Introducing The Eclectic Indie Songstress Grace Lightman
Grace Lightman is a cosmic, out-of-this-world artist. Her sounds echo in your mind even after you turn off her music. Her new album ‘Silver Eater’ is named after Paul Karason, a man whose skin turned blue after using a silver compound for a skin condition, and it really is the perfect name for this album.
Check out our chat with the emerging artist below…
What was the process like creating your new album ‘Silver Eater’?
It was genuinely so fun. I worked with people who truly get me and what the project means to me.
I love the story behind the name. Can you describe a little more about your fascination with Paul Karason?
I remember someone telling me about him when I asked their opinion on whether or not I should dye my hair silver. I couldn’t believe someone would turn blue after ingesting something, then my friend showed me a photo of him and opened the can of worms of his viral phenomena. He ended up featuring as a lyric in Repair Repair (‘Silver Eater, so becoming!’), the first song we wrote on the album. We then continued using this nickname and it somehow morphed into my alter ego – an alien on the run from NASA.
You stated that ‘An Ordinary Life’ a track on your new album, is a love letter to the human race. Can you go into more detail about the meaning behind this song?
This song is about the Silver Eater’s longing to fit in to the world she has fallen in love with. This is really what the whole concept of the album is based on; its the idea of being an outsider through an alien’s take on humanity. ‘An Ordinary Life’ is the bittersweetness of that longing to be human, to be accepted into a world you know you never quite can be because you are weird. That’s my experience of most things, and I think most people have felt like that at some point in their lives.
Your sound is very cool, retro techno. How did you land on this genre and decide it was the one for you?
I love sci fi that was made in the past. I think it’s pretty funny that people in the 70s and 80s thought we would be living amongst androids and driving hovercrafts by now. I think when writing, the biggest aim is something ‘classic’ that couldn’t age. The most classic melodies I think were made in the 70s and this is often my melodic inspiration. Patrick, my writing partner and I, would start a lot of our songs on a 70s Wurlitzer Stage Piano which brought that vintage sound out even more. We just offset it against a sci fi backdrop like all those films and TV shows I love.
Where do you get the most inspiration from?
It’s hard to say! Having conversations with people about subjects that aren’t to do with either one of us can get my mind racing. I also love films, an atmosphere can give me a spark of inspiration that can turn into a landscape. That’s what David Lynch and Rod Sirling do so well, Lynch films and the Twilight Zone are huge points of inspiration for me. But so is disco, so who knows?
What’s one of your biggest dreams for your career?
To be main support on the ABBA Hologram tour.
If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
That is a crazy question! Probably like a NOW! album just for the variation but it would have to be a triple disc edition from a year where music was really on point. Don’t get me started – this is the kind of thing I would obsess over and spend the next year of my life working out which one would win.
Make sure to check out her latest video for her single “An Ordinary Life”
