Of all the challenges a band might face, this one was certainly never imagined, not even in their worst, wildest nightmares: The drummer collapses onstage in the middle of a show and dies.
How, as individuals, do you deal with the grief? And what, as a band, do you do? Call it quits? Take a prolonged break? Soldier on? If you do choose to continue, how do you replace your bandmate, your friend? And what do you do about your band’s name when it happens to be You Say Party! We Say Die!
For the band that now calls itself You Say Party, the answer to moving on from Devon Clifford’s death was found in hope – and Hope. But it wasn’t found easily.
“When it first [happened] I had absolutely no concept of how to continue, how to move forward, the future,” said lead singer Becky Ninkovic during an emotional interview in her Abbotsford backyard. “It just seemed like everything stopped. Everything was done. I couldn’t fathom anything beyond the moment. It was just complete devastation and despair.”
To hold it in just feels very toxic. It’s all about turning that into something. — Becky Ninkovic
Clifford, 30, collapsed during what was supposed to be a triumphant homecoming show at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver last April. At first thought to be an aneurysm, the cause of the collapse was determined to be an undetected congenital disorder, arteriovenous malformation (AVM), where there is an abnormal connection between veins and arteries.
Looking back on that night, Ninkovic, 29, and bass guitarist Stephen O’Shea, 28, recall a subdued Clifford, more solemn and quiet than usual. Rather than go about his usual pre-show routine (arm exercises; a quick, last smoke), he stuck around backstage with the rest of the band for a group hug and to listen to Ninkovic and keyboardist/vocalist Krista Loewen do their nightly warm-up song: Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting – which the women would sing together again eight days later at his funeral.
Following the shock of Clifford’s very public death, each member of the band faced a private hell; in Ninkovic’s case, grieving deeply, researching various religions’ philosophies on the afterlife, and feeling unsure about how to proceed. “It all felt pretty complicated and complex and a cacophonous mess of emotions.”
She considered disbanding. So did O’Shea. “I think individually probably each member considered it,” he says.
They wondered what Clifford would have wanted. “I went through a time when I thought he would be really mad if we continued,” says Ninkovic.
“He’d also be really mad if we stopped,” adds O’Shea.
It was a hike shortly after Clifford’s death, even before the funeral, that left Ninkovic feeling that they needed to keep making music. They were visiting the Othello Tunnels in a provincial park near Hope, B.C. – a spot where Clifford, Ninkovic, guitarist Derek Adam and their friends had hung out as teenagers. When their good friend and videographer Jeff Scheven suggested they return to shoot the video for Laura Palmer’s Prom, Ninkovic was aghast.
“I just stopped and said how would we possibly do that? Or anything? I just couldn’t at all see it. And Jeff just took me by the shoulders and said ‘Becky, we’re still alive. We have to keep living. We have to keep [following] our dreams.’ He just poured all this truth into me for a few minutes and it was a major wakeup moment. It felt like someone kind of slapped me across the face: ‘Wake up. You’re still alive.’ ”
Clifford’s parents supported the idea of the band continuing on, and Adam – who had been extremely close with Clifford since childhood – felt the same way. “He’s had the most courage, I think,” says Ninkovic.
“And that was how we were able to begin the process … so quickly,” says O’Shea.
