In 2009 during her North American tour and just before winning the award for best new artist and the Juno Awards (Canada’s version of the Grammy Awards), Lights sat down with The Truth About Music’s Harris Decker for a small look into her cosmic life. This interview occurred just before her show at Webster Theater on February 7th, 2009.

Harris: Could you Give me a little background on how you started performing?

Lights: I was home schooled up until high school because we moved a lot moving all over the world so one day of every week my dad would take over teaching me and that was the day we got to learn about music. I used to look forward to that day because it was easy, we didn’t have to do math and science and I guess that instilled a passion for music early on. When I was 11 I got my first guitar and my dad taught me my first 3 chords and I immediately wrote my first song, I was just so eager to write a song so I did, and then over the following 2 years I learned that there was a lot more to songwriting than just songwriting there was such much more around it like strings and glockenspiels and drums and all these ideas I had, production ideas as I know now. I got my first 8 track when I was 13 and put together a little demo and it’s just been an uphill climb ever since just getting better at what I do. I was fortunate enough to get started early, and get all the crappy ideas out when it didn’t really matter.

Harris: What other instruments do you play?

Lights: I used to a lot more, I don’t carry it so much now (Glockenspiel). The weird thing is I consider myself able to play a lot of instruments, almost everything, but I’m not exceptionally good at any one of them. I wanted to learn the cello so I rented one for 6 months and learned how to play and haven’t touched one since, but I feel like I can play it a little bit if I need to, so it’s perfect for what I need to do which is putting together the sounds that I need.

Harris: Who are your musical influences? Are there any artists around today that you stride to be like?

Lights: Oh Yea, for sure Bjork, she is incredible, she can come up with the craziest idea for production and make it sound cool and beautiful and put her charm and grace on it, without overdoing it, nothing’s cheesy, she’s kind of like this wonderful thing that I hope one day that I can have the credibility of.

Harris: Who do you think your target audience is or do you not think about things like that?

Lights: That’s the funny thing I’ve gone through spells in my career where I think about the demographic and try writing for that but It’s been a complete fail, I’ve realized that you can’t write for anyone but yourself, and so I write what I need to hear, and if someone doesn’t like it I know that’s ok because I do, but if someone does it’s awesome so basically I write what I need to hear, write what I need to say and let the audience find it. So I’m not looking at who comes out to the show, because there’s 40-50 year old people showing up, and there’s also really young people showing up, so it’s a really broad demographic, and I don’t feel bordered in when I’m writing, it’s exactly what I need to not feel limited. It’s completely detrimental to have one demographic at your shows I think it’s pretty detrimental to write for a certain group because your not going to say everything that you need to say.

Harris: What are your songs generally about? More specifically a song like “February Air?”

Lights: Usually just my emotional situation, I’m such a sucker for lyrics being spoken the way that I speak, I don’t romanticize any idea, if there’s something I’m feeling I’m going to say exactly what I would say to my friend so with February Air, I was actually drawing from a pretty emotional situation, I was away from home for a week just working with getting a publishing deal which was really close, I was in Toronto, in February it was valentines day and I was all by my self, I didn’t have any friends I didn’t know any body in the big city and it was freezing! and I was sitting in my hotel room and that song just came out and spun out of this moment of intense loneliness and it was what I wanted to say to somebody but there was no body there to say it to so I had to say it to my song. (A song is like) a capsule that you have to catch your emotions in when there super raw or else you miss your opportunity, you pour all of that into a song and that makes a melody and lyrics and all of it, it’s just like a magical beaker.

Harris: How do comics play into your music?

Lights: It’s funny how all of my passions seem to be coming to one place, all leading to one place. I’ve liked comics and sci fi for years, I’ve always liked space, I wanted to be an astronaut, and I like music, and all of the sudden there all contributing to each other which is really cool and I feel so lucky for that. It started out with me animating myself, I always draw myself, and that’s a way of realizing how you see yourself or the way you want to be and then I started to draw more and it started going onto merch, and then went on my EP cover and then I started to illustrate the bio comic and people seem to like it so. With my EP cover I didn’t want to put a picture of me on the front because I always thought that was cheesy and so cliche to have shoulder up, head shot of a girl and then the name. I figured it was meeting in the middle, animating myself shoulders up.

Harris: Do you have any non-musical influences that you draw inspiration from?

Lights: Like I said it’s mainly just moments of emotion, moments that your feeling anything more than ordinary. I’ll be really down on myself, just feeling stress or depression maybe and you just want to pour all that out and that’s the only way that you can resolve it. I’m so fortunate that I have the ability to write a song because it really does resolve the issue, so I’ll pour it all out into the song and then I can move onto the next moment of intense emotion that I manifest into a musical piece.

Harris: Where do you see yourself in three years (2012)?

Lights: I definitely hope to of had 2 records out at that point, and then having done a lot of touring I would take a break and start producing other artists that I think are going to do really well, and that just need help like I did when I was younger and I would probably have my own studio and helping other people and hopefully by then I will have a booth at comicon and I’ll make a sweet graphic novel and I’ll be able to sell it aside from my music.

Harris: How long have you been on tour as of now?

Lights: Since last september.

Harris: Have you had any favorite stops on tour?

Lights: I’ve been through all the states and it’s completely different experience than being in Canada because people in Canada know my music a lot more than people in the States so it’s easier to say I like the work in Canada because there’s the big crowds and there all singing my lyrics back to me but in the States it’s different every place you go, and there’s different things I like about different places, it’s more of an introduction to those towns who didn’t otherwise know me but it was cool to play for them because they haven’t heard of me. There’s just certain little places that I didn’t forget. I really like Salt Lake City, that was a cool place and LA obviously was a great show.

Harris: Have you shared the stage with any really cool artists?

Lights: I had the opportunity to open up for one of my favorite bands ever, Copeland and so we did a state wide tour and every night they brought me up onstage to sing with them so that was such a high moment it was such an honor to share the stage with such an incredible band.

Harris: Who do you want to tour with in the future? Do you have a wishlist?

Lights: There’s people who I would love to tour with but who I wouldn’t fit with at all so it’s hard to see it ever happening. I really like the challenge of playing with people that otherwise wouldn’t be matched with my music. I’ve done shows with a tech metal band and I’ve also done shows with Copeland who are a lot more soft so it’s cool I love the challenge, who knows anything is possible, at this point I think it would be pretty stellar to tour like Kanye West or Justice or ABBA if they were still around. (Touring with Kanye) would be really cool I think.

Harris: Are you rooting for anyone in the Grammy Awards this week?

Lights: I don’t even know who was nominated. My heads into the Juno’s which is the Canadian Grammy’s and I actually got nominated which is blowing my mind as we speak, so I’ll be really excited about that which is a few weeks from now, I was nominated for Best new Artist.

Harris: What advice would you give other artists just starting in the industry now?

Lights: I would have to say take your music and make sure you have it from front to back, not only your sound, have your sound together, finish your songs, put the right pictures and images together and get your whole package together and then put it out for the world, don’t expect the world to understand if your only half done and we have so many platforms where we can do that like Myspace or Youtube, you can create your package and put it out there, and it’s there for the world to eat up and the world is yours.

Harris: What can someone who wants to see you for the first time expect to walk away from the performance with?

Lights: Hopefully a good sing along party action fun night a place where we can all smile and throw some paper air planes and have a good time and then you can leave with a smile on your face, that’s what I hope, I hope that you leave with a smile on your face. That’s where the music industry is at an advantage right now when the rest of the world is really going down the tubes, people as opposed to going on vacation your going to go see a movie or go see a show or something and that’s where the strong points are going to be, I’m looking forward to entertaining people.