Lights (born Valerie Poxleitner in 1987) – a Canadian synth pop singer-songwriter, best known for her songs "February Air", "White", "Drive My Soul", and "The Last Thing On Your Mind", featured in 2008 Old Navy video commercials.
Her live band comprises:
Adam Weaver on synthesizers, Maurie Kaufmann (ex-BOY, ex-the 6ixty8ights) on drums. Lights is managed by Canadian musician and radio personality Jian Ghomeshi.
Compared to Vanessa Carlton for her high-toned, soft voice, Lights is one of several new female singers coming to fore in the late 2000s. This list includes the likes of Kate Voegele, Katy Perry and Tristan Prettyman. All of them, Lights included, style themselves after the 1980s New Wave singers and 1990s feminist singer-songwriters, therefore setting the stage for the return in force and by popular choice of melodious pop music, in place of the hip-hop or rap, which has largely monopolized the pop landscape so far this century.
Behind the scenes, Lights has been hired to write songs and texts for the television series Instant Star, together with other skilled songwriters and musicians. They work as a team. Lights and Luke McMaster are credited with composing "Perfect", sung in the role of Jude Harrison on the show by Alexz Johnson. The song is a not-so-subtle musical allusion to "Penny Lane", written by Paul McCartney for The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band as a counterpoint to John Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever", but withheld, and actually only released on the Magical Mystery Tour album. Luke McMaster's and Valerie Poxleitner's "Perfect" (she is credited like so on the soundtrack CD, and it is she, who sings it on this issue, not Alexz Johnson) also borrows rhythmically from the familiar Welcome Back, Kotter TV theme. So much borrowing in one song gives a new meaning to "synth" in "synth pop", but Lights says she knows what she's doing, relying on her "pretty intense cheese-o-meter" to walk the path true and narrow.
Earlier, in a September 2007 interview, she indicated her primary influence as Björk. She also spoke glowingly of Phil Collins's songwriting, and particularly fancies the European production-based music the likes of The Knife.
The music she has written by her self, for her own brand, is on the whole considerably subtler and more her own, albeit entirely "electro-pop". Her voice, and her music, have met with very favorable reception, and even higher hopes, in the Toronto press. Likewise, she is evidently loved in the USA cities where she sung locally already. A fall 2008 tour of more American cities is to follow.
Born Valerie Poxleitner in Timmins, Ontario, the home town of a famous Canadian singer, Shania Twain, Lights was raised by missionary parents and spent much of her childhood in various parts of world ranging from the Philippines to Jamaica. She currently lives in Toronto.
When asked about when she wrote her first song, Valerie has said "I was eleven, and I learned three chords on the guitar it was the first time I really learned how to play guitar and I wanted to write a song with them so I went down to my mom and I said pick a number between 1 and 150 and she picked 5 or something, I can’t really remember the number, but I went and opened up the Bible and there was 150 Psalms already written so I went to the number she chose and wrote a song with that and that kicked off the biggest thing of my life."
Lights, at the age of 15, tried for a modeling casting held by Walmart. During the set up, one of the makeup artists heard her sing. The people who heard her instantly praised her voice. In the same day, Lights met her soon-to-be manager and a few weeks later, negotiations were in talk.
In 2005, Lights began writing for Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
For the past year, Lights has worked on touring in Toronto and vicinity, as well as nearby cities such as London, Ontario, Guelph, Ontario, Cleveland, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Pontiac, Michigan. With her music and singing becoming a sound success in the service of Old Navy, Lights was able to make deals for promoting her music and singing under her own brand. In October she is booked to perform on the campus of State University of New York at Fredonia, midway between Buffalo, New York and Erie, Pennsylvania. A tour of U.S. cities for the fall 2008 is also planned.
On 11 March 2008, the Lights EP was released on US iTunes with the following tracks: "February Air", "White", "Drive My Soul", and "The Last Thing On Your Mind". It was added to the Canadian iTunes store shortly thereafter. The EP was then re-released on 22 April 2008 with two additional songs: "Ice" and "I Owe You One". This expanded version is available in Canada through BestBuy, HMV, or iTunes and in the U.S. on iTunes.
Additionally, Verizon has taken her Old Navy-featured songs and made them into ringtones.
Lights was featured as a singer on 3 tracks included on the The Februarys' second EP, All The Time in the World: "Meant for Each Other," "Home is Where the Heartache Is" and "I Was Always Thinking of You." Lights will also sing a song for Ten Second Epic on their future, third album "Hometown", to be released in January 2009, and will also lend her vocals for the upcoming movie "One Week" starring Joshua Jackson
Lights supports the Toronto charity Skate4Cancer, and has recorded a song called "Year of the Cure" for their use.
Source: http://artists.letssingit.com/lights-76c15/biography
