Besides being a little weirded out by the Grand Canyon State’s liberal gun laws — Aluna Francis, one half of AlunaGeorge, is excited for her show in Phoenix at Crescent Ballroom tonight. That's not to say she's all that knowledgeable about the Copper State.

“Well, I know you can bring guns out in public," the Wales-born singer says. “That’s one of the first things I heard about.”

In fact, her stylist is from Arizona, and has assured her that she won’t come across any gun-slingin’, cowboy boot-wearin’ folk — as long as she stays downtown.

Francis and her bandmate/producer/DJ George Reid have found fame across the pond with hits like “You Know You Like It” and “In Control.” Francis has become somewhat of a vessel for girl power, with her songs carrying a lyrical theme of female confidence.

“I feel like music had the power to access parts of my mind and my emotions that I wasn’t able to access in my conscious state, or with my friends, or with my parents,” Francis reveals. 

For example, “I'm In Control,” a song that shouts female empowerment, didn’t start with that meaning — in fact, she didn’t really even like the song when she first heard it.

“I kind of dared myself to put myself out there and say what I wanted in certain situations … then I realized that went well, and that whole situation was set off from hearing my thoughts and opinions, and hearing that people wanted to know what I thought … I wanted to mark this discovery with a song.”

From there, Francis’ message became clear.

“Sometimes songs fit into that space in your life, where you just have someone cheering you on,” she says. “That’s more of a feeling or intimacy that I would like to go into the minds of women, to make them feel good about themselves. That can be a very powerful thing, I think, even though it’s a very small gesture to the world.”

Francis and Reid have been working on their second album for two and a half years, and the two are finally in the finishing stages and planning to release the album this September.

“I think in my second album, I’ve really started to talk about things that I really care about,” she says. “Make some sense of them. But not to the detriment of the kind of number-one factor about a song, which … for me is enjoyment.”

As for the message:

“I want that woven in there, so that you can replay that song again and again, and when you’re in a space where you want to think about things and reflect, those lyrics are something that can help you to do that, or can spark a thought.”

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