Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Derek Vincent Smith (born November 25, 1981), better known as Pretty Lights, is an American electronic music artist.
History
Smith wrote and produced hip hop music while attending high school in Fort Collins, Colorado, but the music of such artists as Aphrodite attracted him to American raves. After graduating from high school, he attended University of Colorado at Boulder, but dropped out during his freshman year to focus instead on his music. In 2007 & 2008 Smith & Cory Eberhard began playing late nights for large acts such as STS9, The Disco Biscuits & Widespread Panic. Euphonic Conceptions Productions (CO based) is largely responsible for Pretty Lights' early success in booking him around the USA. In the summer of 2009, under the moniker Pretty Lights, Smith and Eberhard played at several major American music festivals, such as Bonnaroo, Rothbury, the Electric Daisy Carnival, Wakarusa, Camp Bisco, and the 10KLF. The following autumn, they succeeded their festival circuit with a multi-city tour of the United States.
In 2010, Pretty Lights paired up with Billy Moulton and played at the 2010 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, the 2010 Marchone Music Productions Illumination Show in Nashville, the 2010 Evolve Festival in Nova Scotia, Movement 2010 (the Detroit Electronic Music Festival), the 2010 Starscape Festival, Camp Bisco 9, Nocturnal Festival at Apache Pass, Texas, the 2010 Electric Zoo at Randall's Island in New York City, New York, the North Coast Music Festival in Chicago, Illinois, and the Outsidelands Festival in San Francisco, California. More recently, they headlined the Snow Ball in Avon Colorado along with Bassnectar and the Flaming Lips. In June 2011 Pretty Lights had a late-night set at Bonnaroo, where he debuted the hit song "I know the Truth." Smith also debuted his state of the art light show in early 2011 involving LED towers made to look like a cityscape. Most recently in July 2011, he headlined at the Electric Forest in Rothbury, Michigan, at Camp Bisco's 10th anniversary in Mariaville, NY, and at All Good 2011 in Masontown, WV. At All Good 2011 Pretty Lights released what Smith described onstage as a special "one in a lifetime" track, a remix of John Denver's "Take me Home Country Roads".
In 2010, Smith replaced Eberhard with Adam Deitch as drummer, debuting at Red Rocks on August 7, 2010 On January 25, 2011, Smith released two albums on his newly formed record label, Pretty Lights Music. The record label offers free downloads for any of Pretty Lights' albums plus Michal Menert, Paper Diamond and Break Science, all currently on Pretty Lights Music. Gramatik is the latest addition to the Pretty Lights Music record label with his first album, Beatz & Pieces Vol. 1, which was released on July 12, 2011. A donation option is available, much as In Rainbows by Radiohead was released for its first month. Pretty Lights continues to distribute music for free, and frequently appears at festivals across the world.
Style
Smith's music relies heavily on digital sampling and crosses many genres, forming a combination of "glitchy hip-hop beats, buzzing synth lines, and vintage funk and soul samples, sometimes grime." . Pretty Lights' sound is generated by synthesizing samples and organic beats using the Novation X-Station, monome and the Akai MPD32. Smith uses these digital controllers to program the music production software Ableton Live 8. Due to the sample-based nature of his music, Smith releases all his music for free with a recommended donation, in an attempt to avoid having to clear samples. When performing live, Smith uses two Macbook Pros running Ableton Live 8 and two Akai MPD32s.
