VANCOUVER — Sitting in Krista Loewen’s backyard behind her house just off Main Street in Vancouver, Becky Ninkovic is sporting an ever-growing baby bump.

The singer for dance-punk band You Say Party is beaming, but her excitement is laced with a hint of apprehension.

The Abbotsford-bred group — Ninkovic (vocals), Loewen (keys/vocals), Stephen O’Shea (bass) and Derek Adam (guitar) — hasn’t performed in concert in over a year, and will be reforming to play a set at label Paper Bag Records’ 10th anniversary bash in Toronto at the end of September.

“It was the proposal of this show that prompted us to start talking about it,” Loewen says. “Stephen had brought up the show expecting me to not have any interest. Then Becky and I were on the phone, thinking, ‘Maybe we do want to do it.’”

You Say Party was devastated when drummer Devon Clifford died from a brain hemorrhage cause by an undiagnosed cerebral arteriovenous malformation — malformed blood vessels in the brain — after he collapsed on stage during a concert at the Rickshaw Theatre in April 2010. The entire Canadian indie music community was in shock.

Following Clifford’s death, Loewen left the band formerly known as You Say Party! We Say Die!

You Say Party cancelled its scheduled European tour supporting its critically acclaimed album XXXX, but eventually recruited close friends Robert Andow and Al Boyle to fill in for Loewen and Clifford and perform at the inaugural Live at Squamish festival in 2010.

The band played a few more concerts including a fundraiser for the Devon R.B. Clifford Memorial Foundation, which has been set up in the drummer’s name to support music and education programs for financially disadvantaged youth and young adults, at Vancouver’s Biltmore Cabaret in April 2011.

But it was too much to bear. Citing physical and mental exhaustion, You Say Party went on hiatus shortly after.

“The trauma just knocked us right off our courses,” Ninkovic says. “For a while, with the reformation and new members and everything, we were all scrambling to find some way to channel that shock and that grief and that complicated mixture of emotions we were all going through. It was like no one knew what was the right thing to do.”

Loewen and Ninkovic admit the healing process was long and difficult and led to a lot of introspection, questioning and acceptance.

As with many of its important decisions, the band came to a consensus about You Say Party’s return over dinner.

In January, Ninkovic, O’Shea, Loewen and Adam got together for an evening meal at The Afghan Horsemen near Granville Island to discuss the Paper Bag Records gig that had been offered to them in December.

“Krista and I wanted to tell the guys that we were having these awakening thoughts and that we wanted to do the show,” Ninkovic says. “And we went in there and one of our oldest fans was sitting there with her whole family having dinner. She has tattoos — one of my drawings and another one that says ‘Meow’ that was from our first EP.”

“She would come to every show and she became a friend,” Loewen adds.

“So that was another little sign, another little omen: Of all the places we could be tonight, here we are and there’s our oldest fan,” Ninkovic says with a chuckle.

For You Say Party to return meant entirely rethinking the creative process and looking at a completely new way of functioning as a band, Ninkovic explains. The four members have been getting together once a week since March, with no intention of finding a replacement for Clifford this time around.

Live drums will likely be emulated via drum machines, if they are part of the music at all.

“ ‘Less is more’ has been one of our mantras for sure, and honouring the space that Devon left,” Ninkovic says. “I didn’t want to fill it up. And that resonated with Derek and Krista and Stephen as well.

“Sometimes there’s so much power in silence,” she adds, letting the words hang in the afternoon air.

Though Loewen confirms the band has been recording new material, no concrete plans have been made for a Vancouver concert or touring. Ninkovic being more than five-months pregnant will impact how the band moves forward in the forthcoming year.

Ultimately, Loewen and Ninkovic insist on You Say Party being in charge of its own momentum, taking it one step at a time.

“It was really friendship that brought us back together,” Loewen says. “And that’s what is going to be on stage. We’re going to be on stage creating something as friends, together. That’s why we’re there again.”

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You Say Party performs at the Paper Bag Records 10th anniversary concert series at the Great Hall in Toronto on Saturday, Sept. 29.

fmarchand@vancouversun.com

Blog: vancouversun.com/awesomesound

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