All you need is XXXX

Becky Ninkovic of B.C.’s disco-rockers
You Say Party! We Say Die! discusses
wreckage and recovery, nervous
breakdowns and new wave beats

DEFYING EXPECTATIONS:
Becky Ninkovic (C) and You Say Party! We Say Die!

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“There’s a lot of expectations for a band called You Say Party! We Say Die!,” says Becky Ninkovic, amused by the disbelief in certain circles that her band writes love songs. “It’s like, ‘I don’t get it, aren’t you guys a party band?’, as if we’re not real people with hearts inside us. That’s the message we get a lot, especially within the punk scene, it’s like, ‘Don’t go there.’ But I’m so there. I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else.”

XXXX (aka “Love”) is the latest album by the Vancouver-based quintet, whose founders—singer/dancer Ninkovic, bassist Stephen O’Shea and keyboardist Krista Loewen—hail from the small town of Abbotsford, B.C. With a few other “bored kids” in the Fraser Valley (who’ve since been replaced by guitarist Derek Adam and drummer Devon Clifford), they formed the band in 2003 and released their debut EP, Danskawd, in 2004. It was from the artwork for that very first CD that the title of their third album came.

“I cut out these four paper X’s,” explains Ninkovic, who co-creates the band’s artwork with Adam, “and I remember thinking, ‘There—my mark of love.’ It was this internal little moment that I never shared with anyone in the band.”

Following a major metamorphosis—musical, philosophical and emotional—love is no longer a dirty word for YSP!WSD! On XXXX, they’ve kept their fists raised in sexy political punk while shifting their dancing feet out of pogo time into new romantic, new wave beats. Whereas their previous albums, Hit the Floor! (2005) and Lose All Time (2007), documented their youthful exuberance and raw, exciting songs, the energy of their live show was never properly expressed in the studio, until now.

With generous session time and the guiding hand of producer Howard Redekopp (Tegan and Sara, the New Pornographers), the band has made a record that they’re so proud of, Ninkovic likens the emotion to the “wholesome” pride and joy that parents have in newborns. She also feels that the band has finally come of age.

“I really feel like we’ve grown into ourselves, individually and collectively, particularly me,” Ninkovic says. “It’s always been a huge learning curve, quite a struggle for me vocally, and now I feel like I’ve really found my true voice as a performer, and this album really showcases that discovery.

“A lot of the time, my singing in the past was a reaction to the loud, frantic sound that we were going for and it kind of propelled me to really push and shout and yell and scream,” she explains, drawing a distinction between the physical connection she achieves now, after a year of vocal coaching, and the detachment that used to occur.

“I would feel the adrenaline and energy of our live show and that would kick me up into dance mode, because I grew up as a dancer and that’s my number one way of expressing myself. I put singing on the backburner, so I had to really hone in and learn how to find that fine balance between singing my heart out and dancing my heart out. This is our first tour to really put all that I’ve learned over the past year into action live, and it’s been really exciting, trying, difficult, fun, liberating—a whole mixture of emotions.”

The death of the party

“Now I’m doing good,” Ninkovic reports. When the Mirror caught up with her on the road somewhere between Charlottetown and Halifax, she’d just kicked a mean flu virus that had plagued her for weeks, forcing the band to cancel shows in Sault Ste-Marie and Thunder Bay. “I feel strong and definitely at my best for touring. I had a rough start, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

The band’s recent evolution sprung largely from Ninkovic’s recovery, not from flu but from a more serious, chronic (and private) medical condition that was aggravated by hard living during a 16-week European tour with no breaks.

“I was so afraid to eat due to the severe health condition—I really didn’t know what I could eat anymore—and was literally running on empty. Because my voice was also suffering, I was over-compensating by dancing harder. It was this crazy cardiovascular aerobic workout every night.

“Our communication at that point was so broken down, everyone was in self-survival mode, and self-survival mode for tour is a lot of partying, usually,” she says. “But I was the only one who couldn’t, so I started to feel like a victim in it all, and once you embrace the victim mentality, you’re in so much trouble.”

Fuelled almost exclusively by alcohol and caffeine, Ninkovic pushed through her nightly performances and suffered in silence, until one night in Berlin when she physically attacked Clifford during a drunken argument. The band nearly broke up right then and there.

“You have these cracks inside of yourself, I think everybody does, but you don’t necessarily know they’re there until enough pressure is put on them,” she says. “I hit a place where I couldn’t physically or mentally go on any further and it was definitely the hardest moment of my life and the hardest moment for the band.

“I meet a lot of women in bands,” she adds, “and I think there’s a general feeling that we need to prove ourselves, that there’s this unspoken rule out there that you have to tough it out no matter what. To take a day off is a sign of weakness.”

In the end, Ninkovic’s time off lasted not days but months. The rest of the band returned to their philanthropic jobs (at group homes for the disabled, and for the homeless and drug-addicted, and at a third-world charity organization). Ninkovic eventually found solace at work, but it was rejoining the band to make XXXX that brought the painful period to a close.

“It felt very liberating and exciting and super creative, creative in a spiritual way too. The other albums capture moments of feeling lost, moments of being in dark places. XXXX does document some of that darkness I was breaking out of but it also captures a lot of moments of truth and revelation and newfound strength and joy and love and all those good things.”

Ban in the USA

If XXXX reflects Ninkovic’s healed body and mind, inner peace and outer health never sounded so frisky. Despite the band’s stylistic change of pace, the influx of new energy on the record is undeniable. And given their pride in this latest product, YSP!WSD! want to reel in as many listeners and viewers as they can. But the biggest potential market for their music is closed until 2011, when the U.S. will legally allow them back into the country.

“It’s an unfortunate event because Stephen is probably the most honest guy out of all of us,” says Ninkovic, explaining that O’Shea was their spokesperson at the border when they attempted to cross without a work permit in 2006. They were due to record and play shows in California, but only told half the truth, and when the border guards found their tour itinerary, after having questioned O’Shea for hours, they banned him for five years. “He has such a good heart, he’s such a solid guy. It’s funny, if it’s drugs, you can go through rehab and prove that you’re rehabilitated, but it’s more difficult to prove that you’re actually a decent, honest person.”

The band clearly hasn’t let this setback ground them. They’ve played Canada, the U.K., Europe, Japan and even China. But the States still beckon.

“Now that we have the new album out, it would really be beneficial for us to get back down,” she says. Of course, they could always play with a replacement bassist. “We talked a lot about that, and of course there are people in our team who would love for us to do it so we could keep moving forward, but it doesn’t really sit well with any of us. Stephen’s like the core member of our band, he really is the one who brought us all together.”

They’ve been working with an immigration lawyer in the hopes of getting permission to play the SXSW festival in Austin in March, and perhaps book more shows in major American cities. “It’s quite a long gruelling process, and pretty disheartening,” Ninkovic admits, “but we’re trying really hard. Fingers crossed.”

WITH THINK ABOUT LIFE AT LE TRAC
(475 BOUL. DE L’AVENIR, LAVAL) ON
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ABOUT LIFE AT IL MOTORE ON
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