Rock ‘N’ Soul Camp - Britt Lightning
By: Lori Smerilson Carson
The saying “the more you do, the more you get done” can certainly apply to Guitarist/Songwriter Britt Lightning. Whether she is touring with her Vixen bandmates, making amazing new music with Singer/Songwriter Tommy London, or heading a rock camp as the musical director, she seems to consistently make outstanding contributions in the music world. She will continue to do so in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the holidays when Producer David Fishof brings his Rock ‘N’ Soul Camp to Fort Lauderdale this coming December 4th through the 7th.
Catching up with Lightning while still on tour with Vixen, she divulged some details about the camp, the guests and counselors, a bit about some of her personal projects, and what fans and campers can look forward to.
SFL Music Magazine: The Rock ‘N’ Soul camp will be in South Florida December 4th-7th. How did this one come to be?
Britt Lightning: Well, we loved the last camp we did down in Florida. We have a great location for the camp now. Campers jam with some of the stars on the rooftop of the hotel. It’s kind of like when The Beatles played on top of the hotel (she laughed). We have some other great live venues down in Florida. We love it down there. So, we wanted to do another one there, and we were just thinking about how we love incorporating horns into the camp. Lately in the camps we’ve had horn players come in for the final performance, and it just amplifies the sounds of the bands and it’s so good. So, we wanted some kind of good soul music that incorporated all of that. We have an amazing horn section coming and we just thought, what are some of the most iconic hits and classics that we could get together starting from the sixties all the way through current times? So, we have three members of the Billy Joel band that are awesome to play the Billy Joel hits. Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals is amazing! He’s been a past guest at the camp and he’s just phenomenal, and those Rascals songs are really timeless. Mark Farner has been also another long-time guest of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp. One of Davids close friends. We just did a podcast episode with him too, talking about it. He’s just such an interesting guy and has such good experience and a lot to learn from him, and of course his hits with Grand Funk (Railroad). Another iconic band. And Jason Scheff, of course the music of Chicago is great with horns as well. Jason actually popped up at one of our L.A. rock camps and surprised everybody by jumping up with one of the camper bands at the Whisky a Go Go, and he loved it. So, we were like well, let’s come do Chicago music at a camp. It kind of all came together like that, but we’re really excited about it! It’s going to be a great weekend of music.
SFL Music Magazine: Will it be held at the same hotel as the last camp?
Lightning: The Aloft Hotel, yep. In Fort Lauderdale.
SFL Music Magazine: Which venues will be featured?
Lightning: The Funky Biscuit and Johnnie Brown’s.
SFL Music Magazine: I see a lot of the counselors are the same as the last camp. Vinny Appice, Derek St. Holmes, Stet Howland and of course Britt Lightning. Is Dave Spitz new? I know he jammed with the campers the last time, but is he a new counselor?
Lightning: He has been a counselor in the past. We used to save him for the metal camps, but he’s available and local down in Florida, so he wanted to do this one. So, we put him on there. Stu Hamm is an amazing virtuosic bass player. Excited about him. Rusty Wright also lives in Florida, and he’s been a great counselor in the past.
SFL Music Magazine: Crystal Taliefero?
Lightning: She’s one of the Special guests. She’s been in Billy Joel’s band a long time. David Rosenthal is a Billy Joel band musical director, and then Liberty (DeVitto) of course, his original drummer. So, you’ll play Billy Joel songs with all of them. I’ve also added Jennifer Oberle. She’s a counselor as well. Then Julia Lage who plays in Vixen with me, and she also plays with Smith/Kotzen which is Richie Kotzen and Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden. We’ll probably be adding just a couple more as it approaches too.
SFL Music Magazine: Will the set-up be similar as last time in the way that they hold the sessions? Will they have The Round Table and all that good stuff?
Lightning: Yeah, we always do the Songwriting Round Table. We’ll have the two live performances. We’ll have jams with all of the musical guests. So, we’ll have Chicago jams with Jason Scheff, Grand Funk jams with Mark Farner, Rascals jams with Felix Cavaliere and with Liberty, Crystal and David, we’ll jam the music of Billy Joel. We’ll have jam rooms, master classes, the Q & A sessions, the whole deal, and of course the band rehearsals to prepare.
SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything different you all will be incorporating with the horns? Any outcome that may be different from the metal camps?
Lightning: Just sonically. We’ll have more people on stage but just having a full horn section. It will be a tight squeeze at Johnnie Brown’s (she laughed), but we’ll make it work. I guess the big difference is just the style of music.
SFL Music Magazine: There will still be the whole realm of campers from the young to older people, correct?
Lightning: Yeah. All ages and all skill levels will come. Yeah, absolutely!
SFL Music Magazine: Being as busy as you are, I see Vixen is touring. Will you be wrapping that up before the camp in Phoenix in November? How are you coordinating?
Lightning: Our singer in Vixen, she also sings in the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that show. It’s a Christmas show. So actually, we take off November and December with Vixen now. That makes it real easy to play in the camps. Then of course, wintertime is the slower season for touring. So, it’s just a better time to do camps. Not only for me, but for all the special guests because they are winding down their tours at that time.
SFL Music Magazine: You also have a solo project with your boyfriend Tommy London. How is that coming along?
Lightning: It is so awesome! I’m very, very excited about it. We have finished recording the record, and we’re just waiting on some mixes and a photo shoot, and some things like that before we release it, but it’s sounding great! We’re super happy with it and can’t wait to start playing live with it to release the album.
SFL Music Magazine: What would you say inspired the album?
Lightning: You know, I haven’t done my own. I’ve written of course for bands and things like that, but I haven’t done my own musical project where your kind of in charge and doing everything since I had an original band in the early 2000’s in Boston called Jaded. It was an all-female metal band. If you’re creative, you have that outlet you need to keep creating and stuff. I’ve just had some ideas inside of me that I wanted to get out, but it’s really hard when you start a project, to stay motivated and move things forward if you don’t have the right partners to do it with you, and the right team because then it can just feel like work sometimes. And getting to know Tommy and our chemistry and everything. He’s a great writer and an amazing singer. He’s got an excellent solo album out too under Tommy London that’s on Spotify and all the streaming services, but I heard that, and I was like, oh my God, this is so great! He moved from New York to L.A., so I was like, we got to do a project together! Let’s make this happen! It's now or never. So, over the past year or so, or two years really, we’ve been writing. We’re just ready to put it out there. It’s modern, but it’s pop and rock and its hip, and I think it’s pretty cool.
SFL Music Magazine: Definitely for people to look forward to. You mentioned playing live. Are you going to do some shows?
Lightning: Definitely! We will definitely play out with it. We don’t have any in the books yet. We’re going to just take our time and wait to release everything first and make sure we have that all set, and then we’ll definitely be playing some shows in 2026.
SFL Music Magazine: Is there any other particular information that you want campers to know about the Rock ‘N’ Soul camp?
Lightning: I would just say, if you want to learn more about the camp, be sure to check out the movie Rock Camp. It’s streaming free on Amazon Prime, and we do have Rock Camp the podcast where you can learn more about the camp as well. We did just release an episode with Mark Farner too where we talk about him and the camp. The podcast is on Apple, Spotify, our website rockcamp.com.
SFL Music Magazine: I remember seeing how the campers connected with each other as well as the counselors and guest talent who were amazing, I thought. Was there anything you want to add about the camp or the performances?
Lightning: It’s four full days of jam-packed music and comradery amongst musicians with the same passion and focus in music as you. You will learn so much. Some camper said, “I’ve been taking music lessons once a week for five years, and I learned more in these four days of rock camp than all of that time combined.” So, in addition to jamming with your peers, you make great connections not only with the talent, but with fellow campers and friends for life. It’s just a real-life changing experience.
