My Music, My Concerts, My Life: Just To Get Through to You: An Interview with Nick Thompson of Hit The Lights

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Just To Get Through to You: An Interview with Nick Thompson of Hit The Lights

Pop punksters, Hit The Lights, are hitting the road in support of 2015's Summer Bones. As an added surprise they are releasing the accoustic EP Just to Get Through to You with five classic songs reworked acoustically and the brand new track "Lighthouse". The acoustic tracks take on a life of their own and show incredible growth for the band. Lead singer Nick Thompson took time out of his busy tour schedule to talk to us about it.

Fran - I wouldn’t classify Hit the Lights as prolific yet this EP follows on the heels of last years Summer Bones. Why so quickly?

Nick Thompson - We didn't do a lot of touring for "Summer Bones" and just felt this would be a cool thing to release around the time we'd finally be touring again. We knew the fans would enjoy it and it's some new sounds to listen to while we wait to make another record.

Now that you’ve settled in at Pure Noise Records are you finding the freedom to do projects like these? Is this the direction you see yourself heading?

Pure Noise has been pretty great about everything in our experience with them. I do feel we have a ton of creative freedom with PN, but as far as a direction musically, the EP is more a commemoration of the HTL spread, done mostly for fans for fun. The acoustic EP is not any indication what our new material will be like.

The acoustic renditions of your songs take on a life of their own. Were any of these songs originally realized as acoustic songs or did you have to reverse engineer them to an acoustic form?

Thanks, that's what the plan was, for the acoustic renditions to be their own kind of thing, or a new take on the song. A lot of the songs were originally written on acoustic guitar, so we didn't really have any problems taking them in that direction.

When this material is done in an acoustic format it shows a fragile sensibility that doesn’t immediately show through on the originals. Was this intentional?

I understand that, but it's also an avenue that vocally, I could get more creative with, and it was fun to explore my voice in the lower, smoother registers. Sometimes I cling to singing and pushing my voice to capture energy or feeling, and singing to an acoustic guitar can definitely take me out of my safe space, which is good for me.

Man, we love that high register! The new track “Lighthouse” is excellent. Is it easier to write when you are on tour?

Thanks! Personally, I find it very hard to write on tour, but I do get a lot of my ideas while driving from show to show. That's my meditation time, and a lot of ideas end up falling out of me in those times.

Do you feel that Hit the Lights is just hitting their stride? What can we expect from the band in the future?

I can definitely tell you that there's more coming. There's an excitement I have for writing some new material, I'm looking forward to what's ahead.

So are we Nick. Thank you for your Time!

Just to Get Through to You is available for purchase today. Buy on iTunes or listen on Apple Music. Get tickets to see them live at a venue near you. Tour dates available at their official website.