Darker Lighter Photo credit: Joey Martinez
Meet Darker Lighter, the sonic alias of Salar Rajabnik, a Los Angeles-based indie rock songwriter, producer & multi-instrumentalist. Raised on a rich & varied cultural cocktail between Tehran and Kansas City, Rajabnik’s music drips with the kind of depth only a life straddling continents can provide. Today, Darker Lighter release their newest single “Nice To Meet You.”
From a young age, while his peers were chasing trends, Rajabnik was deep in the crates, finding solace and inspiration in the dusty grooves of vinyl records, while simultaneously exploring modern sounds. This early obsession with music wasn’t just a phase; it was the seed of something much bigger. He taught himself to master the bass, drums, guitar, and the art of songwriting, developing a style that’s as much about feeling as it is about technique.
Rajabnik’s talents didn’t go unnoticed. He spent years on the road, honing his craft in various projects and earning his stripes alongside some of the most iconic bands of our time. It wasn’t long before his skills caught the eye of heavyweights like Foo Fighters, Queens Of The Stone Age and Kim Gordon, who brought him into their fold as a trusted guitar tech and associate.
Now, after years of anticipation, Rajabnik is stepping into the spotlight with a long-awaited full length self-titled album recorded at Foo Fighters’ legendary Studio 606, with production maestro Robert Adam Stevenson (Paul McCartney, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Kills, Jeff Beck) at the helm. Darker Lighter isn’t just an artist to watch; he’s an artist who demands to be heard, with a sound that’s destined to echo through the annals of rock history.
Darker Lighter’s first single, “Hanging On” was released 20 September 2024, with more singles releasing to acclaim & notable endorsements leading up to the full length debut LP dropping May 02, 2025.
Big Takeover: The single “Nice To Meet You” is described as a reflection on time, loss, and connections. Could you dive deeper into the inspiration behind this track?
DARKER LIGHTER: Sure, one of the writing devices I have always enjoyed in any kind of writing is well-deployed double or triple entendre. More specifically within the realm of writing lyrics for songs, I’ve always loved that feeling when you are listening to a song, just letting yourself experience it viscerally, and simultaneously wondering what the writer(s) meant to communicate but also, as we all tend to do, assigning your own meaning to it as well.
All that said, “Nice To Meet You” might have began around a genuine notion of a sort of missed connection of some kind, but as I continued fleshing the song out, it developed into how you could view a single relationship, whether romantic, familial, professional, or otherwise, and use it as a sort of reflection on how time passes whether we maintain those relationships or not. And, how it’s up to us to decide whether giving up or maintaining each of those relationships is the right thing to do for ourselves. The questioning nature of the song wrestles with a lot of the uncertainty inherent in considering these concepts as well.
Big Takeover: Your album is a blend of influences from The Cure and Prince. What role did these artists play in shaping your sound? Are there any other lesser-known influences you’d like to share?
DARKER LIGHTER: Difficult to summarize the influence of those two artists in anything less than a novel for me, as they’re each almost beyond explanation in terms of how much impact they’ve had on me. I’d guess that most people listening to my music would detect The Cure before Prince, since I feel that what I end up writing musically is more indicative of their instrumentation than his (chorusy & flangey layered jangly guitars, picked chorusy melodic basslines, etc). However, Prince’s entire ethos, eagerness to ignore traditional genre boundaries, mashing up of acoustic & electronic elements, etc have had profound impact on my general tendencies as an artist. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a Prince obsessive… I have all the bootlegs and am something of an accidental Prince historian.
As a quick aside, I also feel, despite this potentially being seen as an absurd statement on its face, that he’s the most underrated/misunderstood artist of the contemporary age.
As for lesser-known influences, there are too many to count & list. I really love power-pop as a genre but also as a sort of songwriting mentality. I describe a lot of what I do, particularly my melodic ideas & guitar work, as “sleight of hand.” I think what I mean is that it sounds melodically pleasing but upon further inspection is more complex and well thought-out than may have been obvious immediately. Some masters of that approach would be James Honeyman-Scott of Pretenders & Johnny Marr, both of whom I’d say are on my guitar hero wall of fame. I’m also always returning to staple bands that I feel are criminally overlooked such as Teenage Fanclub.
Big Takeover: Your debut album is set to drop in May 2025. What can listeners expect in terms of sound and themes? How does it compare to your previous work?
DARKER LIGHTER: When I set out to make this record, I knew that it was a turning point. I had been in so many bands prior, put out solo material under my name, and always felt that I was compromising in various ways, often with nothing but the best intent. Whether that was to attempt to pander to band members to keep a lineup together, putting something out that was below the level of what I knew what I was capable of.
When I connected with Robert Adam Stevenson, the co-producer and engineer on the Darker Lighter album, I knew I’d found the right person to help me realize what I knew I was hearing in my head. He detected that vision and helped me achieve it. I think what is therefore evident on the album is that there is a range of musical and lyrical style (within the realm of what I enjoy and aspire to), but something of an average as well across the tunes. A few are outliers in a cool way, which I think provide some nice variety. But overall I feel like we achieved that perfect balance of raw, emotive urgency and sonic grandeur. Which is production-wise how all of my favorite albums are. Being able to record it at Studio 606, through one of the most legendary recording consoles of all time (the Sound City Neve that did so many seminal, fabled albums in history) was also key to achieving that big, timeless sound.
Simply put, this is the first thing I’ve released where my means to achieve what I was aiming for matched the vision I had, and I’m very proud of that.
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