How a Winnipeg band found themselves one prairie province over, in front of a sold-out USask crowd.

“It’s nice to see that mosh culture kinda transcends. I knew it wasn’t just a Winnipeg thing, but it’s nice to see other prairie towns doing it.”

In the aftermath of 441, bruises and cigarette butts became the mark of a good night. For those who missed out on January’s concert, USask students brought the Louis’ roof down and doubled the energy (and ticket sales) of last year’s event. The UNICEF-organized cover band charity show saw lineups that wrapped around the Memorial Union Building, with Pabst Blue Ribbon in every hand. 

The show featured the same three local bands that headlined the event last year, with one new addition: standout Manitoban band Leon’s Getting Larger, covering Marianas Trench. 

Leon’s Getting Larger had the task of opening up the event and warming up the crowd. As soon as the first chord rang through the venue, murmurs bounced around in line. “Wait, are they already starting? No, damn it, is this the Marianas Trench Band?”

Over the course of their set, Leon’s Getting Larger won over the crowd with their infectious energy, guitarist and vocalist Niko’s high notes and especially drummer Luke Penner’s smile from ear to ear through every single song. 

Chatting with them backstage, we got into conversations about our Nissan Rogues, their friendship with local band blind commentary and the brutal blizzard they drove through to get to the show. 

Past the formalities, I wanted to get to know the band behind the Marianas Trench setlist. 

Niko Boticki: I’m Niko. I play guitar for Leon’s Getting Larger, and I also do some of the singing.

Luke Penner: I’m Luke. I play drums for Leon’s Getting Larger, and also do the rest of the singing.

Noah St-Hilaire: I’m Noah, and I play bass, and I don’t sing.

Q: Still very respectable. The bass carries. So obviously, you guys aren’t from Saskatchewan; you guys had told me backstage how blind commentary reached out to you. How did you end up playing 441?

Boticki: I guess our relationship with blind commentary started when we did our first tour. We got the recommendation from our friends in Living Hour (an indie-rock band from Winnipeg), and then we played with [blind commentary] in Regina. We were supposed to play Saskatoon first, [but] that fell through and they were like, “oh, we’ll come to Regina with you guys”. And then we did a three hour drive after our show to sleep at Liam [Jones]’s (lead vocalist of blind commentary). And ever since then, we’ve been like really good friends.

Q: How did you guys end up with Mariana’s Trench?

Boticki: I’ve been posting a lot of like things on my story with Marianas Trench as the background music semi-ironically, like somewhat for a joke. But also, I was a huge fan of Marianas Trench growing up. And I guess Liam [Jones] was also a big fan, and when he heard that 441 was happening again and they were maybe looking for another band from Winnipeg, He said, “Oh yeah, you guys should do Marianas Trench.” 

Penner: I feel like it was him specifically looking for a Winnipeg band to play Marianas Trench.

Boticki: Yeah. So then William [Kento] (of UNICEF) reached out to us [and] asked if we were interested [in playing], we said “for sure”. At that point, we already started learning Marianas Trench.

Penner: You know, vocals-wise I don’t wish we did more. Those are so hard. Yeah. Josh Ramsey (lead singer of Mariana’s Trench) is a beast. I don’t know how he does it.

It was fun because I got to watch Nico do like the hardcore frontman type thing, but singing Marianas Trench songs. He’s always got a guitar in front of him, but he went whole hog into this frontman persona. Just fun to watch.

Q: Oh, so was this the first time you’d played Saskatoon?

Penner: Third.  

Q: You can be honest. What’s your favourite city that you’ve performed in?

Boticki: Saskatoon. Definitely, in full honesty, every show we’ve played there has just been an absolute blast. And it’s also perfect that our friends in blind commentary live there. 

Penner: Our home away from home.

Q: How would you guys describe your sound for people who’ve never heard your music?

St-Hilaire: If I’m talking to one of my neighbours in the elevator, I always try to see, “Do you know Modest Mouse?” 

But, punk. A bit more punk. ‘Cause if you tell a stranger, yeah, I play Midwest emo. They’re like, “what the f*** is that?” They hardly know what emo is.

Penner: There’s no way to describe emo in a way that would get a stranger to want to listen to your band. You can use all the adjectives you want. You know, “jangle rock, emo revival, sad punk,” none of it works. Oh, let’s just call it “alternative”. Yeah. Just a vague “alternative”.

Q: No, but the thing is, when you use the right adjectives, the right crowd will be like, “Hmm, that’s what I’ve been looking for.” Maybe not the neighbour in the elevator. Maybe you just gotta play it for him. Then, what song of yours do you think best represents your sound? 

Boticki: I think my first, my vote would be “Or Something” from our first EP.

I think that one kind of has the jangly parts that we like to do, but also there’s a little bit of yelling in it. It gets loud, it gets quiet. It’s dynamic, I think. 

Penner: That’s really fun to play at shows, too. I’d say “Oh The Places You’ll Go” would be [mine], if I gotta show someone one song. Everything just came together: it’s jangly, it’s dynamic, extended instrumental break. That’s what it’s all about.

St-Hilaire: Definitely. Yeah, I feel like “Oh Places You’ll Go” or “Antoine”, it is also a pretty strong one. But I think Nico’s right too with “Or Something”, it shows a bit more of the energy that we tend to have on stage. And at a live show, it’s closer to the energy that’s gonna be there, and what you can expect out at one of our shows.

Penner: Making an emo song with a triplet feel or something. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It just always works. Like an Irish drinking song, almost. 

Q: I was going to ask about your songwriting process as well.  Who takes the reins on that? Is that like a collaborative thing, or how do you guys go about it?

Penner: It’s pretty collaborative. We went through three bassists before Noah stepped up to the plate and really filled things out. By the time we had filtered through all these bassists, we had almost all the songs on the album written, they just didn’t have bass parts. Noah came in and kind of, A) wrote bass parts, and B) just kind of reeled us in a little bit. You know, as far as the song doesn’t have to be six minutes every time.

Boticki: This second album definitely, now that we have Noah part of it, it was all way more collaborative regarding lyrics. It’s kind of 50-50. I think me and Luke complement each other that way, where Luke is really good with his metaphors and like he has a really poetic way of writing, and then I’m kind of probably more of the Modern Baseball, “this is what happened, I’m telling a story,” kind of way. So together it really works out. 

St-Hillaire: One thing I’ve realized that [other] bands don’t really do, that I feel like we do a little bit differently, is that we’ll write songs together. A lot of the other bands that I’ve talked to, one person will write a song: they’ll write it at home, they’ll write every single part in, on Guitar Pro or whatever. They’ll just have it out, and then they’ll write guitar, bass, drum parts and then they bring it to practice, and they all practice it together.

One of us will come to our practice. “I have this idea, let’s see if we can figure something out.” And then we just go from there and try to write songs from that, which arguably takes longer. But I think it’s definitely a lot more fun and rewarding when you can come up with something together.

Boticki: It’s kind of cool to have all the different influences, especially with Noah part of the band, and Noah used to play in a metal band. Especially when we’re going into this heavier direction. It was kind of great to have all three of us be able to really hone this in.

Q: Especially having all your different influences, what would you guys say are some of your strongest influences, personally? Or guilty pleasures, whatever?

Boticki: I think we all really got into Title Fight in the last two years, so that’s definitely been a main one lately. But I think what kind of really started the band was [when] Luke lent me a record from Tiny Moving Parts. They’re a Midwest emo band, and that was the first time I really heard a sound like that. All my previous experience was more mainstream stuff, like Modern Baseball and Prince Daddy and Mom Jeans. So now hearing this kind of sound, it was a bit more intricate guitar playing and just like very energetic. I think that’s kind of the sound that Leon’s was born on. And then moving from that to Title Fight. And then also we’ve been kind of slowly dabbling in Shoegaze, so bands like Hum.

Q:  And what about new music? I heard you’re working on a new project?

Penner: It’s gonna be just, I don’t know, it’s heavier. You know, we take some risks. There’s a hardcore breakdown at one point. I don’t know, lyrically we’re more honest this time around. Just more upfront, you know? It’s got an eight-minute song too, so that’s gonna be fun.

Q: When can fans expect that? Unless this is on the DL?

Boticki: We’re looking to put it out around the summer. I think July is kind of what we’re thinking of.

Q: How did you guys all meet, by the way? Were you friends in high school and you went from there? 

Boticki: No, funnily enough, me and Luke went to the same high school, but I didn’t even know Luke existed until we were both out of high school. I had this friend who was talking about starting a post-punk band, and he said, “Just meet at my friend’s basement.” And he ended up being like an hour late. And so that gave me and Luke enough time in this awkward first-time meeting situation, where we just kind of met and then haven’t looked back since. And then me and Noah met at work. I knew he played bass for a really long time.

And then I think about his second shift into working with me, our bass player at the time just dropped out. And so I asked Noah, “Hey, do you wanna be part of my band?” And he is like, “Sure, okay.” What else do you say to someone you’ve only worked with twice before? And then he was late to practice.

Penner: Nico and I also did our first meet-up on the day Rico Casek from The Cars died. Yeah. So maybe that’s like a, that’s like an omen or something. 

Q: Passing the torch or something. 

Boticki: Yeah. Where one life stops, a new one begins. 
Penner: Move over, The Cars, Leon’s Getting Larger is here!