It's been a big week for Lights. The singer dropped her sixth album A6 last Friday (May 2), and she just embarked on her tour in support of it yesterday (May 8). The new record is a bit of a departure for the BC-based artist, who recorded half of it at the wilderness compound she shares with her family, and the other half in Berlin to hone in on its German darkwave influences.
While visiting Toronto ahead of A6's release, Lights took the Exclaim! Questionnaire and talked about Chad Kroeger demanding a discount from a record store she worked at as a teen, Canadian icon Céline Dion and more. Read what she had to say below, then scroll to the bottom to see her take the video iteration of the Exclaim! Questionnaire.
What are your current fixations?
German darkwave and mushroom coffee and nature walks. I have one foot in nature and one foot in in a dank, dark space working on music, and that's kind of the heart of everything I've been working on lately.
Why do you live where you do?
I live in the bush, about an hour from Vancouver, but we're here in Toronto right now, and I used to live in Toronto. I miss it so much. I love it. I live where I live because my family lives out there, and I like being close to my family. It's really nice. We actually live in this big compound with all of my parents, my sister's family and everything. We all live in the same house, and my parents are kind of like hippies, and we've built out this big permaculture garden. There's a whole extension that's off the grid. So there's part of me that really likes that. Like I said, one foot in the wilderness, and then the other foot is, like, going to the airport and trying to get out and do stuff so I don't get cabin fever.
What has been your most memorable concert experience?
I recently saw Explosions in the Sky play in Vancouver, and they only spoke at the very beginning of the set and then at the end, and the in between was just music and vibes, and it was the best. I'm such a big fan of the band. They've influenced me a lot over the years.
What advice should you have taken, but didn't?
Oof. Sometimes taking advice is hard because you don't know actually what's going to pay off. I think, years and years ago, I was told to trust my instinct, and I think that's probably the most common advice you could give somebody, but it's hard to do. It's really hard to just go inward and trust your abilities, and it took me a long time to get to a point where I do. So I think, for years, I didn't trust myself. I didn't necessarily take the steps towards the visions that I've dreamed of, because I didn't think I was capable of it. But looking back at all the things I've accomplished over the years, it's because I trusted my abilities and my instincts. So if I had only done that earlier, you go, "Where would I be now?" You can't look back and regret, but I would say that the best advice is that, and you just have to trust it and trust your own skill set that you've built over the years.
What was the first song you ever wrote?
I wrote this song called "Saturn's Rings." I just bought a little BR-8, which is a little 8-track recording unit back in the day to, like, Zip disc. I'm really dating myself here, but it was this in-between tech that just didn't really pan out. And I wrote this song called "Saturn's Rings" that was kind of spacey and synth-y and had a bunch of reverb and stuff. Oh, I gotta dig it up! I gotta find it, because it wasn't bad. It was bad, but it wasn't bad, and it was my first time experiencing making something that I could just listen back to that slaps. It's about Saturn.
That sounds very early Lights.
It was probably the precursor to everything that I became.
What was the first album you ever bought with your own money?
It was definitely a Céline Dion CD. It was probably that album that was like, "Where does my heart beat now?" What does that cover look like? I can't remember. So the first, like, 10 albums I bought were Céline Dion albums from Columbia House. Do you remember Columbia House? Oh, my God. It was a short period of time where you would get these stamps and put them into a letter and mail it back, and then they would mail you CDs. It was a weird time in buying music, but it was pre-Napster [or] any of that.
What drew you to Céline Dion?
I was such a diva-style singer back then, when I was younger. I just loved Mariah Carey and Barbara Streisand and Whitney Houston. I learned to sing that way, but when I actually started making my own music, I pared it back a lot, and was like, "Okay, how can I show that I produce and write? I'm gonna have to pretend I can't sing like this." And then I sang really lo-fi, and then started really ripping a little bit later with more range and vocal gymnastics. But back then, I was really only singing like that. And Céline — she's a Canadian icon. The songs were amazing. She just always seemed like a good person, too. I think there's not a single person who doesn't like Céline Dion. Not in this country!
What's been your strangest celebrity encounter?
I remember I used to work at a music store in Langley [BC] at Tom Lee, and I was a teenager. And I remember Chad Kroeger came in, and Nickelback was pretty massive at that time. I mean, still, but they were massive back then, too. And I remember, he came in and leaned on the counter, and I was 18, and I looked kind of like a weird goth fairy. And he like, slammed his hands on the counter. He's like, "What's my discount?" And I was like, "I'll get the manager." Anyways, I always thought that was kind of weird. Like, don't you have money?
Did he get a discount?
I think he got a discount. Yeah. He probably, like, funded the store. So that was it.
What is the greatest song of all time?
This is so hard because there's a few, but I think my favourite — I think the saddest song is "The Winner Takes It All" by ABBA. That's the saddest song in the world. But my favourite song to listen to, because it makes me feel amazing, is probably "Coconut Kiss" by Niki & the Dove.
What makes you angry?
I don't get angry a lot. I took an anger management course in [the] pandemic so that I wouldn't get angry. You know what makes me angry? This is gonna sound really bad, but religion. I think I had a hard time. I was raised quite religious, and then spent years deconstructing out of it and feeling anger for all the things that I believed and fell for. So that's what I went to my anger management courses. Did I say too much? I'm not actually an angry person. It was just through Headspace. I was just on my bathroom floor, but it was fine.
I feel like any sort of self-help class during the pandemic helped, because we're all little hermits now. We can't stand at a show for two hours without freezing up.
I've gone to a lot of cons over the years — like, Comic-Cons and stuff. And as the years go on, it's funny to watch the evolution of people going to cons being so conscious of their personal space. Now, when there's a crowded room, you just see everybody needing timeouts against the walls and stuff, because people are just more aware of needing space. It's really funny.
What are you up to?
My album A6 [came out May 2], and I produced everything myself. I'm really excited about it. This album was like half made at home in the wilderness place I was telling you about, and I spent a lot of time finishing in Berlin as well. There's German darkwave influences. And I really hope everybody loves the experience of listening to it as much as the experience I had making it.