Photo Credit: Caitlin Cronenberg

There’s something radically different about Lights. At just 22 years old, this electro-pop songstress received Canada’s Juno Award in the category of “Best New Artist” for 2009. She’s featured in her very own MTV comic series (Audio Quest: A Captain LIGHTS Adventure) as a kick-ass intergalactic heroine destined to restore sound throughout the universe. Plus, her new album, The Listening, has just hit record stores and it’s packed with moving, dynamic tracks that will make you dance and elevate your mood.

While all of these things set her apart from most young female artists (especially the part about putting together a rock-solid album from start to finish), they are not what truly make her different. Lights doesn’t just write her own music; she’s a multi-instrumentalist that happens to produce it too. Her pet tarantula, Lance, scurries by where a silly miniature canine could have been yapping in its place. Instead of being driven by current trends, she chooses to embrace and exhibit her own personal style without hesitation. And instead of allowing her career or social life to push other passions out of the picture, she continues to make art, comic books, and video games an active part of her life.

When dealing with such an extraordinary individual, I can’t help but indulge in a brief moment of fantastical speculation. In the world of science-fiction, she could have been the genetically engineered, keytar-wielding “Saviour” sent to obliterate bad music. But alas, the world we live in only seems capable of manufacturing stars with mediocre music and aesthetically questionable outfits. How about an alien theory then? Maybe she came from some faraway planet, as her comic series Audio Quest suggests. Our chat proved the contrary. Her warm nature, genuine laugh, and impressively level-headed thinking proved her to be wholeheartedly human.

Ashley Schaeffer: You’ve described your style as intergalactic electro, and the sounds you use have a surreal, otherworldly quality. Do you select the sounds first and use them as inspiration for composing your arrangements, or do you write various parts for your songs on the keyboard and then match them to voices later?

Lights Poxleitner: At the core, I think it’s super important that a good song is there at the foundation. It’s just like trying to build a house without the foundation — it’s probably going to just fall over. It won’t have anything to stand on. So it’s really important if the song is stripped down (say just the acoustic guitar or the piano) so that it can stand alone. When that’s done, then I have fun with all the production: the intergalactic sounds and coming up with crazy, left-field textures and sentiments to add to the music production-wise, and then it enhances what’s already a good song.

AS: It looks like you play several different instruments, but you usually rock the key-tar on stage. Are there any musicians from the ’80s or more recent years that inspired you to pick it up?

Photo Credit: Caitlin Cronenberg

LP: [Laughs] The keytar initially started out as purely a practical device. I always like to be playing something. I’m very awkward with the mic, so I’m always playing something. And as a keyboard player, you’re stuck there in the same spot, and it’s really un-entertaining, I think, for the crowd and really boring for me. So I went to an old music store (it’s a vintage piece) and I picked it up and was like, “This could be a great way for me to be more maneuverable on stage,” and I didn’t think once that it would probably look kind of silly. But it turned out really well.

AS: It might be the next thing. You’ll probably be the one to bring it back.

LP: Thank you! Props to anyone who can pull out the key-tar with grace. That’s what I’m aiming for.

AS: Bjork is one of your primary musical influences, so it goes without saying that you’d probably love to collaborate with her. If you were to spend a day hanging out with Bjork doing anything but music, what would you plan?

LP: That’s a good question! I’ve never been asked that before — I love it. If I could hang out with Bjork…oh my goodness. I would probably do something totally mundane, like bowling, because I would like to see how Bjork does in a setting like that — how someone so left-field and quirky and creative would deal with something so mundane, and I would be so inspired by that. Maybe she would make the ball hover. I’d like to go bowling with Bjork.

AS: You draw your own comics, so how involved you were in the creation of your new album’s cover art and the drawings from your music video, “Saviour”?

LP: Let’s go with the album art, for starters. I first saw the Sailor Moon transitions at the beginning of the show, where they’re spinning around…

AS: [Sings part of Sailor Moon intro song]

LP: [Laughs] You know of it! They use their compacts and the magical makeup, and I noticed only their eyes are showing, which is kind of haunting and disturbing yet powerful and beautiful, and I’m like, this is a sentiment that I want to be conveyed with my record art, so I kept that in the back of my mind and ideas started coming together. I was really into Watchmen and Dawn of the Dead and stuff, and it had this haunted quality but yet very beautiful and graceful, and that all came through. I actually collaborated with Garnet Armstrong — a fantastic illustrator from Canada — and I told him what I wanted and he brought it to life. And same with the art from the “Saviour” video. It’s based on this character that I developed, but Robo, the director, really brought the drawings to life and made it that much more surreal. He did a great job.

AS: I’ve read that you’re an avid World of Warcraft player, and I can’t help but wonder what the race and class of your main character is.

LP: Well, I have two level 80s. One is a fury spec warrior (human), and one’s an unholy spec decay Draenei.

AS: I guess I thought you’d be a Night Elf.

LP: That’s the first one that you’d want to be because everyone wants to be a Night Elf because they’re so pretty, but my first character was a human because I tried to make it look just like me, and then I just went for the Draenei after that because the Draenei tell the best jokes. Their dances and jokes are the best, so I thought, “I’ve got to get a Draenei.”

AS: I hear you have a tattoo of Wonder Woman on your back. Of all the comic book characters out there, why did you choose to embrace her as a symbol and a muse?

LP: Wonder Woman is kind of my role model. She’s beautiful and she’s pure, and she fights with immense strength but integrity. She fights with justice and honor, and she’s not doing anything in a slimy or destructive way, and she’s doing it with grace and out of respect for everyone. And she’s an ambassador for Themyscira and a real symbol of a powerful woman. I think it’s fantastic. And she can kick ass and still look great doing it, so I feel like she’s a great symbol for us.

AS: A lot of performers (like Beyonce, for example) have alter-egos to help them break past the barriers of what most people are usually capable of. As a comic fan, you’re no stranger to this concept. Do you happen to have an alter-ego for going on stage?

LP: Generally, when it comes to my music, at the core, it is about the music and I’m very honest with myself and the things I write about. It’s very much a representation of me, so I don’t need to be anyone else. The one opportunity that arises to be someone else is in gaming, or in something like Captain LIGHTS, which is the comic I just released. So I get to live vicariously through Captain Lights, and she’s kind of the alter-ego that I can do all the fantasy-based things that are impossible in real life, so I’m taking the alter-ego thing to the max.

AS: If you could choose one superpower, what would it be and why?

LP: I would initially say teleportation because it would make touring so much easier. You could teleport yourself to Texas, do your gig, teleport yourself to Florida, do your gig… It’d be so much easier. But if I really wanted to pick one that I’d be happy with, it’d be hypersonic manipulation and abilities. One of Wonder Woman’s villains is Silver Swan, and she’s able to emit this sound that controls the people around her, and I think that’d be really cool — emit some kind of sound that can control what you wanted people to feel.

Photo Credit: Caitlin Cronenberg

AS: That could be useful when you’re performing — not that you need that.

LP: [Laughs] It’s an extreme version of what I do.

AS: You’ve probably noticed the gradual shift in the way the world is reacting to comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and gaming over the years. Ten or 15 years ago, the masses assumed that the only people who followed these trends were the geeks, nerds, and socially awkward types, but today, a lot more people seem to be drawn to them, and being nerdy in the right way is really respected. Any perspectives or thoughts on how this happened or what caused the shift?

LP: The only reason I can come up with is that they’re just an awesome entertainment device. Comics and gaming… There’s such an element for creativity, and more and more people are realizing that it’s absolutely a blast. It’s one of those things that seems like an underground community — an underground mainstream community, which is kind of an oxymoron. I don’t know if you’ve noticed as a female gamer, but if you meet another person who plays the same game as you, you feel like you have an instant connection with them. So things like that are bound to come to the surface at some point. These communities keep building — it’s a really strong community and I think it’s fantastic. All the genres are merging. Music is merging with gaming, and comics are merging with movies, so it’s all merging together and just another way to interpret your art. I hope that keeps happening because I’m having a lot of fun with it.

AS: Currently, what’s your favorite song from The Listening to perform live, and which do you feel the most emotionally connected to?

LP: Honestly, I’ve written a lot of songs, and this is the best of what I’ve created over the past couple years, so all the songs I really, really love. But as far as performing live, I really enjoy playing “River.” It’s #3 on the record and it has this energy — it’s a great way to pour out your aggression, and there’s something beautiful about it that I really enjoy…if I was at the point where I could see the people tapping their toes and feel them getting into it and feeding off that energy. As far as the one I’m most emotionally connected to, it might be the one that’s called “Quiet,” the second to last song on the record. I always write about my emotional situations, but very rarely about romance, and that is one of them.

AS: Are there any cover songs that you include in your live sets from time to time?

LP: I switch it up sometimes. I’ve busted out some Backstreet Boys, some Akon, and I always try to drop “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, one of my favorite songs. We try to do that one every once in a while. We cover that one as an encore sometimes, in homage to the one who inspired me as a songwriter and taught me how to put re-verb on a snare and make it sound good.

AS: Have you happened to get a reaction from him about your cover?

LP: Oh, I wish! Could you imagine? I’d pass out.

AS: I could see it happening.

LP: [Laughs] I actually just did, also, a Coldplay cover and posted it on YouTube, and apparently they did see it, and it was awesome.

AS: Sweet!

LP: It could just be a rumor, I don’t know. I’m gonna pretend it’s true.

AS: How in the world do you find the time to simultaneously excel as a musician, artist, and gaming enthusiast when most people can barely manage one of those at a time?

LP: The beauty of it is that other people get inundated with work when work is different from play. So for me, it’s all the same thing, and my spare time is spent doing what I love, and that’s my job, so it’s pretty easy.