Lights Valerie Poxleitner (born Valerie Anne Poxleitner; 11 April 1987), known professionally as Lights (stylized LIGHTS) is a Juno Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter. She is known for composing and performing synthpop music such as the songs "Drive My Soul", "Ice", "Saviour", "Second Go" and "February Air" and has performed internationally.

Childhood
Lights was born in Timmins, Ontario. She was raised by missionary parents and spent much of her childhood in various parts of the world, ranging from the Philippines to Jamaica to Ontario and Vancouver. Since the mid 2000s she has lived in Toronto and had changed her legal name to Lights. When asked about changing her name, she said her former name was a chapter of her life that was over. It was a change for her that was very easy for her to go through, that it was almost natural. The changing of her name has great significance for her, from interviews that she's done.

In a self-interview she asked herself about her first song and said "I was 11, 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."

Career in music
Lights is a songwriter for Sony/ATV Music Publishing. In early 2008, Lights toured the cities of the Great Lakes region, and in late 2008 toured around the U.S. on tour.

In August 2008, Lights signed a contract with Underground Operations in partnership with Doghouse Records. At the same time, the song "Drive My Soul" reached #18 on the top Canadian Hot 100. Her next single, "February Air", was released on December 9, 2008 and peaked at #3 on MuchMusic (the Canadian equivalent to the program TRL U.S.). The single "Saviour" was released through Canadian radios July 6, 2009, and it is apart of her debut album "The Listening" (released in Canada on September 22 and October 6 in the U.S.). According to Lights, the album cover is inspired by Sailor Moon, Watchmen and 28 Days Later.

The band which accompanies on live is composed by Adam Weaver in synthesizers and Maurie Kaufmann on drums. Since 2002 the manager of Lights is a Canadian musician and broadcaster of CBC Radio, Jian Ghomeshi.

In early 2009, Lights released "Ice" as a single with a music video made by her on Myspace which was released later on 10 November 2009, she released a second video for "Ice" in Canada and the United States of America. On August 10, 2009, her video for "Saviour" was released. In an interview for the website-Hall Musique, Lights announced that it expects her first album ("The Listening") to be launched in Europe in early 2010.

In February 2010 Lights announced via Twitter that her 5th single in Canada is "Second Go." Also was announced on the same month the website Alter the Press March 15, 2010 "Ice" will be released as a single in the UK and the album "The Listening" on May 17.

Tour
Lights has given concerts in Canada, USA and UK. Her first tour was with bands like Copeland, Lovedrug and Lydia. Lights has had several appearances on television, including the MuchMusic program (in December 2008, September 2009 and November 2009) and MTV Live in March 2009. Lights participated in the famous Warped Tour in 2009 for two months, giving concerts in several U.S. cities and Canada. Lights also acted on Facebook Party at SXSW in Austin, Texas on March 15, 2009.

In September 2009, Lights went on tour with the British band Keane and the months following the end of that year was on tour in her own name around United States and Canada.

From January to March 2010, Lights has gone on tour with his contemporary artist synthpop Owl City around United States and Europe.

Awards
Lights won two indie awards for "Favourite Solo Artist" and "Favorite Single" (for Drive My Soul) during Canadian Music Week in March 2009 in Toronto. She also won the award for "Best New Artist" at Hot AC and CHR.

The most important prize so far in her career was the award for "Best New Artist" in 2009 Juno Awards (Canadian equivalent to Grammy Awards American).

Lights has been very well received in the Canadian press.

Other appearances, collaborations and covers
Lights sings three songs in the band The Februarys ("Meant for Each Other," "Home Is Where The Heartache Is", and "I Was Always Thinking of You") and the song "Everyday" from the band Ten Second Epic (which also appears in the video). It is part of the film's soundtrack Canadian "One Week" and contributed vocals to the song "The End" album of 2009 (The Shipwreck in the Sand) of post-hardcore band, Silverstein.

Her single "February Air" sold 12.000 copies in early 2008 after appearing in an advertisement in the Old Navy clothing store. Old Navy discovered the music of Lights on Myspace and wanted her music to be the soundtrack of ads, Lights appears to sing one of them.

Lights is one of the composers for the television series "Instant Star", where she works as a team with other musicians to create the soundtrack of the series. Lights and Luke McMaster created the song "Perfect" which is sung by the character Jude Harrison (Alexz Johnson actress) in the series. The song is an allusion to the song "Penny Lake" by The Beatles. On the CD of the soundtrack of the series that is the Lights which is credited for the music she is singing the music, not the Alexz Johnson.

Lights hasn't covers officially released, but has made few appearances in concerts and on radio. Some of their cover songs are "Do not Matter" Akon, "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins and "I Want It That Way" by The Brackstreet Boys. " Lights also did a cover on one of their video blogs from a song by British band metalcore, Architects.

In September 2009, she put on her account of a cover youtube's song "Lost!" by the band Coldplay. In 2009, Lights and Trevor Boris made a new theme for the television show MuchOnDemand, as its name "Freakin 'MOD'. The public voted for the old song's initial program was replaced by this.

Influences and Contemporaries
On September 2001 interview, Lights indicated that her first influence is Bjork. She also said she has influences of Phil Collins, Abba and The Knife.

Her vocals have been compared to Vanessa Carlton, that Lights was a fan when she was younger. And the production of his music has been compared to Dntel with influences from Depeche Mode and M83.

Lights is associated by listeners to Owl City, which is an American synthpop artist. Lights fans sometimes refer to Adam Young (Owl City) as "the male Lights' and fans Owl City Lights refer to as" the girl Owl City. Both artists are fans of each other and will walk together on tour in the U.S. and Europe beginning in 2010.

Charity
Lights supports the institution/organization in Toronto "Skate4Cancer" and made a song to be used by the organization. The song is called "Year of the Cure." Lights also supports "30 Hour Famine World Vison.

Filmography
Lights, strongly linked to comic-book and things of space, also has a series (animated cartoon) that goes on MTV, "Audio Quest: The Captain Adventure Lights" which is led by super-heroine Captain Lights, which is her alter-ego. This series is a collaboration between her and Tomm Coker, illustrator of Marvel. Lights is the voice of main character and his songs are part of the soundtrack.

Oh hey! I'm LIGHTS--a fairly small-sized, Canadian girl who makes intergalactic-electro music. What do I mean by intergalactic? I'm glad you asked. I try to find sounds that seem like they could have been plucked from Saturn's rings or a meteor belt. Equal parts fantastical/epic/beautiful/emotional.

As a kid I moved around a lot. To find some form of consistency, I had to find a place that always stayed the same. Concocting music became that world to me and I escaped there any chance I got. It started with just me and the guitar. Then, I moved on to drums, piano, and then the keyboard. When I started realizing the limitless possibilities that synthetic instruments presented, I invested in a little 8-track mixer. I was thirteen. I began the process of transferring what was in my head into something solid.

After drifting around and dabbling in different musical genres throughout my teen years, I finally landed on the so-called "electro-pop" planet I live on now. I unleashed a little taster of my work in the early months of 2008 as an EP but the songs kept coming...I couldn't stop them. And the more I made, the easier it became to convey how I felt through simple lyrics juxtaposed with sounds harvested from the far reaches of my alternate universe.

Finally I sat back and listened to everything I had feverishly created over the past years, and I was happy. I realized I had discovered more about myself when I was just listening and creating music than from anything else. And for every minute of song that passed through my head, I was reminded of that realization, and it felt special. I called this first full collection of music, "The Listening." I hope that it makes you feel special too.

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Most twenty-two year old pop stars have an army of professional image sculptors behind them: producers, songwriters, stylists, and abused assistants. But LIGHTS, who grew up all over the world, is used to traveling light. So she decided she'd simplify things by doing all those jobs herself. "It's easy to misconstrue a young girl singer as a total puppet. I am the opposite of that. This is what I do. I am LIGHTS."

Born in Timmins, Ontario, LIGHTS lived in the Philippines and Jamaica during her elementary school years. "My family is very get-up-and-go if we feel called to do something different," the singer explains. "It was a really important thing to learn about as a kid, that nothing is so important that you cant leave it behind." LIGHTS' mother home schooled the kids; but, one day a week the singer's father would take over. "We looked forward to that day because we got to recite poetry and learn music. Nothing was taken too seriously and we got to sing. That really instilled in me a passion for music."

In 1997 the family moved back to Canada and almost immediately, nine year-old LIGHTS got her hands on a guitar. By eleven she'd learned a handful of chords, which she used to write her first song. Then, at thirteen she turned her attention to production. "I had so many more ideas than just the vocals and the guitar. I wanted to put a glockenspiel and strings and a bass and drums in there!"

As a teenager Lights spent much of her time writing songs up in her attic bedroom, which she dubbed Starry Night studios after her favorite Van Gogh painting. By eighteen LIGHTS had moved out of her parents' house and was living in Toronto with only her pet tarantula Lance to keep her company. In this state of near-isolation LIGHTS finally found her signature sound- a merging of classic pop songwriting with deeply intimate yet universally appealing lyrics. She wrote "February Air," a poignant ode to the chill of winter love, which became the first of four LIGHTS songs used by Old Navy in the company's 2008 spring ad campaign.

Though her star was clearly on the rise, it was LIGHTS' online profile that really solidified her fan base. Between the singer's MySpace page (which to date has over eight million visits and fifteen million plays,) her personal web site iamlights.com and her passion for web-based fantasy games like World of Warcraft, the artist's online identity is as evolved as your nerdiest teenage boy's and this is something she's very proud of. "There's an entire world of people out there that play WoW and are talking about science fiction and they feel a little bit outcast, so if you can reach those people that's sweet! Even my look is inspired by video game characters – it's a cross between Laura Croft and Wonder Woman."

In April 2008 LIGHTS released her eponymous EP. It contained six songs including "February Air," which reached #3 on the MuchMusic countdown in Canada, as well as the epic "Drive My Soul," which was an even bigger hit; the song was added to radio without being serviced, climbed all the way to #1 on Much Music, and spent over three months in the Top 20 on Hot AC radio. On the strength of her EP alone, LIGHTS won the 2009 Juno (the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy Award) for New Artist of the Year, joining the ranks of Feist and Nelly Furtado.

The singer's rapidly growing fan base was clamoring for live LIGHTS shows so she hit the road, playing countless sold out gigs in her home country, as well as numerous festival dates in the UK. In addition to touring extensively through the United States, this summer LIGHTS spent five weeks on the 2009 Vans Warped Tour and this fall will join Keane on their Canadian tour.

LIGHTS' full-length debut, The Listening, is out now. It includes a few songs already familiar to die-hard Lights fans, as well as plenty of new material including the first single, "Saviour," a propulsive pop ballad that represents the essence of Lights. "My songs are spawned from moments of sadness or intense emotion," the singer says. "'Saviour' is a big example of taking one of those really dark emotional situations and turning it into something positive. I just happened to get hit with a really dark sad night. The melody started coming together and the words started pouring out. I was crying when I wrote the first line of the chorus and it actually sounds kind of like crying. It's a really, really powerful song for me."

Using music to translate something painful into something transcendent is LIGHTS' primary purpose. It's her commitment to keeping pure the connection that music creates that guides her as she prepares to release her first major album. "I think about how some of the greatest artists over time kind of went crazy because they didn't have that ability to show people who they were," the singer muses. "They were living a double life and that's not healthy. Now you can be yourself and people will still love you for it. Who you see is exactly who I am. And I think if I maintain that and don't fake anything with my fans, I'll never go crazy."

- It's written LIGHTS when you're talking about her as a singer and Lights as a name.
- Her name is Lights, it was legalized a few years ago, the birth name is Valerie Anne Poxleitner, now your name is Valerie Poxleitner Lights.
- Lights is a nickname given her since childhood, who emerged from her nickname.
- LIGHTS is a big fan of Comic Books (Comics) and her favorite superhero is Wonder Woman. Between Marvel and DC Universe LIGHTS prefer the superheroes and villains of the DC Universe.
- It is part of the game universe World of Warcraft (WoW) is an online platform and paid with millions of players/ users, LIGHTS try to play almost every day.
- Still in the gaming world LIGHTS is a user of Xbox 360 and one of her favorite games is Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (The fight between the Evil LIGHTS LIGHTS and the second version of the video game is inspired by the Ice Mortal Kombat).
- Her alter-ego is Captain LIGHTS.
- LIGHTS suffered from Arachnophobia (fear of spiders), but in 2005 she decided to address this fear, then went to a pet store and bought a tarantula, since then he tarantula named as Lance is her pet and one of the "best friends" .
- Lance has a Twitter and a MySpace page.
- The style/look of LIGHTS is inspired by a mix of the Wonder Woman and Lara Croft.
- LIGHTS is known for playing Keytar.
- LIGHTS gave the name Russel to her keytar (white/gray).
- Her guitar is named as Kevin.
- Her hair also has a name, called Ranier.
- Lights and her family have a black Persian named Stanley.
- LIGHTS has German and Austrian descent.
- Know two languages, English and German, while English being the principal.
- Has a sister named Jessica Kotanen when Jess got married in early 2009, LIGHTS composed a song called "Jess and Jonny" and gave it to her as gift.
- When she was 15 she was apart of a metal band that did covers of bands like Rage Against The Machine, she sang and played guitar.
- LIGHTS says the best ideas come when you go to the house-suite bathroom. It happened as one of the lyrics that was not fit the song and then going to the bathroom, she managed to find the letter that was good.
- Played during the first month of the 2009 Warped Tour and played two concerts at Warped Tour 2008.
- Lights has several tattoos, a laser (at the bottom of the belly), which is a replica of the CAPT. LIGHTS uses, one of Wonder Woman to fight the villain Giganta (right back), a rock (on foot), which symbolizes that wherever she is the rock / stone to take home (inspired by the game WoW) ; wings at the bottom of the belly, a note on her finger that says "Found in Love" and a sword (Fenix) (inspired by the game WoW) (right arm), one that was initially just a heart but it was refurbished and incorporated into another tattoo of a Gryphon coat of arms (left arm), a German phrase "Jetzt und immer die von der Vater und Segen bleibst Unschuldig Er kommt bis" of a lyric that is translated something like "Now and always will have the blessing of the Father... and remain innocent until he comes/until the end "(Father = God *) (in both arms).

Pictures of tattoos:


Laser Captain LIGHTS (where you see a little wing who also has tattoos)


Wonder Woman fighting with Giganta.


Rock from the game WoW


Found In Love


Sword of the Phoenix game WoW.


Initially, the Heart Tattoo (1 ª Tattoo Lights)


Heart Tattoo Gryphon embedded in a coat of arms.


German phrase "Jetzt und immer die von der Vater und Segen bleibst Unschuldig Er kommt bis" "Now and Always have the blessing of the Father .. and remain innocent until he comes/ until the end" (* Father = God).