On Setting and Achieving Goals: An Interview with Bragglights
Every year, bbatx curates a monthly residency highlighting the work of 10 to 15, Texas-based women and nonbinary visual and musical artists that create work and perform in our programs. As we move to take our programs online, we’ve partnered with Bumble to launch a digital version of The Residency. From now through November 1, 2020, you can tune in for weekly mixes, visuals and workshops from 16 women and nonbinary artists and DJs.
Today, we’ve got an interview with Jenna Herrington, an electronic music DJ better known as Bragglights. In conversation with bbatx committee member Diamond Hawkins, Bragglights discusses how Texas and California have influenced her music, manifesting her next moves, and how she’s learned to silence self-doubt.
ABOUT BRAGGLIGHTS:
Bragglights is an experimental techno/dance music project produced & performed by the artist, Jenna Herrington. Cast as a black sheep during her childhood in Southeast Texas, her creative direction derives from the “Lights of Saratoga” aka “Bragg Lights” which are most famously known as mysterious lights that wander the forests & railroads of her homeland.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. :) how you DID YOU GET into making MUSIC? WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSICAL INFLUENCES?
My name is Jenna Herrington. I’m 33 from southeast Texas, a small rural town. I grew up in a very close-minded area, but at the same time, there was also some culture. Then I moved to southern California, and I feel like I’ve kind of lived two different lives, maybe even more. I’ve been back and forth between California and Texas multiple times. I think my childhood made me that way. Sometimes I want to be in Texas, and then I’m feeling the city and I’m ready to move.
I’ve always been an artsy person. Creating music helped me get out of a hole. About ten years ago, I had a wave come over me. I was a pretty lost person, but then I really began to think about making music. I bought a drum machine and I had no idea what to do with it. But I bought it and just started pressing the buttons. Then, years later I got Ableton 6—it was so raw, and I had no idea what I was doing. I just started messing around and getting myself familiar with it. That’s kind of my process for how I do a lot of things. I just experiment and I have to get my hands on things to figure it out. Once I hit a barrier, I’ll do more research—look up Youtube videos, stuff like that.
Also, growing up, music was really big for me. I wanted to be Timbaland so bad. I really loved him and his beats. I more or less studied him, but I didn’t really get into making music until I was 23. Growing up in the ‘90s, it was almost as if he produced every song. And then there was Missy Elliott. She was so out there. Remember “I Can’t Stand The Rain?” She has like, a trash bag on! I think it was a really cool time to grow up in because it was a whole new kind of funky. MTV was actually cool back then. It was just MTV and VH1, and MTV was always killing it. I realized that I watched a lot of MTV, I watched a lot of BET. I was really into hip hop. I would watch The Basement and Hits From The Street. Hip hop and rap were really big influences in my life, and it was just starting to really get big then. Musicians like Outkast and their song “Bombs Over Baghdad.”
Speaking of Missy Elliott and Timbaland creating a whole new culture, I’m getting really into J Balvin right now. He just came out with his new album called Colores, and all of his videos remind me of the super dope videos that I used to watch growing up. I’m so into it right now. I’m trying to learn Spanish so that I can rap along. For two hours last night, I was just yelling his lyrics trying to learn it. I’m getting a new wave of inspiration.
As for electronic music, when I was in California I dated someone who was really into Aphex Twin, goth music, and industrial. I learned a lot about music from them. I learned how to use synthesizers, MIDI, the basics. And then after we split, I continued to nerd out on things. And now, I really love techno. I was living in Lisbon for three months because I was cutting hair out there (I cut hair, too.) I was going to these underground techno shows. It was so sick. I just like making really dark, kinda raw stuff. For my music, I imagine people in a warehouse, making out, sweating, dancing, taking their clothes off. That’s just how I feel. So, maybe I just have a lot of sexual energy I’m trying to get out!
That’s where I am right now. I try to dive into different sub-genres of electronica. I haven’t released it yet, but it’s going to be called Ghost. I like to conceptualize my albums. It helps me write. I use more eerie, ambient sounds, but it leans more toward warehouse dance. But the newer stuff that I’m writing is kind of similar to Crystal Castles indie.
HOW DO YOU USE YOUR CRAFT TO MOVE OTHER PEOPLE?
I started putting out stuff in 2017, so three years ago, and it was really hard to get my first show. I created my first show on Red River. I met these nerdy guys and was like, “let’s play a show,” and I decided that I was going to be the headliner. I kind of just kept doing that. I had these goals: I was going to play Nite School at Cheer Up Charlies and then Exploded Drawing, and I got both of those shows within a year.
I’m starting to connect the dots here. When I was playing these shows, regardless if it was a coffee shop, Cheer Up Charlies or Nite School—I want to make these people dance. If I can get straight-laced, plain-old people to dance, it makes me feel as if I’m doing something right, because I know that they have it inside of them. [Here in Austin] It’s just indie music all the time, and I’m like cool, you can play your guitar. But that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’ve got rage! I want to shuffle! When people go to Coachella, they go buck wild. I know they’re listening to EDM, techno, hip hop. So I’m trying to bring that at a local level. That’s not my main mission, but I like writing dance music. At this point where I’m at, I’m only playing at a local level, but I want to bring it.
BEING A WORKING MUSICIAN HAS A LOT TO DO WITH OPPORTUNITY. HOW DO YOU REACT TO SUDDEN OPPORTUNITIES OR CHANGES AS THEY MAY ARISE?
A few years ago, I was flown out to Bonnaroo by Red Bull Music. They picked 20 people—I still don’t know how I got it. I met so many bomb people, but the guy that ran it lives in Miami and told me I needed to go to see what it’s like. So I ended up going. We woke up at seven in the morning, got dressed and we went to this club called Club Space Miami on Fourth of July. We were on stage on the DJ booth with these hot, sexy people, dancing and drinking, and it was packed. It’s like that all the time. You don’t know who’s been up since four in the morning, you don’t know who just got dressed and showed up. Once I felt that, I knew that I was at a point in my artistry where I needed that. I need that energy. I find myself being more shy and quiet here in Austin. I feel bashful all the time. I’m just ready to be around people where I can just bop my head everywhere I go.
I’ve been doing a lot of personal work, and I’m just realizing that we become the story that we make up in our head. I have this curiosity to move to Miami, and then my ego says no. But no. Now, I’m at a point where I’m like, “you need to get serious about writing music.” I’m at this point where I can actually see myself becoming a professional musician. Austin’s a good place to incubate, and that’s what I’m finding out. It was a really good place for me to make my own show. You can start anything in Austin, but now I need to feel something else.
The coronavirus has been interesting because it’s not a vacation, and I know a lot of people have been hit really hard by it. But I’ve actually been seeing this time as being really beautiful for me. I saved around $7,000 to keep myself afloat, and I’m not balling by any means, but now I have a whiteboard on my wall, and last night I wrote, “I am going to move to Miami.” It’s been an interesting time for me, if I’m being honest.
WHAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUR YOUNGER SELF?
I wish I could revisit myself when I was 14, depressed and had a broken up family. The first time I ever experienced depression, I wish I could’ve grabbed my own hand and shown myself that what I’m experiencing here and now is possible. I didn’t have guidance, I was just blind. Being female, growing up with a mom that has two jobs, two kids and married an alcoholic—man, I rebelled so much. Isn’t it crazy to be triggered as an adult and see how embedded that shit is in you? You get to a point when you’re already on the path to recovery and changing and you see people not be able to do it. I feel like I’m just barely starting to grow up, and I’m 33. I wish I could’ve grabbed my hand and shown myself the other side of the world.
