Tag: pretty lights

Features, Print

Michal Menert: Things Burn Down

July 12, 2022

Michal Menert has been thinking about fire.

The fires that have burned vast tracts of land near his childhood home in Colorado and not far from his former home in California. The fire that burned a warehouse full of his merch in Detroit last December. A fire that burned down the house in Fort Collins where he used to live with his bandmates in 2004. And all of the other metaphorical fires that have raged through his life over the years.

“Things burn down and then you watch the flowers grow back out of the cracks,” Menert reflected in an interview with BandWagon.

The theme has permeated the Pretty Lights cofounder’s music in recent months.

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Features, Music, Print

The Evolution of Derek Smith: Pretty Lights Still Shining

August 3, 2015

Fort Collins, Colorado native Derek Smith, better known as Pretty Lights, started making beats in high school, but eventually found himself at the forefront of the electronic music scene. His first album, 2006’s Taking Up Your Precious Time, 2008’s Passing Up the City Skies and 2009’s Passing by Behind Your Eyes revealed Smith’s ability to seamlessly sew together a blanket of sonic textures, but 2013’s A Color Map of the Sun uncovered his aptitude for actually composing every single musical note of each track. The 34-year-old producer is once again on tour and ascends on the Red Rocks stage August 8 and 9. He took some time to discuss the severity of drug use at EDM shows, the recording process and his outlandish height.

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