Lights has a bright future   Play video

Toronto singer-songwriter Lights made a splash with her 2009 album, The Listening, winning best new artist Juno honours in the process.

But the electro-popster -- whose real name is Valerie Poxleitner -- struggled with her sound for almost a year before making her sophomore record, the recently released Siberia, which sees her launch a cross-Canada tour on Saturday.

"When you make your first record, there are no fans, there's no one expecting something from you," said the Timmins, Ont.-born Lights, 24, on the patio of a Toronto cafe recently. "So you can invent whatever you want and put it out there and that's how the world sees you.

"But your second record, suddenly there's this history but you've changed and you've evolved as an artist, and gotten better at what you do, and you're not listening to the same music as you were and you're not even in the same place emotionally as you were, so it became kind of tough ... Once you have that direction, it's easy to be like, 'OK, forget everything I think I'm supposed to be. This is who I am now.' And every record should be like that. You should feel like you're rediscovering yourself as an artist. And you should feel, 'This is the first the world is going to hear me,' because for some people it will be."

Lights collaborated with Toronto indie-electro band Holy F--k members Graham Walsh and Brian Borcherdt on nine tracks, including the album's first single, Toes.

There are also guest appearances by Vancouver-based rapper Shad on Everybody Breaks a Glass (EBAG) and Flux and Flow, the latter one of her favourite tunes on Siberia.

"It's like the hard and soft," she said of Flux and Flow. "This represents the process of creating the record. We had this bridge part and it was empty and I was like, 'I could put lyrics here but I want Shad here.' He's the first person I thought of. And so I emailed and he was like totally in. I was just like, 'I would be honoured to have you on my record.' "

Not only is Lights celebrating her sophomore CD and Canadian fall tour, but she also got engaged on Aug. 30 in Toronto to Beau Bokan of L.A. metalcore band, Blessthefall.

"He had fortune cookies made. And I didn't expect it. I cracked open my fortune cookies (and it said), 'Will you marry me?' "

Lights' parents went to one of his gigs in Seattle and he asked them for their daughter's hand in marriage: "Yeah, they love him."

The couple are thinking of a wedding either next May or next fall.

"It's weird to have to plan around our tours and stuff. We actually wrote matching songs. The song ... And Counting (on Siberia) is about him and he wrote one called 40 Days ... (on Blessthefall's album, Awakening). Oftentimes we go 40 days without seeing each other. We've gone longer but that seems to be a common one that we have to wait -- which sucks. It's very intense."

Lights figures she'll eventually relocate to Vancouver to make the commute between their two bases a lot easier.

"That's the downside. We don't see each other very much. We're going to figure that out as we go."

Lights learning to be tattoo artist

Not only does Lights like her tats -- her arms and body are covered with them -- she's also learning the art.

"I'm actually learning how to tattoo too. My artist is taking me on as an apprentice," she told QMI Agency recently.

"I don't think I'll be ready for a long time to be good enough to actually touch someone else's skin."

Still, she and her fiance -- Beau Bokan the frontman of L.A. metalcore band Blessthefall -- have matching tattoos on their fingers since getting engaged this past August.

"It is a little face. It basically means, really happy."

But will she regret having all those tattoos when she's 80?

"Whenever I see older guys and you see them with tattoos and they're all faded, you see history in them immediately. And I was always really impressed by it. It tells your story."

jane.stevenson@sunmedia.ca