You’re about to go on tour with Owl City, but this isn’t your first tour in the U.S. What are you looking forward to this time on the road? There are a couple things – one of which is the fact I get to tour with Owl City. I’m a fan of his music and I’ve been following him for a few years, so it’s going to be great to see him play every night, and our music is very similar. It’s one of the closest fits I’ve ever toured with. When people go to see Owl City, they’re going to get the same type of music with me, and the crowds that he’s pulling right now are huge! It’s a really good opportunity to show thousands of people what I’ve got.
Are you at all nervous about playing to these huge crowds? I wouldn’t call it nervous, but I get butterflies before I go on any tour, regardless of whether it’s big or small, because I don’t know what to expect for the next five months. You hope you get along with everybody. It’s partly an excitement, though, and I feel if I didn’t get that feeling, that would suck. I love that feeling.
I saw on your MySpace that the first 18 shows of the tour are sold out – what does that feel like? It feels awesome! I can’t take credit for it, but it’s exciting!
Have you ever stepped back and just been amazed by what you’ve managed to do so far for being so young, or do you feel like hard work and determination really brought you to this point in your life? I had ambitions of doing this years and years ago. I knew somehow, deep inside of me, that it would be like this, but I never thought it would turn out the way it did, in that everything happened exactly how I expected it to be – you never actually expect it to turn out how you expected it to turn out! I always dream really high, so to be honest, I’ve achieved a lot of goals I’ve set for myself, and now everything else feels like really, really good tasting gravy.
Can you tell me about how you transition to playing live music from working in a studio? Is it difficult because of the genre [synth-pop] to capture that same feeling on a stage? It’s a difficult transition, definitely. I always knew that eventually I would have to bring my music to the stage. I didn’t have any friends, or really know anyone in the musician community, so I just started putting ads out and figuring out how to present it on stage. But, I found other people who play keyboards, and we tried playing drum tracks in the background, but it lacked that live energy that drums bring. I went to a couple of drummers and we found the drummer we have now, so now you get the live energy with a ton of digital sound and synthetic textures as well – so you’re getting full-on synth-pop with live elements. It’s the best of both worlds.
What was your inspiration behind The Listening album? I wrote what I wanted to hear and what makes me happy. I was striving for melodies that are exactly what you feel like hearing, very peaceful sounding. I strive for my music to bring a certain degree of peace to it. That’s what I get out of my music. I write really honest lyrics, and not anything is glossed over. I may use a metaphor here and there, but it’s always written exactly how I would say it.
How does your music differ from other incarnations of synth-pop that are out there? To me, it sounds like it has a lot more substance and it’s so light and fun to listen to! It’s hard to say, because it’s my music and it’s hard to listen to it from an outsider’s perspective. There’s some music that’s really similar, but one of the things about me is that I tend not to write songs that are not just ‘let’s go have a good time, let’s go dance’ songs. There’s not any meaning there, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I can’t seem to write something that doesn’t have a deeper meaning to it, but maybe someday I will?
After the tour, what are your upcoming plans? The tour is going to be till May, so it’s hard to say, my life is about five months at a time. At this point, it’ll definitely be more touring. I’m always writing for another record for another day.
Interview with singer/songwriter LIGHTS…
