Sick City Are Not Lucky

Winnipeg seems to be rocking these days, following the history of many great bands the latest export from the home of people from Neil Young to The Weakerthans is the rock band, Sick City. They may go crazy on stage, but after a few minutes of talking to bassist T.J. Stevenson you realize that they were meant to be famous. They have drive and focus that is lacking in many new bands. Their debut disc Nightlife (released by both Trustkill and Smallman Records) proves their talent. It’s pretty obvious this little band (which is completed by singer Josh Youngson, guitarists Dorian Paszkowski and Dave Grabowski and drummer Joel Neufeld) has a big road ahead, one that they are willing to take on.

TS: You guys have been signed to two fairly success labels and have now released your debut album. Do you feel that timing is right and this was a little lucky?

TJS: Not luck, all hard work. We’ve all been in semi-successful bands. We have all worked really hard in the past. We’ve done a lot of good tours and met a lot of people along the way. When we came together it was a lot hard working guys getting together and writing songs and we knew where we wanted to take it. We knew where we wanted to be. I knew from when we wanted to find a label that I wanted to be on Trustkill. I love that label I love band that have been on that label. In Canada, I wanted to be on Smallman. Bands that I have played in, in the past have tried to get on that label and it never worked out. I knew that they were a hard working label and would do really good things for us. If you play good songs you can get signed to a label, it’s not hard. I mean it’s hard but not as hard as you would think. When you sign to a label most bands think that it’s all smooth sailing from there on. Any band that can play good songs can get signed to a label. When you are on a label you get given opportunities and you have to take advantage of those opportunities to get where you want to be. A lot of bands get on a label and figure that’s it they give up and figure it smooth sailing from there on, but when you sign to a label it’s another chapter of hard work that you have to start doing. We knew what we wanted as a finished product and the label had a vision for us as well and we were all on the same page.

TS: There is such an array of sounds on your album, from screaming to orchestra; was the diversity on Nightlife part of your plan?
TJS: We wanted an interlude type of thing…something really off the wall. Josh really had a vision for that and put that together. Everyone in our band is so different and we all grew up listening to different music. I think you can see who comes out more on certain songs. We have a ballad with a girl singer… It’s a piano ballad. When we went in there we kind of had a joke that was WWMLD: What Would Meatloaf Do? We really wanted an epic ballad. I think we came out with what we wanted.

TS: Do you think that diversity helps you guys create the Sick City sound? 

TJS: There is a decade in the middle of us. I think that is what makes our band different from other bands because we take musical influences from almost different generations and we are all such different people and we are all into different types of music. I think that comes out in our music and I think that we come out with a taste of rock that can’t really be touched by any other band right now anyways.

TS: So every band hates to be labeled, but it is going to happen. What would you label Sick City? 

TJS: [We are] rock and roll. I don’t like labels. People can call us screamo, emo, beamo, treemo; I don’t understand any of it. They can call us metalcore or melodic metal. I don’t understand what all of that means. We play rock and roll songs and we rock out live. We are rock.

- Stephanie Joudrey