“I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer”: 13 Questions with Lights

Lights takes Kerrang!’s 13 Questions and remembers having her wisdom teeth taken out without painkillers, working in a bakery while hungover, and the unusual rumour that began after she skipped the lunch queue at Warped Tour…

Why should people listen to your new album, PƎP?
“In a nutshell, if you're trash but you want to tell yourself you're fucking awesome, listen to PƎP!”

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
“Weirdly, I've wanted to be a lawyer. I was, like, obsessed with being a lawyer. And as my understanding of law honed in, I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer, until my entertainment lawyer said, ‘You do not want to be an entertainment lawyer.’ So I stuck with music. He said, ‘You know, it’s actually just stacks of paper. That’s all it is. It’s not fun.’ And I obliged and carried on with my music. Law was sort of like a plan B. I got really good grades. But I'm glad I didn't.”

What is your biggest fear?
“Heights. I actually had nightmares about heights last night. I was in a building in the penthouse that was 256 stories up and the whole building was swaying. It was awful. Yeah, I don't feel safe [when I’m high up]…”

What is your worst habit?
“I tend to leave cups everywhere I go – my studio has about 10 cups in it! Growing up, my dad would go up to my bunk bed and clear out all my cups and there’d be like eight or nine cups on this little shelf I had, and bless his heart for doing that. He should have made me do it. But everywhere I go, cups congregate and then we don't have any cups left in the kitchen. And that's my bad habit. I’ll have a big, big cup of water, then I drink it, forget about it, and then come back with a new cup of water and leave it.”

What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?
“Last night, I was playing Magic: The Gathering with some friends. Two of them were Australian and they brought a jar of Vegemite. That was awful – it’s a hideous idea for a snack.”

What do dogs think about?
“They for sure think about Vegemite. I feel like it tastes like dog food. I bet dogs love Vegemite.”

What is the funniest rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself?
“Oh my god, I remember on Warped Tour years ago I made the grave mistake of cutting the lunch line. I jumped in with a friend, but it’s the thing you don't do on Warped Tour. Bayside tweeted that ‘Lights cuts lines’ and with no context, and it started this huge rumour that I do coke. Everyone for years thought I did coke. Ironically I've never done coke. I'm more interested in more natural drugs – mushrooms and weed and stuff – but I’m not really interested in doing coke. It was just funny, everyone for years thought I did coke, and then I learned the hard way to not cut the lunch line…”

What’s the worst injury you’ve ever suffered?
“I mean, aside from having a kid, probably getting my wisdom teeth taken out. That was awful. But also at the time for some reason, I thought I was cooler than painkillers and Advil and I didn't take any painkillers, so that is probably the core of the issue. I was trying to be tough.”

Who’s the most famous person in your contacts list?
“Maybe Grimes? We talk sometimes and I’m lowkey obsessed with her. But also she’s a great, very wonderful person. I love her!”

What’s the worst job you've ever had?
“In high school I worked at a bakery and I had to be there at five o’clock in the morning to start preparing the bread. And you know, in high school, you're learning how to drink. So I would drink alcohol and party and then then wake up with this gnarly hangover and go to work. Instead of getting mad at me, my mom would just say, ‘Well, your punishment is going to work at the bakery at four.’”

Have you ever stolen something?
“You know, I never did like physical stealing. I’ve taken crack software and plugins and N64 RAMs for my Raspberry Pi that I'm trying to program. So it’s more software stuff. But I swear I don't pirate it! I pay for things but I'm trying to build an arcade console and you can build the ‘brain’ of it on a Raspberry Pi which is a little computer and you basically steal old videogame RAMs to put on your arcade console, because there's no way to buy them for it. Does that count as stealing?!”

If your house was on fire, what one thing would you save?
“Oh my god, I have so much cool shit. I have so many cool collectibles. But I would probably take my hard drives and my computer, because that is everything that I really need. My music is on there, and I can’t buy more collectibles if I can’t make music.”

If you had the power to turn the internet off, would you do it?
“Ohhhhhh. You know what? I would, except my sense of direction is so bad, I would never know where I was. I need maps. So my answer would be I would leave it on and let humanity dissolve into itself because, clearly it's doing that anyway…”

Lights’ new album PƎP is due out on April 1

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