Siberia, an album which innovatively crossed her synthpop sound with other electronic music genres like hip hop and dubstep. Lights is currently touring in support of her much awaited follow-up album Little Machines.
Little Village recently talked with Lights about her approach to song-writing, the direction she is currently taking her music in, and tour life with her husband and baby daughter.
There’s been a big progression from your early work from The Listening to Little Machines. They’re both albums that are easy to connect with lyrically, but Little Machines is much more triumphant. What’s inspired that kind of movement in your lyricism over the years?
I think it’s just growth. I think I’m growing as an artist and as a person, as a musician and a performer. Every day, every year, every experience. You put all that into your work. When I was writing The Listening, I was eighteen-nineteen…I really couldn’t know much about myself, let alone my art yet.
I think as time goes on you become a lot more familiar with what you’re good at and what ideas are good and which ones aren’t. You kind of just let it happen subconsciously. But I think with this record, I did put a heavy intention on trying to make something that was a really great pop album. I focused on writing great stand-alone songs, something sort of anthemic for the hard times and the good ones. I just wanted to make something that felt good.
When it comes to making a record and assembling a team to create that record, where do you start? What do you find are the most important components that you work with?
I think the most important thing is having a vision for what you want to create, one that will end up dictating what ends up happening at the end of the song — what vibe it’s going to have, what instruments you want to use.
There’s a song on Little Machines called “Speeding.” I remember that day I was driving in LA and I was speeding, got a speeding ticket, but I was listening to this really heavy downtempo electronic music, and it was really feel-good. After that a writing session and just thought “I’m going to write a really heavy downtempo electronic song thats about speeding.”
You go into the session with that in mind and then you have a complete concept of what you want to create and it can happen really effortlessly. I think if you don’t have that it’s a lot more painstaking to try to put something together.
It’s clear you and your husband and daughter are super close as a family. On your Instagram, you’re seen touring and adventuring together. How has starting a family affected you musically? Has it inspired your writing?
It’s funny, I mean I actually sat down and tried to write a song specifically about being a mom and it was like the lamest song I’ve ever written (laughs). So I would say in terms of specific influence on music, it hasn’t really affected it that much.
It more so affects my outlook on life, and that obviously affects your perspective on what you’re writing about. I’m seeing her grow up so quickly. It makes you want to soak in the moment a little bit more and enjoy it. Having her in front of me makes me less worried about the things that I used to be worried about.
So you start to re-prioritize the things that stress you out and suddenly it just becomes about recognizing those moments where you really love what’s happening and forgetting about all the other stuff. That’s what Little Machines became about, that’s what the songs became about. Write something that keeps you in the moment and all the bullshit kind of fades away for those few minutes.
What are you looking forward to this summer? Are you touring straight through? Playing any festivals?
Yeah, we’re playing lots of festivals. There’s one in Burlington, Ontario… what’s the other one… but yeah doing a lot of festivals starting with Coachella, which is going to be a blast. I’ve never been, let alone played. So that’ll be really fun.
What’s cool is on the last Canadian tour I brought out World Vision, which is a great organization I’ve been working with for a long time. We try to get kids sponsored from overseas. I actually grew up in the Philippines, so it was really important to get kids from the Philippines, we picked a village, and tried to sponsor as many kids over the course of the tour as we could. We ended up sponsoring almost a hundred kids from this tour for this tiny village. So I’m hoping I can actually make a trip there soon and see what kind of change has been affected for that small village because of our tour. It was such a special thing because everybody felt like they were really making a difference.
Are you thinking far out enough as to what you’re going to be doing after the tour? You’ve explored a tremendous range of sounds both electronically and acoustically, do you know which direction in which to head after the Little Machines Tours?
I don’t know. I mean, I’ve honestly been writing lots and lots and lots of stuff. And done a couple EDM collabs that are wicked fun, with Borgeous that are coming out. Just kind of like keeping the muscle up but not really sure where sonically I’m going to go next.
With Little Machines it was like, “let me try and write all these songs first,” and then I figured out where it was going to go musically. That was kind of the first time where I’d done that. Where the song came first and then you figure out how you’re going to build it up later. It makes for something really interesting, it reminded me that as long as the song is good you can figure out the direction later.
What is your advice for aspiring musicians, specifically singer-songwriters in a time where there are so many electronic producers out there that are making music but aren’t necessarily singing on it or writing their own lyrical material. What would you say to someone who is trying to eke out a songwriters’ path in this current musical landscape?
If you have something to say, say it — don’t let the fact that other people just make music deter you. I look at it like it is such a thing in the EDM world, it is it’s own animal. It’s very different from rock and roll. It’s very different from song writing. It’s so prepared. Don’t look at it like that’s your competition (laughs). It’s two different things.
I’ve always been told this along the way and I think it’s the best advice that’s ever been given to me — you have to carve your own pocket out for yourself. You have to make your own space, because if you don’t have a vision for your craft, someone else is going to make that for you, and that’s not the best way. Just write. Keep writing. Keep working on your craft, carve your own place out in the world. People will find you, I can assure you that.
How did you find your niche audience, your core ride-or-die fans? How did you find them and connect with them?
Thanks to social media, honestly. We were like blessed with it. There’s obviously good things about it and bad things about it. It’s the reason the music industry is so flailing right now.
At the same time it’s the reason why young, small-time, unknown artists can make their mark and that’s exactly what I did. I wrote and I’d been writing for years. Myspace came out, so I started putting songs out on Myspace. I started making video blogs so my fans got to know me, connected to me through that. I started to build this really dedicated, core group of fans and started touring on it and built it up over time.
I’ve kind of taken pride in the fact that my music has never been over-hyped — or blown up overnight or anything like that. It’s been a slow burn, but that is what builds the strongest empire over time, I think.
That’s something that a lot of people, a lot of musicians anymore, it’s as though you have to approach it as though it’s a small business. That you have to make sure you will continue to make money with your music tomorrow as you will today.
Everything’s an investment. And know as long as you start small and build it up and you’ll work your way to something big eventually. And that’s where we’re at.
I’m amazed everyday at where we are. And I’ve been doing this for seven or eight years and it’s been a slow build. But I get to have my family out on the road and make a good living off of it and make music and do what I love.
You don’t need anything more than what makes you happy, you know?
