We don’t know her name, we don’t know her age, but we do know that her music is brightening up the music scene. Only known as Lights, she has been working on her music career in Toronto for the past few years, although she spent most of her life moving across various parts of the world, including Jamaica and the Philippines, as the daughter of missionaries.
Lights really got her start on MySpace. She started out performing songs on videos from her bedroom. She would use some synths along with her computer to make her music in the beginning. Soon with her charming voice, unique style, and quirky videos, she began to get a following. In fact, she hit number one on the charts on MySpace music. Several songs of hers have been featured by Old Navy commercials, after an artistic director from the company was inspired by her music on MySpace.
When she performs on stage, Maurie, the drummer, and Adam, the keyboardist, join her. She picked them out herself when she decided to take her music further than her bedroom. She found her drummer after meeting many drummers for the position, and the keyboardist she found on the first try – he was the only one that responded to her ad for a keyboards guy.
So why the name Lights? Well she states that this is a part of her last name and that for many years people have been calling her by this name. She also feels that it “totally explains what my music is about.” Lights wants her music to lighten the moods and feelings of others, and this too is part of the reason she goes on using this name.
Her sound is a feel good, pop style, with a hint of techno. She states that her goal is to make people “apple pie” happy with her music, and her music does bring a smile to your face. You can find her music on MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and iTunes is selling her music now too. She can be followed on Twitter as well, through many venues she video blogs, updating on a regular basis.
She writes many of her own songs, and one of those songs was used for Skate4Cancer, an organization in Toronto. The music that she doesn’t write on her own she writes and c-produces with Dave Thompson and Todd Salter, who are also musicians in the Toronto area.
For Lights, her signature style is headbands, and she is evening developing her own line of headbands that can currently be purchased. She wants people to remember her by these headbands. However, more than likely it is not the headbands that will lead her on to fame.
She’s already taking big strides in the music business. Through May she’s been singing at various places, such as the Great Escape Festival, and at the end up June begins the Vans Warped Tour, which will take her all across the United States, from Pomona, California, to Phoenix, Arizona, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Miami, Florida, and many other big cities in between.
With all her popularity, no doubt Lights will continue to rise in the industry. This is one “light” that shows no sign of burning out anytime soon.