KAROL KUDYBA
Arts Writer

After driving over 14,000 kilometres in 31 days, You Say Party! We Say Die! are almost done their North American tour.

Their reward? A two-month long tour in Europe that starts in less than three weeks. And after playing 21 fast-paced and energy-laced shows in a month, how does lead-guitarist Stephen O’Shea keep his energy level up?

“Chinese Red Bull. It’s more like syrup and has, like, twice the caffeine,” said O’Shea. “For the longest time I didn’t use any energy drink at all, but it fills in the gaps on those long tours.”

Armed with songs aimed to get the crowd on their feet, YSP!WSD! brings their dance-punk style of music to Amigos on April 8. If you’re planning to go, you better be ready to help them out.

YSP!WSD! thrives on audience participation and gets their name from the back-and-forth chorus they had in a song one band name ago (once upon a time they were the Smokin’ Spokes, playing at a house party near you). While their latest release is noticeably slower than their debut album Hit the Floor!, songs like “Cosmic Wanship Avengers” and “Make XXXX” will get any one’s heart rate up.

The grueling four month tour follows the February release of their latest album, XXXX, and is much longer than their last few trips thanks to the long-awaited lapse of the five year ban that prevented O’Shea from entering the States.

To make up for it the band has toured practically everywhere else, including Asia, where O’Shea discovered his favourite nerve tonic.

But even then it was tough for them not to be able to play in cities like Seattle or Portland, especially since the band is based in Abbotsford, a town just outside Vancouver that is only minutes from the border. Imagine living in Saskatoon and not being able to cross the river.

“There were times that I had to drive along (the border) and emotionally it was difficult,” the road warrior explained. “I realized that if I just jumped across that ditch and back the repercussions would be huge.”

How huge, you ask?

“I think I read in the paperwork it would be two to 20 years in prison and up to a quarter of a million dollars in fines.”

Now that the ban is gone, they are definitely making the most of it.

Driving a 1994 Ford Club Wagon nicknamed “Ice Mocha,” they’ve already put 50,000 miles on it in a little over a year.

“We’re from western Canada, and we know what hard driving is all about,” laughed O’Shea,

“Our booking agents in the U.S. and Europe, they love us. The joke is that they just throw darts at maps,” laughed O’Shea. “Monday night we played in New York and then we drove about 12 hours through the night to get to Chicago”

However, long nights on the road can be exhausting for anyone says O’Shea.

“We’re not robots, we definitely do get tired. You lose energy night after night, but as you play the songs over and over again as a band you become tighter and execute the songs better; it becomes a trade-off.”

Should the crowd be worried about an on-stage collapse? Not a chance, exclaimed O’Shea, “At the end of the day, when we get to the end of the set and play “Like I Give a Care,” there’s nothing that can stop me from rocking out to that song, no matter how tired I am.”

If that fails though, a Chinese Red Bull doesn’t hurt either.

You Say Party! We Say Die! play Amigos April 8

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photo: Matthew Stefanson