St Albans has been a bit of a hub for musical talent recently and the latest band to hail from there is Citylights. The band was born in Autumn 2011 and they had a busy 2012 including a 30 date UK tour, an endorsement from All Round Clothing (Asking Alexandria/ Mallory Knox) and selling out the London Borderline. As a band they’ve gone through many ups and downs and many line up changes but 2013 is set to be their year.
HTF were lucky enough to catch up with the band recently.
HTF: For the people out there who haven’t heard of you guys how would you describe your sound?
Citylights: We like to write happy songs, for happy people; the songwriting isn’t complicated, but has to have energy to it. We like big, sing-along choruses and harmonies are really important to our sound – think Frank Turner meets Panic At The Disco! at a Mumford and Sons show, and you’ll probably find us in the bar in-between!
HTF: You have a few free tracks up for download, why should people go and download them?
C: We like to think our music can pick up even the most miserable person – the songs are pure bundles of catchy ‘feelgoodness’ and hope. They’re free downloads because we just can’t put a price on that, particularly in a time where there’s not much hope around!
HTF: How have you found the reaction to your music so far?
C: None of us think of ourselves as great song writers; we write songs for us because we like them, and that’s always been our why we formed CityLights (UK). But people have really been digging ‘Friendship’ and coming to our shows and dancing, moshing and singing along. I have to say to know that there are people out there are enjoying what we, a couple of Herts lads, do, is a really positive feeling, and that means so much to us!
HTF: Did you find the music scene in St Albans good for a band starting up?
C: St. Albans is an upcoming scene, fronted by some great promoters and on the back of the success of bands like Enter Shikari and Friendly Fires. But there’s always been the problem that there’s not really many proper venues for young bands to play, even now. Its why we’ve always from the start pushed as far afield as we could to play shows!
HTF: You’ve had a busy few years since forming what were the high points?
C: Ah, there’s been so many to choose from! I think personally has to either be last December’s Borderline show, or Harlow the tour before – that place is always mental! Getting ‘Friendship’ out was awesome too!
HTF: How did you find it touring when you were quite an early band? Did you get a good reception from the places you performed where people hadn’t heard of you?
C: Yeah, I mean mostly – we’ve always been touring up to now, pretty much all over, and generally the response has been great, even at the odd metal show we’ve played! Touring always starts out hard, large costs, low turnouts and the like, but you get used to it, and things definitely improve if you put sheer hard work in; and to play the shows and meet new people is really great and makes it all worth it in our eyes!
HTF: Any favourite places you’ve done shows in?
C: Hard question, very hard! I think my favourite venue has to either be The Square, Harlow – the promoter there, Andy, is just amazing, and the crowds always have so much energy; or the Pav Tav in Brighton – the guys there really look after us and there’s a great vibe going on!
HTF: You supported ex members of Oasis, explain?
C: Haha yes! It was in Brighton where we played support to Bonehead’s new band ‘The Parlour Flames’ at like their first show! Was really weird seeing one of the guys and the production team who wrote ‘Wonderwall’ just casually walking around and chatting to us! Mental!
HTF: The full length record out in Autumn, have you finished recording it yet?
C: Nope – just coming to the end of the writing stage. Its our debut, so we want to make sure its ready and as strong as it can be, before we release it.
HTF: Do you think the new material will be different from your previous recordings? How?
C: The material draws on what we did on ‘Friendship’ and just explores it a bit further. We like to think that so far there’s something for everyone, from fast folky stuff, to slow stuff that’s more in line with Ed Sheeran. But essentially its still the same – us writing songs that we enjoy.
HTF: What music inspires you to write?
C: Literally anything! I mean were all from either punk or metal backgrounds – were all dubstep nuts too! I think if something has a great tune or beat or we can connect with it, melodically or lyrically, then it inspires us, and that connection is what we try get into all our own tracks!
HTF: Do you think the reformed line up over the past six months has breathed new life into Citylights?
C: Certainly – we lost Joe, then got him back and now we’ve got 3 part harmonies going on live. Everything just clicks a lot better now, the banter’s amazing and were doing things we’d never been able to do before both musically and live. I think its been a great step forward and has made us much stronger!
HTF: Finally what are your plans for the rest of 2013?
C: We’ve got a record coming out later towards the end of the year, although, we’ll only be releasing it once we’re totally happy, so I can’t put a date on it yet! But it does mean we’ll have a few singles out before then…Oh! We’ve got a little tour coming up in April with One Stag who’s an old friend and is just going to be a total laugh. But the big news is that we’ve just confirmed our first UK headline tour for August, which is calling at places that we’ve been so eager to get to with either no or some success – Newcastle, Manchester, Southampton, London – and this will be announced formally mid March, so keep an eye out!
Check out the official video for the bands track ‘Second Class’ right here.
