The Sophian sat down with Lili Greenberg, a local musician, dancer and actor set to tour with “Hits! The Musical” in 2023. Greenberg formerly attended UMass Amherst, where she founded indie-punk band The Lights. She told The Sophian about the epic highs and lows of founding a student band, how she balanced meeting her needs with those of her bandmates and what’s next for her as a musician and performing artist.
“I had always known that I wanted to start a band. All throughout quarantine, I would sing my songs to myself in the mirror and imagine that I was singing to a really big crowd,” said Greenberg. When UMass students returned to campus in full in Spring 2021, she was finally able to pursue that goal.
Greenberg pieced together The Lights by finding people through different mutual friends. At one point, the band had eight members, including two backup singers. At the beginning, Lili considered it her band, naming it “Lili and the Lights” before ultimately shortening it to “The Lights.”
Greenberg affirms that stepping back in the band helped members grow more invested in its success. “At first, I was like, why don’t they want to move heaven and earth for this band?” Greenberg laughs. “We changed the name and started writing songs together, and everyone had a deeper investment because of that.”
When looking for help setting up shows, Greenberg received a surprising amount of support from other UMass bands. She specifically cites The Baxbys, a student band with a groupie following on campus, as a helpful resource in finding gigs.
“Literally every day, I would DM them questions, like: Hey, what building do you practice in?” Greenberg laughs. “They were so kind and they didn’t need to be… We opened for them, just with the first three songs we had. And the rest is history.”
After their first show with The Baxbys, The Lights quickly gained their own following. On Sept. 24, they played their first official gig at The Drake in Amherst. At the show, dozens of students crowded near the stage, shouting out lyrics and filming the show. Several audience members even FaceTimed others into the show, and one woman livestreamed the event on Facebook Live.
But despite The Lights’ growing following, in Greenberg’s words, the band may be set “to fizzle.”
At the time of this article’s publication, Greenberg has left the Pioneer Valley to rehearse with “Hits!,” produced by Robert Gries and directed by Cynthia Nekvasil. The musical will tour 50 cities this spring and describes itself as a “high energy musical production featuring America’s best young superstars” on the website. The Lights’ final shows took place the week before Greenberg left to rehearse with the cast.
“It’s really sad, because [The Lights] are such a fun band,” Greenberg reflected. “But I think that the confidence that it’s given me to be on stage, command a crowd, get people invested and lead a band, is something that I’ll take with me forever. If we find ourselves in a situation where we’re all together again, we’ll totally play. But if not, then it’s something that will have to be beautiful, and be gone.”
After The Lights, Greenberg will be touring for six months with “Hits!,” as well as working on her own solo music. She hopes to release an EP of five songs in the coming months. “Ideally, I want to be a recording artist and make songs that people listen to when they need to cry, and it helps them cry more, because that’s what I look for in music,” Greenberg stated.
For Greenberg, singing and songwriting have always been a calling. “Performing for commodity reasons, to make money, is one thing,” said Greenberg. “But singing, songwriting, dancing — it’s for yourself and it needs to be. If it’s not feeding your soul, then why are you doing it?”
Prior to this interview, The Sophian caught up with Greenberg at a mutual friend’s Rosh Hashana dinner. Greenberg takes pride in her Jewish identity and asked that The Sophian take note of her choice to go by her full name.
“I want to always go by Lili Greenberg because I feel like all the Jewish people in popular media are the butts of jokes, and I wanted to show young, Jewish kids that it’s okay to have a really Jewish last name,” said Greenberg. “You can still be cool and awesome and funny and hot, even with a really Jewish last name like Greenberg.”
You can follow Lili Greenberg on Instagram: @lili.grnbrg.
