Bright Light Bright Light Talks New Album & Making 'Cinematic Pop'

Welsh-born singer-songwriter Rod Thomas — better known by his stage name Bright Light Bright Light — just released his latest album Fun City and, as the title suggests, it's filled with fun, catchy bops that he says are dedicated to the larger queer community.

"It's an album that I wrote about the LGBTQ+ community and what the experience is," Thomas told PRIDE about the creation of the record. "It's really kind of about how our community has managed to still celebrate itself and to stay strong, focused, and creative in times of social and political adversity."

"I didn't really expect it to coincide with huge, political rollbacks of queer rights and the closure of queer spaces with COVID, that was a bit of a haphazard collision, but it's really inspired by people like Sylvester, Pet Shop Boys, k.d. lang, Elton John, Hercules and Love Affair," he continued. "All of these people who've really given beacons of hope throughout the decades for everybody."

And speaking of beacons of hope, Thomas also discussed being a part of a recent wave of out and proud musical artists who are getting attention for all the right reasons and who are paving the way for future queer musicians in the decades to come. 

"Growing up there weren't that many out artists, certainly not out artists that were not ridiculed or not just sort of pigeonholed into their own particular thing. There were tons of artists that you would hear in the gay clubs, but you'd never hear on radio, so seeing that change and watching real, broadsheets and national press pay attention to LGBTQ+ artists is really amazing," Thomas said. "It's really nice to see people like Muna, Troye Sivan, Kim Petras get a crazy amount of attention that they have and just be treated as an artist without necessarily having to have the LGBTQ+ prefix. It's important for us to know that they are part of our community, but I feel sometimes if they're described as an LGBTQ+ artist or a gay artist, it's immediately removing them from the normal music conversation and saying that they exist in a separate world."

"It's nice to be able to see people like me just being discussed as an artist, just simply as an artist. And that's been amazing. There are tons of really inspiring young or old who are just finding that spotlight. Artists in our community that are just doing great things and making really awesome music. It's really cool."

And when asked to describe his sound to new listeners who are just discovering his music, Thomas told PRIDE that someone described it to him as "cinematic pop," a phrase he has since adopted and that he likes to use when talking about his work.

"Somebody described it as cinematic pop, which I really enjoy," he said. "I think it's like the kind of pop music that, because it nods to like '80s, '90s cinema, it's the kind of music that you could imagine in like The Breakfast Club or Mean Girls or Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. It's like that world of being kind of outrageous but responsible with it and making yourself and other people laugh but also being aware of actual things going on around you. The lyrics aren't always super happy but I try to make at least the music sound like something that can propel you through whatever you're going through."

Fun City is available on music streaming platforms now! Listen to the full album below!