“The bands I listen to, I tend to really fall in love with based on their music and their lyrics, and I wanted to be in that kind of band. I wanted to have fans that really, really got it.”
If things work out for Milosz Sikora of Knock Knock Ginger, more people might really, really get his band after their Kingston date, the release of their second EP, and their first gig outside of Ontario at the Halifax Pop Explosion festival.
Sikora’s favourite acts include The Decemberists and Belle & Sebastian, neither of which is an overly obscure reference point for Knock Knock Ginger’s music. While playing ambitious, expansive and occasionally dreamy indie pop, the band also has a wry sense of humour that sustains their bigger gambles.
The highlight of their 2005 debut EP remains “You Could’ve Been My Johnny Marr,” possibly one of the cleverest kiss-off songs the genre has ever produced, but sincere enough not to be obnoxious, despite Sikora’s best Morrissey impression trilling lyrics like “I’m symptom-free, a first for me / I met you in a dirty dream” with a Smiths-style jangle and parade-ready trumpet fluorishes.
Calling from his day job in Waterloo, Sikora is much more plainspoken than the narrators of his songs. A Kingston native who used to play with local emo-pop purveyors Everlea, Sikora completed his degree in computer science at the University of Waterloo this spring.
Knock Knock Ginger’s initial lineup came together in fall 2004 from a post Sikora made on the 20hz music message board (currently reborn as Stillepost). The band includes Matt Charters on guitar and trumpet, drummer Owen Cherry, bassist Lisa Rafferty and keyboardist Melissa Djurakov.
Knock Knock Ginger’s new EP, , was recorded and produced by Andy Magoffin (also responsible for the Constantines’ debut album, Jim Guthrie’s and co-producing The Hidden Cameras’s ) at the House of Miracles in London. Though the band also recorded with Magoffin and now had recording experience, their return to the studio proved more difficult than their first visit.
“We thought it was going to be much easier going in there and knowing what to expect and having already had the experience. But I think the fact that we had already accomplished something like , we wanted to take it to the next step and make it a lot more of a fleshed-out, ambitious album … that was just an extra challenge to take on. And it made things tougher, but ultimately a lot more rewarding in the end, I think.”
Sikora writes all the lyrics and melodies, but the band’s process has become increasingly collaborative.
“Sometimes I’ll come in with something really really strong in my head and having written the whole thing knowing exactly how the transitions are going to work, and sometimes I’ll just have a few good ideas that I really like but I have nowhere to go with them, and the band will pick up the slack and really make the song a lot more interesting. In fact, a lot of the hooks you hear, especially on the new album—apart from the melodic hooks—they’re all written by the band and not me,” said Sikora..
“Everyone’s gotten more confident now and has stepped up and has a lot more say as to what they want to hear, and I think it really comes through, especially on the new album.”
The evolution of the band’s songwriting process and the experience from another year of live shows is evident on “Love Renée,” whose complex, dark and even noisy bridge flows seamlessly back into the rueful bounce of its chorus more gracefully than they could have managed earlier.
Rather than making obscure pseudo-poetic statements or bemoaning his misfortunes, Sikora’s lyrics tend to concentrate on narrative and character, with healthy doses of sarcasm and pathos.
’s “Virginia Black” chronicles the trials of a teenage goth in suburbia and “Love Renée” holds a lover’s poor grammar and spelling partly responsible for a break-up: “All the misuses of the comma by your hand / Made the closing ‘Love Renée’ seem like another order in the end.”
“Growing up as a teenager, I was in bands and writing lyrics,” said Sikora, “and I think I just got bored of the whole internal songwriting idea–you know, the whole teenage angst, kind of, ‘Oh, this is what’s wrong with my life or what I feel and I think you should hear about it.’ I think it just has become more interesting for me to detach myself a little bit … I still keep it pretty personal in of who I write about and what kind of experiences I write about–it’s stuff I’ve heard about from people or people that I know that I’ve observed.”
Sikora isn’t concerned at all about accessibility or mainstream appeal, but doesn’t think Knock Knock Ginger is difficult to enjoy.
“We’re really doing something different, but at the same time, it’s one of those bands where you come out to see us and you really just enjoy it right from the start. There’s no really big learning curve or acquired taste to it, like some bands … where you go see them for the first time, and maybe the first show you’re a little overwhelmed …
“I still write songs that I love, and I don’t worry too much about a mainstream appeal or anything along the way, just hoping that … because I love them, there’s people out there like me that will respond in the same way.”
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