In House With Lights: 'Siberia,' Dirty Pop and Going on 'World of Warcraft' Raids

In House is AOL Music's series in which we welcome artists into our offices to play some music, chat with our staffers and, generally, just hang out. For our latest visit, we sat down with Lights to discuss her icy new album 'Siberia,' working with Holy F--- to dirty up her previously pristine electro-pop and going on 'World of Warcraft' raids with her fan guild. Yes, really.

Lights flits into one of the myriad backrooms in our New York AOL building like a punk-rock pixie, all thin bones, tatted-up skin and battered jean jacket. The Toronto singer-slash-synth player is, of course, far from punk (even if she did spend a summer on the Vans Warped Tour). In Canada, she's a veritable pop star, having won a best new artist Juno Award before she'd even released her first full-length album, which subsequently went Top 10 and was certified gold.

Her recently released follow-up, 'Siberia, debuted at No. 3 in Canada (behind Adele and Feist) and cracked the Top 50 Billboard charts in the U.S., a great showing for a record that takes her sugar-sweet vocals and layers them over a rough-hewn soundscape that came from her collaboration with experimental indie electronic act Holy F---.

"I was kind of anticipating adversity," she admits. "But most people seem to be on board with 'Siberia.' Some are kind of standoffish when they first hear it because it is different, but I think it grows on people. It's always going to be pop. I love pop. It just so happened that I took this grittier direction."

But before she had to worry about her fans reaction to her new sound, first Lights had to get Holy F---'s Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh to sign on as collaborators. She'd previously met the band when both were booked on the electro stage for Reading and Leeds festivals, but her manager Jian Ghomeshi, a CBC radio personality, brought the two acts together.

"To walk into a room with a couple of guys like Brian and Graham takes some confidence," she admits. "They're not in there to get a hit. Unlike many sessions I've walked into, the ambition of the day is not 'How can we sell 100,000 copies of this single?' -- which is the least creative environment you could possibly walk into," she adds. "I don't think I could have done the same thing a couple of years ago."


But her growth in confidence has coincided with a similar growth in pop music, a genre which is becoming increasingly adventurous as stars like Britney Spears and Rihanna incorporate cutting-edge beats into their radio hits.

"I like that it's moving a little grittier, because everything I've listened to over the past couple of years on the radio has been, like, perfect. Even my last record was pristine with everything in place and everything on time," she says. "Your ears want something a little bit gritty. I think that happened in the '90s when grunge came out: people wanted something gnarlier, something a little more raw that reminded them it was real."

But don't think Lights is only about realness. Offstage, she's more of a virtual girl. It's no secret that she's a card-carrying geek, what with that massive Wonder Woman tattoo splayed across her back (last year she revealed the story behind the design to Spinner) and her avowed love for the 'Legend of Zelda' franchise and the 'Y: The Last Man' graphic novels. But for Lights, nothing trumps 'World of Warcraft.'

"I was completely fascinated by it but never had the guts to do it until I watched that 'South Park' episode ['Make Love, Not Warcraft']," she says. "Honestly, my first year on 'World of Warcraft' was just me figuring out the game, figuring out my character and discovering the world. It was one of the most exciting times of my life. This sounds really cheesy, but I was writing my first record and riding down a beach in Tanaris ['Warcraft's virtual world] on my mount listening to the new songs I was creating, watching the sun set in the game. As time went on, I got better, I understood more, all of these layers -- it's incredible, it's genius, this game."


What's even more genius is how she's used it as a means of connecting with her audience. Most folks can't get much closer than a Twitter or Facebook feed to their fave artists, but after a fan formed the now-300-plus member Lights Guild, she decided to join up, too.

"It's a great way for me to communicate with fans. You can live chat on there and just talk to people. It's a cool way of communicating with people who have common interests in the first place," she says, noting that she also goes on dungeon raids with her fans -- though it's increasingly difficult to carve out the necessary six to seven hour block of time. She even sometimes meets her fellow guild members IRL, er, in real life.

"It's amazing and cool and weird seeing the actual faces behind the characters. What's even more weird is that you don't know them by their real names, but by Valrain, Nicky Nichols and Ron the Unicorn. They're like, 'Man, I'm Blumpkin, I ran the last dungeon with you!' It's bizarre, but it feels like you already know them. That's the weird thing about the nerd community; as soon as you are a fan of the same game, for example, you immediately have a bond, and you feel like you can be friends."

And with that, she escaped the clutches of the couch, made her way through the office maze and battled downstairs to Broadway where her steed, er, tour van awaited to take Lights out of the big city and back onto the road.