LIGHTS was born on an ice planet known as Timmins in the galaxy of Canada. Shortly after her birth, she and her family fled from the extreme temperatures because they all knew LIGHTS needed to be somewhere that she could glow, not freeze. Full Bio
THE LIGHTS STORY (so far)
LIGHTS was born on an ice planet known as Timmins in the galaxy of
Canada. Shortly after her birth, she and her family fled from the
extreme temperatures because they all knew LIGHTS needed to be
somewhere that she could glow, not freeze.
Her upbringing was full of adventures. She was really tight with
her mom and dad and sister, and they often had game nights packed with
Uno and action movies. Her family's work took her across the universe,
from the moons of Jamaica, to the comets of the Philippines.
LIGHTS was taught by her mom most days of the week. She learned
about math and science and dinosaurs and technology. She also learned
how to slice carrots Julienne style at a young age. One day out of
every week her dad would take over, and those were the days LIGHTS got
to learn about music and singing. She liked practicing piano lessons
better when she put her keyboard on the chimes setting. It was much
more rad than the piano sound.
When she was 11 light-years old LIGHTS began writing songs, but
after a couple of years she grew tired of simply putting them on paper.
For her 13th birthday her Dad took her to a studio as a gift and she
recorded "What Am I 2 U". It was an awful song when she looks back on
it, but at the time she was very stoked.
After that day of recording and finding cool sounds in the studio,
LIGHTS couldn't get enough. It was like someone had opened up a whole
new meteor shower of possibilities. When her Uber-Mother (Oma) gave her
a thousand space-dollars as a coming of age inheritance, LIGHTS
teleported as fast as she could to the music store and bought an
8-track, super old-school recording system.
In the following years, LIGHTS would write and record hundreds of
songs and put them in stacks in their colorful cases. When she wasn't
concocting songs like a mad scientist in her room, LIGHTS made drawings
and paintings all over paper and her walls and in books and even on
herself. She wrote stories and comics and collected rocks. She was
terrible at team sports though, and she prefers not to talk about it.
When she was the big 15, her intergalactic adventures led LIGHTS to
a cool spaceman who helped her record a sweet demo and get started
taking steps out into the big, wide, music world. The spaceman would
become her Spacemanager from there forward. The following years were
long and sometimes frustrating. She would jump from planet to planet
trying to find her place and sound in the musical-universe. The
pop-rock planet was pretty, but boring. The R&B belt was groovy,
but she wasn't sexy enough for it. The acoustic galaxy made her think
too much about deep emotions. The metal moon was pretty sweet, and she
joined a band there for a time. But all in all, LIGHTS was lost in
musical space.
At 18 light-years old, LIGHTS said goodbye to her family and moved
to Torontopolis. She holed up by herself in a little apartment to focus
her creativity and ambitions. During that time she learned a lot about
herself. She learned how to put all her different music planets
together for a whole new planet sound. She learned that when she was
sad, an encouraging song could lift her up. And when she was happy,
nothing could bring her down. She learned to say exactly what she
wanted to say. One year later, in the month of February, she wrote a
song that would open the door to everything she had been waiting for.
Soon afterward, people all across the galaxy would begin to see LIGHTS
for themselves (mainly on her spaceMyspace).
After having found her sound, LIGHTS decided it was time to bring
her music to the stage, but she had no friends in the big city except
for Spacemanager and her pet tarantulalien, Lance. And Lance couldn't
play instruments with his spindly arms. So she posted ads around town,
in music stores, and online for a synth sidekick, and a stellar
drummer. She found Adam and Maurie, two tubular musicians, and they all
got along and stuck together like intergalactic space goo. After they
had all had enough of taking local space transportation and cosmic
taxis to gigs, LIGHTS got an old meals-on-wheels UFO and it became
their tour van. You can still kind of see where it says "Elderly Aliens
Transportation" on it.
I know that even though my space expeditions up until now have been
crazy and confusing at times, my work will never end and I still have a
long way to go. Even though I am small and get scared, I am getting
more brave every day because I have a great team around me every step
of the way, and I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be in the
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