Lights and deadmau5 have collaborated several times over the years, including in 2018 for “Drama Free” — which appeared on the soundtrack to the Netflix film Polar that was scored by the DJ — and in 2021 for “When the Summer Dies.” Lights has also been known to pop up during a live deadmau5 set on occasion to perform their collaborations together, and she has recently drawn the ire of Faroese singer Greta Svabo Bech, who contributed the vocals on the producer’s 2011 track “Raise Your Weapon.”
Bech took to TikTok earlier this week to explain that she gets tagged in lots of posts from deadmau5 shows, and some recent videos have been concerning to her. “It is my voice, but another singer is miming,” she says over fan-shot footage of Lights performing “Raise Your Weapon,” adding, “If she’s not miming, her voice is so low in the mix that you can only hear me. Seeing these videos made me realize, as a singer, my voice and my identity are intertwined.”
“It’s one thing not giving credit, but when someone else is actively taking credit for your voice, it’s like they’re taking a part of your body and saying it’s theirs,” Bech continued. “It’s intentional. It feels like an assault on my identity and my livelihood as a singer. And it’s also deceiving the audience… With all the conversations about AI, and the death of the artist and creativity, this feels much worse because it’s my voice and I’m a human being.”
Lights has now shared her side of the story, responding with a TikTok of her own where she explained that this was the result of production team mistake. “I’ve been singing ‘Raise Your Weapon’ with deadmau5 on and off for the last number of years. It’s not my song — it’s just been an add-on to the songs that I do have with him on the shows that I do come out to, because it’s a great singable moment,” she said.
“For the last few shows, though, you can actually just hear the original track playing over my performance. I actually didn’t know that no one could hear my voice in the speakers until I got on stage,” Lights continued, adding that she didn’t even realize what was happening until she asked the crowd, “How’s everybody doing tonight?” and there was zero response.
She went on, “Long story short, it sucked for me to be singing my ass off and no one could hear me. And it’s sucked for Greta to see that and get the wrong impression about me. I would have obviously preferred for it to be an instrumental like it had been in the past.”
“I’m not shitting on the production team or the deadmau5 camp,” the artist clarified. “They’re great people. They work their asses off. They’ve always treated me great. It’s just there were a few things that were important to me and the original vocalist, Greta, that were overlooked because everybody is busy thinking about a bunch of things that have to do with a massive production like this. There were no egregious conspiracies to erase identity or malicious intent. Shit happens.”
Lights added, “I chatted with Greta and we’re good. In the words of the great Paul McCartney, it’s just fucking music and we’re all gonna die.” Check out both of their videos about the situation below.
