Beau Lightning: Rock ‘n’ Roll Life Interview

‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Life’ is the third single that comes our way from Beau Lightning. Filled with moody, deep whispers in the bulk of the verses, collocated with dense, booming choruses, Lightning narrates the bravado and mania in being a rock and roll artist. Beau Lightning discusses his journey in creating a new alias and rock and roll’s profound impact.

‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Life’ was super intriguing from the get go, with the way Lightning manipulates his voice and uses an extreme low and deep vocal. 

How did you manipulate your voice like that?
I’ve never really done it before. It’s just bare, but I’ve never used it in a song before. In my song ‘Don’t Get Bit’, in the chorus I did it underneath the main vocals to feel it out a little it. I thought it was sort of cool. I was listening to a bit of Marilyn Manson and he sort of does a similar type of thing. I just gave it a whirl. I was a bit self-conscious at first, but I sang another bit over the top to mask it. 

The gloomier, lower vocal showcased by Lightning is integrated as the crux of each verse as the song progresses. 

Was there anything in particular that flipped the switch from you being self-conscious to actively using recurringly within the song?
I think it just really suited the lyrics. Talking about the devil, it’s quite dark and it really fit the vibe. 

Would you say that you’ve always been open to risk taking?
No, I wouldn’t say so. This song is probably the most left field thing I’ve done. It has a lot of character. It was really fun writing this one. It was written from the perspective of a character that I made up, which I’ve never done before. 

Do you write alone? How did that let you unlock that character a bit more?
I write alone. I think when you write with other people, unless they’re really good friends, you can definitely be a bit more reserved then what you might otherwise. It depends on your personality, but I know I would be a bit self-conscious, putting on that voice in front of other people. Those lyrics as well, if they’re taken the wrong way, I could very easily come across as a bit of a dickhead. I think writing alone gives you a bit more freedom. 

After you write and put everything together, are you chasing feedback?
When I write, I am recording. Usually, I’ll have a demo. I have a couple of friends that I generally show. They’re musos and they give me honest feedback, sometimes it’s useful, sometimes not. There’ll be two or three people I show to see what they reckon. 

Do you think people’s opinions makes you more reserved or gives you more confidence for the future?
My friends are pretty forward thinking in what they like. They’re pretty open to hearing something that’s different. It makes me more confident. 

Are they big on rock and roll?
One of them is pretty into rock and roll, but maybe not as heavy as I am. My other friend is very into pop. It’s good to have polarising views.

Beau Lightning projects hopes and desires as an artist through the lyrics in the song.

How does penning and then singing the words give you reinforcement to achieve your goals?
It does, because lyrically when I wrote this, I wanted to write a song about wanting to pursue a successful career in music. But, I did it with more of a perspective of a character, who maybe wants more of what comes along with success. It’s empowering in a sense, but I am pretty passionate anyway, so I don’t know if it gives me a practical day to day push. 

Beau Lightning recently shared a playlist of the songs that inspired his music.

Are those songs in the playlist more reflective of what you want to draw on sonically or a motivation because those artists have achieved so much?
I think the playlist of songs is more like a sonic [inspiration]. I love the sounds in there. There’s a bit of a theme musically through it. I definitely draw more on the sounds in that playlist. I listen to it all the time and I have it there in my subconscious a fair bit, so when I’m writing, themes from that music comes through. 

Despite the songs all having an attached theme between them, they’re all particularly unique and differentiate from each other. 

How have songs other than rock-based music given you inspiration? 
I don’t just listen to rock and roll. I think it’s something in the sounds, like for example Nancy Sinatra in the playlist. The guitar sound in that, I really like it. I kind of mimic that guitar sound throughout other songs. Even in the verses of ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Life’ , that sound is a little bit there. There’s a lot of rock and roll over the top, but it seeps its way in. 

Have you been surprised by your ability to look at different genres and then apply it in your own style of music you create?
It’s a conscious effort to have a lot of different genres in the playlist that I can draw from. Most of the people in there have a persona as well. That’s a big part of what I draw from as well. They have a specific persona going on.

Can you talk about giving off a whole image? Why is it important for your persona to have the aesthetic and the music to align?
That’s a new thing for me. When I finished ‘Last Night’, which was the first song that was kind of the spark [of Beau Lightning] that got me writing all these other songs, it took me ages to come up with a name. I imagined that it had to have a strong visual. 

Almost like something from a movie?
Yeah, it was a very conscious thing. I’m very inspired by film as well. I think it’s really cool when the music goes along with the visual perfectly. It creates another level of depth and makes it a lot more interesting for people to get into. It draws people in more when the visual perfectly matches the sound. 

Since your songs came more gradually one after the other, where does ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Life’  sit amongst your catalogue of songs?

Before I was doing Beau Lightning, I was releasing songs under my name. ‘Last Night’ came along and it was a different genre to the other ones. Then, I created Beau Lightning and I hadn’t written anything else [after]. I was going to rerelease my older songs under Beau Lightning, then a few cool things happened with ‘Last Night’, and I was like ‘I probably need to stick to this’. I’ve tried to write stuff like this before, but never pulled it off. After ‘Last Night’, I kept trying to write things and it wasn’t happening. Then I wrote ‘Don’t Get Bit’ and after that, four more flooded in pretty easily. It was cool, like I unlocked something, and I was just able to write all this stuff that came to me really quickly. It came a few months after I released that first one. 

What was that period of time like when you were struggling to make songs?
I had these other songs, not Beau Lightning songs and I finished those off in that time [to keep me motivated]. I just kept having a go and I was writing other stuff and demos that weren’t quite right… eventually the main riff of ‘Don’t Get Bit’ happened. It was patched off the end of this demo that was electric piano. It didn’t make sense at all. It was this chilled piano thing, and the bit of ‘Don’t Get Bit’ came afterwards. It didn’t make sense, so I just made it its own song. I didn’t really have doubt. I’m kind of a believer if you just do the work, eventually something will just come out. 

Were you drawing on the same inspirations you draw on now as Beau Lightning before taking on the alias?
I think what happened was, I’ve always really liked the stuff I’m drawing inspiration from now. But, I felt like I wasn’t cool enough to be able to do stuff in that vain. I’ve always been attracted to the same things, but I didn’t think I could pull it off. I think when I came up with the character, all this stuff just fit into the world and I honed in on all the stuff that is similar, even in film and in that playlist… It’s [more] a conscious thing [now], but I have always been attracted to that stuff. 

In ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Life’ , the gloominess Beau includes elevated the Rock and Roll feeling.

Can you talk about straying from the norm there?
I don’t know if it was really conscious. When I write stuff and mixing things and creating sounds in the song, I do always seem to be very drawn to doing it as extreme as possible. Sometimes it doesn’t work, and I take it back a little bit… I suppose it’s just my personality coming through, and hopefully that is different. I think it’s doing what is exactly me and not trying to do something else, which is something I’d always done before… I’m not so much trying to sound like something else… I think that’s why this stuff is so much better. It’s not to say you can’t hear inspirations from others though. 

Lastly, what do you think is in store from now on? What releases do you have planned next?
In terms of what you can expect, I’m going to start releasing a talk by talk track and little clips of what the songs were written about. I’, just going to keep doing singles for a while. The next couple of songs are a bit different. They still sound like Beau Lightning, but not quite as heavy… The next song I think is going to have a music video which will tie into the first ‘Last Night’. It’s kind of like a storyline going through. There’ll be three music videos tying together following the same storyline which will come with the next song. 

How important is it to tell stories and use your imagination visually not just in song writing?
It is important. For me, lyrics are quite literal to an experience even if it is metaphorical or specific to a character, it is generally to do with you. With videos, you can tell a story that is a bit more fun. It cements the aesthetic and shows what you’re about a bit more than the song. 

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