Neverending White Lights

Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies

At the age of nineteen, Victor began to move from working in the 'band-like' environments of his adolescence to experiment with multi-tracking alone in the studio. These early recordings eventually became the first batch of songs from his debut release, Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies. Interested by the format of movie soundtracks, compilations, and hip-hop collaborations, he sent out compositions to vocalists with whom he wanted to collaborate, hoping to create a fully collaborative record in the indie genre. Victor's influences at this point included Brian Eno, Craig Armstrong, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and Massive Attack, among others.

After graduating, Victor devoted himself full-time to the project, named Neverending White Lights, intended as a metaphor for human energy. The record was conceived as a 16-song concept album, entitled Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies, the first episode in a story that would continue over many albums, with the albums as "Acts", the songs as "Scenes", and the various singers as "Actors".

Victor's first collaboration for this album was called "On Fire", co-written with Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman in San Diego, California, in 2001. The song was not included on Act 1, but made it onto Switchfoot's debut album The Beautiful Letdown.

For other collaborations on the first album, Victor worked with vocalists from bands including 311, Ours, Hum, Finger Eleven, Shudder to Think, The Velvet Teen, Our Lady Peace, Age of Electric, The Watchmen, The Black Maria, Creeper Lagoon, Starflyer 59, City and Colour, Deckard, Supergarage, Evelynn, and Cirrus. Victor wrote most of the music, insisted on performing all the instrumentation himself, and also completed all the producing and mixing stages. Victor finished the album in September 2005. There were several unreleased tracks written and recorded for Act 1, including the songs "John Dies At 56" (featuring Mogwai), "Throwing Chairs" (featuring Switchfoot), "Shipbuilding" (featuring Unbelievable Truth), and "This Is My Fate" (featuring City and Colour).

On September 27, 2005, the album was released independently through Victor's own label, Ocean Records Canada. The first single from the album was "The Grace", featuring Canadian singer Dallas Green, which was Certified Gold and became the sixth most played song on Canadian Rock Radio in 2006. The music video for the song reached #1 on Much Music and modern rock radio. The album sold just under 40,000 copies in Canada, and received a number of awards and nominations, including a Juno nomination for Best New Artist. Victor subsequently joined Canadian band Our Lady Peace as a support act on their tour in spring 2006.

Act 2: The Blood and the Life Eternal

Victor took about a year to write and record his second album, entitled Act 2: The Blood and the Life Eternal, recorded in his basement studio in 2006/2007. Victor produced and mixed the album and performed all instrumentation, with a new cast of vocalists. The style was partly influenced by the reverb-heavy music of the 1980s, such as Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and George Michael.

The album was released on October 30, 2007, and featured members of groups including Aqualung, The Raveonettes, Mobile, Catherine Wheel, Auf der Maur, Hawksley Workman, Magneta Lane, Mellowdrone, and Ours. The lead single, "Always", was the first track to feature Victor himself on vocals and peaked at #18 on the Canadian Top 40 Rock Chart. This was followed by the second single, "The World is Darker", featuring Melissa Auf der Maur, and then the driving rock song "Where We Are" featuring Rob Dickinson of the UK band, Catherine Wheel.

In 2008, Victor took time off and decided not to tour the album, instead spending time with friends and family. During this time he produced and recorded an album as part of a side-project, Black Ribbons, a 12-song electro-pop album produced and recorded in a few months, with every song written on the bass guitar.

Act 3: Love Will Ruin

In 2009, Victor went to work on writing new material for his third album, Act 3: Love Will Ruin, focused on the concept of Tragic Love. Writing and production for this album progressed slowly and was affected by various setbacks. Victor eventually wrote and recorded nearly seventy songs for inclusion on this album, but when he had a 'finished' copy in his hands after several years, decided it was unworthy for release, and returned to the studio to start from scratch. On September 21, 2010, Victor leaked a song from the album, entitled "The Lonely War", featuring Evan Konrad of the band Bed of Stars. He also announced that due to difficulties with a rupture in his vocal cords, the official release date of the album was delayed from 2009 to late 2011. In spring 2011, the first single/video from Act 3 was released, entitled "Falling Apart" (featuring Bed of Stars). In October, the single "Ghost Ship" (featuring Hot Hot Heat) was released, peaking at #9 for three weeks on ALT Rock in Canada.

Act 3 was finally released in North America, and digitally in UK and Australia, on November 18, 2011. It featured guest performances by Hot Hot Heat, Bed of Stars, and Pilot Speed. The album features more vocals from Victor himself, and is generally more uptempo and rock than previous releases.

Act IV

Victor is currently working on the fourth studio album in the Neverending White Lights series, following a seven year break due to mental health issues.^[2] Acts rumoured to be collaborating on the fourth album include Deftones/Crosses frontman Chino Moreno, singer/songwriter Active Child, The Tea Party, and Mother Mother.^[3]

Albums

• 2005: Act 1: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies
• 2007: Act 2: The Blood and the Life Eternal
• 2011: Act 3: Love Will Ruin^[4]
• 2018: Act 4: TBA

EPs

• 2008: The World Is Darker EP

Singles

Featured in:

• 2011: "This Time" JDiggz feat. Neverending White Lights # on 1 Much Music Video Chart / MMVA Winner for Best Independent Video 2011

Awards and Nominations

WINS:

• Favourite Single Of The Year - Indie Music Awards 2006
• Number 1 Song Award - SOCAN 2006
• Favourite Group Of The Year - Indie Music Awards 2007
• Best New Group Of The Year - Radio Music Awards 2007
• Best Independent Video Of The Year - MMVA's 2011
• Number 1 Song Award - SOCAN 2011
• Success Story Of The Year Award - EBA Entertainment 2009
• Artist Of The Year - 2014 BIZ X Awards

NOMINATIONS:

• Best Independent Video - MMVA's 2006
• Favourite New Artist - Casby Music Awards 2006
• Favourite New Single - Casby Music Awards 2006
• Favourite New Release - Casby Music Awards 2006
• New Artist Of The Year - JUNO Awards 2007
• Best Independent Video - MMVA's 2008
• Favourite New Single - Casby Music Awards 2008
• Favourite New Release - Casby Music Awards 2008
• Best Cinematography - MMVA's 2011
• Best Director - MMVA's 2011
• Favourite Video Of The Year - Indie Music Awards 2012
• Collaboration Of The Year - Indie Music Awards 2013