LIGHTS in the city

"Iiiiiiiiiiiice. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiice." A chorus of voices elongate throughout the swelling crowd. There are too many headbands to count; oodles of them say LIGHTS, some even glow.

It’s a Saturday night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre. Tweens in tights are packed tightly in a bobbing, beaming mass as Lights smiles and points out over the crowd, conducting thick strands of voices as heavy as the heat on the dance floor. The raven haired pixie, whose sound so many have come to recognize (thanks Old Navy), bounces from side to side as her fingers fly over the keyboard before her. Her petite frame is accentuated in a tiny purple tee and black short skirt. “Cause all I see is you not feeling and you’re giving me nothing niiiiiiice. I tried to do you right, why’d you have to go and turn to iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.”

Recently this Canadian girl has been touring and finishing her first full length album, which is set to release in August or September.

“I just have to do a couple more mix tweaks and it’s done,” she says, over the phone from New York. “I’m really happy with it.”

Due to Much Music exposure and lots of radio airplay, her Canadian fans amount to much more than those in the States. She says that a lot of people south of the border discover her on the internet, as opposed to the radio, a new trend that has erupted with MySpace. Then there are her video blogs which spawned last fall on YouTube, where she posts updates about tours, the life and times of her pet spider, Lance, and discussions with talking shower curtains.

“I’m always looking for different ways to announce information,” she says. She cites one of her first episodes where she constructed a puppet version of herself, to announce the release of her EP in the States, bubble dialogue style. Watching her video blogs gives you the sense that her life unfolds comic-book-style, with lots of “zing’s” and ray guns. In a way, that’s the idea.

“So for people that are watching, I’m like, this is a cool way to get information out and people get to know your personality a bit more along the way.”

Though the process is time consuming, Lights is always concocting new methods for broadcasting fresh news. She doesn’t want fans to forget about her while she’s touring.

Apparently they are tuned in. After mentioning her obsession with beef jerky in one episode, concert-goers started bringing her the tasty treat. Other gifts include socks and cold medication.

“Some people bring me teddy bears of Lance, because they know that I miss him, it’s funny,” she says, a smile in her voice. The pair has faced their fair share of long-distance issues (watch YouTube episodes 18 and 19 for some background).

I ask how Lance is adapting to the Lights doll replica that she made in hopes of giving him company in her absence. “I don’t think he likes it to be honest. He keeps hassling me and being like, ‘When are you coming back.’ So clearly he’s not getting any enjoyment out of it. I need to go home and be with him,” she says, giggling.

I join in, “It doesn’t really live up to you, I guess.”

“It doesn’t really, no,” she replies. “It doesn’t really do anything, it just sits there.”

It’s safe to say that Lance is a smart spider.

At the Phoenix, Lights tosses two paper airplanes with written messages into the crowd. The second aircraft ker-plunks sharply into some girls near the stage. “I hope I didn’t poke your eye out,” she exclaims, laughing.

The song “Ice,” should be her next prospective music video. “It was a really cool, like low budget video. I spent like a week holed up in my apartment making all the cut outs for it so it should be interesting.” Although Lights wants to keep the concept a secret, she says it will be cute. “I don’t actually make an appearance in it until towards the end of it. It’s basically all paper dolls.”

New material she performs in Toronto includes, “Saviour,” “Second Go,” “River,” and a cover of “In the Air Tonight.” She says that while her time on tour usually consists of long commutes and down time in hotels, unwritten songs are always accumulating.

“It just kind of starts to well up inside my mind, all the ideas and everything. It’s in between tours that I get a chance to sit down and finish it all.”

Aside from running out of gas, running into freak blizzards, and getting their GPS jacked, touring has been mellow. As for her superpower of choice, teleportation, it would certainly come in handy while performing.

“You could like go to Moscow and do a show, and then in the same day go to…umm the Yukon Territories and do a show. That would be awesome. And then you could teleport right back to your bed and that would be really good.”

For someone as busy as Lights, it sounds well deserved.

*Featured on Mutedmag.com