When LIGHTS walked into the Billboard Canada awards ceremony knowing she’d won the Visionary Award, it marked a turning point in how she viewed her two-decade career. “It was like maybe the best night of my life,” she recalls. “Most award shows, you don’t know if you’re going to win. You see the other nominees and you’re like, oh, good luck tonight. But I knew I was being acknowledged for this thing that I couldn’t ask for a better category.”
The award, presented by Bryan Adams and Chad Kroeger, recognized something the Canadian electro-pop artist has prioritized throughout her career: unwavering authenticity. “I have been really true to who I am as an artist over the years. I have a really strong sense of what I like and what I don’t like and I’ve always been true to it whether that has brought me massive success or not. It just is easy to follow what you want and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
That commitment to authenticity has taken on new urgency as artificial intelligence reshapes the music landscape. For LIGHTS, who produces and writes her own material, the rise of AI-generated music isn’t just a technological shift, it’s an existential threat to what makes music meaningful. “It’s not good. It’s not a good thing,” she says bluntly. “I think about why do we like music, right? What do we as humans take away from music? And I think it’s the ability to connect with the feeling it’s giving you.”
Her solution? Lean into imperfection. “What I’m trying to lean in on now is what is it about humans that makes music good? It’s the mistakes and it’s the anomalies within the production of it. So with A6, I really leaned into that. I didn’t over perfect it.” She recorded ambient sounds in Berlin, layering in environmental artifacts that no algorithm would think to include. “I would record the air or the birds or the kankenbagen going by outside or the rain. Put that in as a bed track and there is already like artifacts in your track that AI wouldn’t put in.”
This emphasis on human connection extends beyond the studio to live performance. “The feeling of being at a live show, right? AI can’t replicate that. AI can’t replicate human connection and like being in one space at one time, listening to the same thing and singing together. Like that’s always going to be the human experience.”
Now, LIGHTS is expanding the A6 universe with A6EXTENDED, a deluxe edition featuring eight new songs arriving January 30th. The first single, “EDUCATION,” dropped recently with an accompanying video packed with Easter eggs for longtime fans. The decision to extend the album cycle rather than start fresh came from a place of creative momentum. “There was a bunch of unfinished sessions that I just didn’t complete in time for A6 or maybe I just didn’t know how to complete them at the time. A6 has been so fun to tour and so fun to work because it does feel like so authentic that the decision making is easy.”
The album represents the culmination of years spent developing production skills that allow her complete creative control. “I used to need producers and you know, I’d have all my ideas. I’d be frustrated that I had these ideas and they wouldn’t get them. Or I’d have to try to communicate them by speaking another language. And then I’d ask questions and I would learn and I’d watch them work. And then I’m like, well, I can I want to do this myself.”
Working solo has unlocked a freedom that collaboration couldn’t provide. “I don’t really want to ever be in a session with anyone else. Just because I can try anything I want. There’s no shame. I can spend as much time as I want on something. I can put weird things and I can yell. I can scream. I can make weird lyric choices and then be like, that wasn’t good and erase it. Like, it’s so undilutedly me that it makes it way easier to create.”
Despite her electronic pop sound, LIGHTS has cultivated a surprisingly diverse fanbase that includes metal and rock fans. Many discovered her through her collaboration with Bring Me The Horizon on “Don’t Go.” Her appeal to rock audiences isn’t accidental. “I did come up in the rock scene. I was on Warped Tour. I had no business being on Warped Tour, but I was a scene kid kind of like growing up, I thought was my scene. And I was like, I want to make whatever I make is going to have that feeling in it.”
That scene-kid DNA runs deep through A6. “One of the main sonic references is like Midwest emo. And I think a lot of metal fans also have a soft spot for emo. And there’s a part of them that listen to Taking Back Sunday and listen to Starting Line.” She’s intentional about maintaining that edge. “There is a hard line between what I do and pop. I definitely try to find a balance with my decisions production wise and lyrically and melodically words. Like just on the cusp of something different than what’s expected.”
Her songwriting process taps into something primal and subconscious. “I used to write with my logical brain and you get bad lyrics. You’re writing with your logical brain, you get bad lyrics. You have to shift into this. My trick is I don’t think about the lyric and I add a little ideas and then you’re not over processing what you’re trying to say. You get to just unhear your subconscious speaking, right? And that’s how some of my best lyrics come when I’m not overthinking how they’re going to come out.”
That approach extends beyond music. LIGHTS created an entire comic book series for her 2017 album Skin and Earth, drawing and writing every panel herself. “Every comic fan wants to be a creator too. I always dreamed of making a concept record and then it felt right for Skin and Earth.” The process was exhaustive. “I wrote the story. I segmented it into chapters. I would take that chapter storyline into the writing sessions and say, we’re writing about this today. It took me a year.”
Recently, she’s added tattooing to her creative repertoire. “I’ve been starting to tattoo over the last couple years and that’s been really fun. A lot of green room tattoos happening. Tattoo a lot of my friends.” Her philosophy? “If you want to do something in your life, do it because you’re going to die. So you’re running out of time. Do it.”
At home, LIGHTS is passing her musical knowledge to her 11-year-old daughter, who plays hockey and proudly wears both her mom’s and her dad’s (Blessthefall vocalist) merch. “I actually started playing music when I was 11. That was when I first learned my first chords. And I’m teaching her chords right now.” The ritual feels full-circle. “I used to hear my dad playing guitar downstairs and I could go to sleep. And I haven’t picked up my acoustic in years. But I did it again. And I can tell that she’s listening. Every day I’m like play your E minor.”
Never achieving massive mainstream success in Canada may have actually worked in her favour internationally. “I think where you find that box is like even like Tragically Hip, they couldn’t have been bigger. They were the biggest. But in the States it was different. I’ve never been even that big here. I think I’ve been a mid-range artist here for years and I’ve been sort of doing the same thing in the States. So it’s not like there’s shows I’ll do that are bigger here. When you make it big in one place, you get disappointed going somewhere else. But I just never lived that big.”
LIGHTS will bring A6EXTENDED on tour across North America, with the final show landing in Montreal on March 20th. For longtime fans, the setlist promises a retrospective journey. “There’s a lot of past references in this new work. So I’m able to actually play older songs in this set and it feels right. The older stuff is working with A6 and it’s just if you’ve been a fan for a long time, it’s going to be fun.” Montreal holds special significance. “Montreal has been fun for just like live energy and passion for music. It almost always sells out. So it just feels like a good vibe.”
As the final night of tour, expect LIGHTS to leave everything on stage, mistakes, anomalies, human connection and all.
Lights will play Le Studio TD on Friday, March 20, 2026
Watch the full interview below:
