Flaunt Premiere | Night Lights "Talk to Me"
The indie-pop trio Night Lights has released visuals for their single, "Talk to Me". Produced by Brian Philipps, the quirky video, features animated elements as a backdrop to funky, dance instrumentals, and high-pitched melodies. Despite the light-hearted sensibilities of the video, the band's vocal and lyrical cohesiveness, and grounded pop/rock sound remain the focal point
Mau, Yusuke, and Dag, known for their cross-national representation with members from Mexico, Japan, and Norway, formed during their time at school in Boston, and are now based in LA. In a brief, Q&A, the band discusses their sound, their relationship as a band, and their vision behind the “Talk to Me” visuals.
I can hear the Two Door Cinema Club, Friendly Fires influences in your sound, which is personal nostalgia for myself. Can you tell me a little about what draws you all to the indie-pop sound and if that is how you describe your own sound?
I (Mau) think, for me personally, I found the songs to be very honest back in the day. They seemed lyrically mysterious and more profound than the pop music I was hearing on the radio. I was a pretty emotional teenager, but never felt like emo music quite covered what I was going through. I found my prophets in the indie pop scene. Something about mixing pretty sounds and melodies with honest lyrics really spoke to me. We also grew up right in the transition time between electronic music and traditional rock and radio still being a thing. As such, for us, the indie pop scene just seemed like a good marriage between the two worlds we grew up with.
You're a group made up from various backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. What do you feel unites the three of you? What do each of you bring to the table as artist and creatives specifically?
Our personalities are fortunately very much affected by our cultural backgrounds. I am a very “feeling” driven person and think a lot about everything from a feeling perspective, which makes me a good lyrics person. Dag, who is from Norway, is very Scandinavian in his interaction with people. Very open minded and good at listening and bridging gaps between opinions. He’s also very patient, which as the bands production expert, gives him more character in approaching his productions. Yusuke is from Japan and he is someone who thinks about things rationally and has lots of wisdom behind his approach to things. He is very hard working and has a lot of discipline too, which makes him a great/skilled instrumentalist. We started as friends though and then became a band, which I think is pretty common, but it definitely helps the dynamic. It helps we all liked similar music (hahaha).
How are the visuals for ‘Talk to Me’ a reflection of what you hope to portray in your music?
As you know, "Talk to Me" is a playful nostalgic song and we wanted the music video to really represent the early 90s film and television world. I grew up on Nickelodeon and the fun cheesy movies that had ridiculous plots like switching bodies with the opposite sex or being a pregnant man or getting in fights with furniture, so we came up with some silly story lines of our own. We just want the video to be like the song; a playful and nostalgic experience.
Take a look-see for yourself.
Photos by Nathan Tescon (color) and Renata Gerdes (black and white)
