Ten hours in the life of Canadian buzz band You Say Party! We Say Die! can feel like the longest night of your life. Fortunately, it’s an experience bolstered by the de rigueur addition of youthful exuberance, laughter, cigarettes and a serotonin-boosting soundtrack—the band’s sophomore album, Lose All Time, out now on Toronto’s Paper Bag Records—to keep you motoring happily through the slog. After playing a show in Ottawa the night before, the tightly knit group of friends from Abbotsford, B.C., plus tour manager (and human Swiss Army knife and all round odd jobber) Dwayne, hopped into their camper-ized Dodge Ram, which quadruples as a hotel room (complete with a mattress in the back), dressing room, living room and tour bus, and made the five-hour trek to Toronto for their much-hyped NXNE showcase performance at the Horseshoe Tavern. Showtime: midnight. Hours to kill: eight and some change.

Listen to "Opportunity":

4:25 p.m. The arrival.
No rest (or roadies) for the weary. The band members—all roughly in their mid-20s—arrive and immediately begin unloading gear from the back of the van for sound check. Stephen O’Shea (bass), Devon Clifford (drums), Derek Adam (guitar) and Krista Loewen (keyboard, vocals) hit the stage with their instruments and begin to test, test, test. Twenty-five-year-old lead singer Becky Ninkovic arrives a bit later, massaging her jaw and throat and performing some gentle calisthenics (shoulder rolls, hamstring stretches). With her full lips and soft features, she’s like a fresh-faced Scarlett Johansson. The bangs of a chestnut brown bob graze her eyelashes. Problem: the vocals are being drowned out by the band. Ninkovic to the sound guy: “I could use a bit more of me.” Loewen concurs. “I could use a bit more of Becky, too.”

5:15 p.m. Sound check complete. Thoughts on touring.
Ninkovic, jump rope in tow, takes to the alleyway behind the bar for a little exercise. The band has been on a tour of Canada for nearly three weeks—they’ll be taking off for a month-long European tour in a week. “For the first two weeks, everyone [in the band] tells you what they think,” offers O’Shea, who could pass for actor Justin Long’s younger brother. “By the third week, we’re all so tired we just keep to ourselves. We spend a lot of time talking about what it’ll be like when we finally get a new van.”

5:45–6:15 p.m. Photo shoot for Alternative Press magazine.
After the ladies primp in the Horseshoe’s bathroom—the van looks like an ensuite at the Park Hyatt in comparison—the band is taken to a nearby graffiti-adorned alley and asked to drape themselves across two filthy abandoned sofas. Quintessential rock photo cliché—check! Surprisingly, they’re game.