Lights & The Mowgli's

The Complex Presents

LIGHTS & THE MOWGLI'S
With Special Guest
K.Flay

 Official Tour Hashta
#LightsMowglisTour

VIP Meet & Greet Tickets
http://tickets.artistarena.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=61&utm_source=artist&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=lightsmowgliweb

The Mowgli’s & Lights VIP Meet & Greet Package
- 1 General Admission Ticket
- Early Entry / Front of line access
- Meet & Greet w/ members of The Mowgli’s & Lights
- Group Photo w/ members of The Mowgli’s & Lights
- Access to Souncheck for The Mowgli’s ONLY
- 1 Exclusive Tour Poster
- 1 Commemorative VIP Laminate

The Mowgli’s VIP Meet & Greet Package
- 1 General Admission Ticket
- Early Entry / Front of line access
- Meet & Greet w/ members of The Mowgli’s
- Access to Soundcheck
- 1 Tour Poster (exclusive to VIP buyers)
- 1 Commemorative VIP Laminate

Lights

Official Website: www.iamlights.com
Official Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/lights
Official Twitter: www.twitter.com/lights (@lights)
Official Instagram: @lights
Official YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/lights

   The Mowgli’s

Official Website: www.themowglis.net
Official Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/themowglis
Official Twitter: www.twitter.com/themowglis (@themowglis)
Official Instagram: www.instagram.com/themowglis (@themowglis)
Official YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/TheMowglis

Lights

If you count yourself a longtime member of the devoted Cult of Lights, prepare to fully lose your mind to Little Machines. This record – a gleaming, groundbreaking, generously tuneful slab of brightly hued 21^st-century techno-pop brimming with songs so immediate and timelessly pure of heart that they feel like old friends on delivery – is going to make perfect sense to you in the best way possible.

If you’re new to Lights, no worries: you’ve picked a fine place to start. Little Machines represents a self-assured expansion upon everything the diminutive Canadian singer, songwriter and synth enthusiast has done before. Now you can dive into the back catalogue with informed ears.

That catalogue has set the creative bar pretty high, for the record. Lights’s last outing, 2011’s Siberia, was a strikingly ambitious sophomore LP that turned many a head by introducing layers of synthetic dissonance and juddering dubstep bass into her signature, sweetly melodic electro-pop sound. It was a struggle to get Siberia past the gatekeepers and out into the world, but when it did get out there – to a No. 3 debut and gold sales at home in Canada, more than 100,000 copies moved worldwide and no small amount of international critical acclaim – it put Lights in the perfect position to conquer the planet with her next album.

The only trouble was the next album refused to come. Despite having Siberia’s artistic risk-taking validated by positive reviews and strong sales, Lights couldn’t come up with a note or a lyric she liked for the follow-up and descended into a bottomless pit of self-doubt. It’s astonishing to think that a musician who’s demonstrated so much flagrant promise and confidence from an early age might wind up stricken with fear that it was all over by her mid-20s, but that’s what happened: Lights was convinced she’d run out of things to say. It was a case of, as she puts it, “the worst writer’s block ever.”

“In the moment, I spent so many nights just bawling,” Lights concedes over a cocktail and a nibble at Sneaky Dee’s, the hallowed Toronto punk-rock eatery and live venue where she was once a beloved enough regular to have an entire dish – the “Cactus in the Valley” nachos – named in her honour. “‘What am I gonna do? I don’t have it anymore. I’ve just lost it.’”

Lights dabbled in painting and poetry. She sought refuge in the music of the many female artists, from Patti Smith to Cyndi Lauper, who’ve inspired her over the years. She disappeared into the New Mexico hinterlands on a solo writing sojourn that found her living off the grid in an eco-friendly “earthship.” And suddenly, once she’d stopped worrying about what she was going to do next and started enjoying simply listening to music again, the songs started to flow.

Lights proved her forward-thinking electro-mettle with Siberia, so on Little Machines — working with producer/engineer Drew Pearson (Katy Perry, OneRepublic) and A-list mixer Mark “Spike” Stent (U2, Madonna, Beyoncé) — she’s allowed the futuristic electronics to sit on a more even keel with the acute sense of melody she displayed on her 2009 debut, The Listening.

“It was about the lyrics and the melodies and dealing with the production later,” she says. “It was about getting this killer song that you could strip down and play.” Little Machines is less concerned with making a self-conscious artistic statement than its predecessor, and more concerned with letting the exuberant tunefulness of songs like the breezy “Running with the Boys,” “How We Do It” (which features the triumphant refrain: “It doesn’t go out in a blaze of glory / It’s all about how you ended up where”), and the anthemic first single “Up We Go,” sell itself unadorned.

At 27, Lights is no longer the preternaturally talented kid who signed her first deal at 15. During the writing and recording of Little Machines, she and husband Beau Bokan (of L.A. metalcore outfit Blessthefall) were expecting their first child, a daughter named Rocket Wild Bokan born this past February. Nevertheless, there’s a contagious, youthful vitality to the music that goes hand in hand with its themes of nostalgia and yearning for an escape to simpler times.

She also wrestled with the age-old questions artists ask themselves: “What purpose do I serve in the world of music? What can I offer people?’” she says. “So I started writing about things that mattered to me, and those things were youth and this awesome naïveté that I used to have. I didn’t write anything that was trying to be something, which felt really good.”

After all the hard labor that went into Little Machines, Lights is now delighted to find that becoming a mother has rejuvenated her creativity. As real as the tears and late-night panics were, the writer’s block turned out to be a false alarm. She’s still got plenty to left to say and, as she concludes, “I wound up making what I think is the best thing I’ve ever done.”

The Mowgli's

Love is all you need. It's been said many times and many ways of course, but it's truer now than ever.

When The Mowgli's first landed on the scene, their message of positivity and love resonated with audiences everywhere. The group's 2013 major label debut, "Waiting for the Dawn" [Photo Finish], debuted at #4 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and yielded the hit "San Francisco." Following its release, the seven-piece -- Colin Louis Dieden [vocals, guitar], Katie Jayne Earl [vocals, percussion], Dave Appelbaum [keyboards], Josh Hogan [guitar, vocals], Matthew Di Panni [bass], Spencer Trent [guitar, vocals], and Andy Warren [drums] -- performed on Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, CONAN, Watch What Happens Live, and more. Between headline tours and runs supporting everybody from Walk The Moon to Manchester Orchestra, they even cut a song for the Relativity Media hit film "Earth To Echo." Along the way, their interpretation of love became even clearer, and it defines their sophomore outing, "Kids In Love."

"Our first album essentially said, 'What's up everyone? We're The Mowgli's, and we believe love can change the world," explains Katie. "Over the past couple of years, we really came to terms with who we are as a band. With "Kids In Love" we're exploring the intricacies of love. It's such a broad concept. This time around, we get into intimate love, personal love, as well as universal love. We've found art is the best vehicle to ponder what this really means."

"Before, the concept was painted in very broad strokes," Colin goes on. "Our intention was to start a movement and a culture around what we do. We put all of that under a microscope on this album and talked about personal experiences and stories, the lack of love, and finding it again."

"We've learned so much about the business, ourselves, and this message," adds Josh. "We've become more direct. It's a little wiser."

In order to properly convey that sentiment, the group teamed up with producer Tony Hoffer [The Kooks, Silversun Pickups, Fitz & The Tantrums] in his Los Angeles studio during the summer of 2014. With Hoffer at the helm, they fine-tuned their sound into an elegant amalgam of influences. Additionally, they recorded with prior collaborators Captain Cuts [Smallpools, Tove Lo] -- a production team that includes Ryan Rabin of Grouplove, and worked with Matt Radosevich [Walk The Moon, One Direction] on two additional tracks. "We wanted to create songs that we knew we would enjoy playing live, songs we hoped that speak to people's personal experiences with love and life and loss and everything that comes with being a kid -- or really anyone -- in love," Katie explains.

"We've been on tour incessantly, and this album was really written all over the country," Colin recalls. "It was composed in green rooms, hotels, parking lots, and everywhere in between. I went to Nashville for a week on a whim and tried to learn how to write country music. I was so lucky to work with some of the best in the business. I wanted to bring some of those storytelling elements into the music too. We really grew up, and the songs reflect that journey."

The first released track "Through The Dark" builds from a shimmering acoustic guitar into an unshakable harmony between Josh and Colin. It shines its own kind of musical light.

"Everybody goes through dark times," Josh asserts. "We're trying to put a positive spin on that though, and show you can get through that darkness no matter what."

Colin continues, "In a weird way, it feels like the answer to 'Waiting for the Dawn.' It's a hopeful and encouraging song."

Then, there's the first single "I'm Good." It begins with a sun-soaked clean guitar and resounding percussion before snapping into a delightful refrain that's undeniably unforgettable. You'll feel good after one listen...

Elsewhere on the album, "Whatever Forever" is augmented by driving handclaps and a group chorus that proves infectious. Lyrically, it stemmed from some shared ink within the band. "Colin and I both got a tattoo of that phrase a few years ago in a hotel bar during Hurricane Sandy," smiles Josh. "We'd seen it on the wall of a bar, and it felt like the perfect new life motto. We're not worried about anything; we're just going for it."

"That's a personal favorite," concurs Colin. "After one show, I had a girl walk up to me and say, 'I've been dealing with so much and hurting so badly. I adopted 'Whatever Forever' as my mantra. I needed that.' Sometimes, you need to distance yourself from what hurts."

Ultimately, The Mowgli's open up their hearts once more, and the results are nothing short of inspiring. "We just want people to feel good," Katie concludes. "It's a domino effect. If someone leaves a show feeling great, maybe they pay it forward. If we can contribute a little bit of joy, companionship, and happiness, we're doing our part to make the world a little brighter."

"I want them to feel inspired to do something positive," Josh agrees. "It's all about sharing that."

Colin leaves off, "I want this to be a positive transformative experience. It's almost like falling in love. When you're in a good mood, you tend to react positively. I hope it adds more positivity and love to the world."