The Cliks

When I arrived at The Metropolis for my interview with The Cliks, I had no idea what to expect. I knew very little about this Canadian band and I was intrigued to learn more. Here is what I knew: back in 2004 the lead singer Lucas Silveira (then with a different line up) released a self-titled debut album.

Since then there has been a lot of changes both in Lucas’ life and in his band’s life. Lucas had a gender transition; he was known as Lilia at the time (he is now a transgender). And new band members came in: Morgan Doctor, Nina Martinez and Jen Benton.

Their sound is very unique; their single “Oh Yeah” is a catchy yet rock on, meaningful song with an amazing video.

It’s when they stopped for a small show in Montreal that I had the opportunity to talk with Benton and Martinez about their new album ‘Snakehouse’ and their new life as members of The Cliks.

CONFRONT: Hi, I’m Judith. How are you?

JEN and NINA: We’re going good. How are you?

CONFRONT: I’m very good, thank you. So first let me explain to you who we are. The name of our magazine is Confront Magazine; we are a new online magazine with a very specific purpose. Our motto is Dare, Defy, Provoke.

JEN: Cool.

CONFRONT: Actually it is Dare to Listen, Defy Stereotype and Provoke Change.

Basically what we want to be doing is we want to make sure we allow the mainstream to evolve and we want to be one step forward and make sure our readers are aware of all the music styles that are out there.

JEN and NINA: Yes.

CONFRONT: So talking about mainstream, what would be your definition of mainstream today?

JEN: I mean mainstream music just seems to be, like, mainstream would be just what is, you know, what gets the most airplay on the radio. Music is music ok so…

CONFRONT: Yeah for sure.

JEN: So mainstream would… yeah just I guess a band starts selling a bunch of albums and now they’re considered mainstream, because they’re successful.

CONFRONT: Exactly.

JEN: I guess success brings it, financial success.

CONFRONT: Yeah.

JEN: So that’s it, mainstream isn’t a style of music or anything I think because you know I mean you can have mainstream jazz.

CONFRONT: This is the reason why we actually ask that question, because everybody has their different definition of it, you know.

JEN: Of mainstream, yeah exactly.

NINA: For me it would be financial success I guess, media oriented you know.

CONFRONT: Yeah for sure, cool. Okay so the questions I’m asking you now are questions that we consider being our Confront Questions, they’re question we ask all of our interviewees.

JEN and NINA: Cool.

CONFRONT: Ok so first and last CD bought?

JEN: First one that I bought…Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic’ and/or Beastie Boys ‘Ill Communication’. That was first. The last one I just bought Rise Against.

CONFRONT: And you??

NINA: Last CD I bought was Modest Mouse.

JEN: Oh I remember first one I know was Bon Jovi, on record.

CONFRONT: Which one do you remember??

JEN: It was one that had only one song on each side and it was “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Payer”

CONFRONT: Cool, those are great songs.

NINA: I remember the first CD I played to death, was Radiohead ‘The Bends’.

CONFRONT: Nice ok, and what would be your first and last concert attended as a fan?

JEN: The last concert I went to was Tool and the first concert…actually was the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

NINA: The last concert I went to was Beak, spur of the moment, Beak, pretty fun. And the fist concert I went to see…the one that was really memorable for me was Radiohead.

CONFRONT: Nice amazing music to see live.

JEN and NINA: Yeah.

CONFRONT: So now what would be your guilty pleasure musically?

NINA: I listen to Alison Krauss, I just love her music.

JEN: I’ll come back to you on that.

CONFRONT: For sure, it will come to you on the spur of the moment.

JEN: Exactly.

CONFRONT: ‘Snakehouse’ is the name of your new album; with all of you girls working together, do you have any specific technique, or methods to write songs and music, or does it just come along, just goes with the flow you know?

JEN: Well Lucas started The Cliks like four years ago, and he is the main song writer, since then there have been changes in the band members and I would assume that the lyric content got a little darker. I would not want to speak on his behalf but I’m assuming so. And also with the musician changes it influenced it too.

NINA: Yeah, what kind of happened was, the original band kind of feel apart, and since Lucas is the primary song writer, and Lucas just so you know is transgender.

CONFRONT: Yeah of course.

NINA: So basically he basically kept writing song and then he met Morgan and there was still at the time a previous member, and they all together wrote the album. I would assume that the whole process happened while all of them went to the studios and pitched ideas and worked as a team you know.

CONFRONT: Yeah I understand.

NINA: And it’s kind of the same process now, you know, even if we came in after the album was done, we’re still able to bring in some artistic knowledge.

JEN: Yeah and we, of course had to learn the songs, because of course, the fans want to hear what’s on the album, obviously.

CONFRONT: Obviously, you guys worked hard, and it sounds great.

JEN and NINA: Thanks so much.

CONFRONT: You’re welcome…on this album, Lucas decided to have a remake of “Cry Me a River” the Justin Timberlake song. Why this song? I can totally understand the link to the meaning of the song but to me, Justin Timberlake and The Cliks are on two different end of the spectrum, you know so… Do you know why he decided to do this one?

JEN: Yeah well that comes back to your mainstream question, it’s a good song, you know, so I guess Lucas mentioned that this is just a great song he loved and lyrically it works.

CONFRONT: Cool, nice to see that it’s not all about the styles, that we all can listen to the same lyrics and make it different.

JEN and NINA: Exactly.

CONFRONT: Ok so being women in the Rock’N Roll world, industry, if I can say so… I know this is very stereotypical but it’s a reality though…

NINA: Yeah.

CONFRONT: What do you have to say to young girls who want to be where you are right now?

JEN: Just because you’re a woman or even if you’re a man, I think that if you’re talented and you play your instrument the best you can and you keep on practicing, anybody can do anything, and this is disregarding the fact they’re a man or a woman.

NINA: Yeah, just keep on playing and don’t give up. That’s the thing, you’re never going to be the best at anything, there is always going to be someone better than you, you just got to know you’re good enough and don’t give up, keep on working hard because you never know what can happen tomorrow.

CONFRONT: Ok so I have a fan question for you. Because of course since we are an online magazine, we try to involve our readers as much as possible.

NINA: Oh good.

CONFRONT: OK so his name is Matt from Montreal who would like to know, why The Cliks? Where does the name come from?

JEN: Oh I know that (laughing).

CONFRONT: Cool.

JEN: Well it you look at the spelling and if you think of a girl’s body part and a guy’s body part and you take the name of those parts and merge them together and it makes The Cliks. Do you see it?

CONFRONT: Oh yeah… I see it…very clever, very good. You guys have a MySpace page. How do you feel about this relationship with your fans, do you feel it’s too much or do you feel it’s a good thing? How do you feel about that?

JEN: It’s amazing.

NINA: I think people love to be in contact and learn about things they love, so MySpace is an amazing way of doing that.

JEN: It gives us so many opportunities, you know. It allows us to reach people that are in Europe, we’ve never played there you know… but we have fans there.

NINA: I think it’s an amazing alternative media, there are a lot of things, artists on there that might never get into the mainstream, but it allows artists and fans to keep in touch.

CONFRONT: It’s a great thing.

JEN: Having the control of it is wonderful; we don’t have anybody telling us what to write it’s great.

NINA: It just might be hard to follow up sometimes, especially when we’re very busy, but it’s great though.

CONFRONT: Thanks one last question because we’re running out of time here… what would you want your legacy to be?

JEN: I want to be remembered for great albums.

NINA: I want to be remembered for good songs, great songs, you know people would be listening to our CD twenty years from now and go…these were amazing.

CONFRONT: That’s a great goal… I’m sure it will happen! Thanks a lot guys.

This is when the label rep came to see us and asked how the interview went. I gladly said it had been a great interview and that it was nice to hear about girls/women in the business.

I shook Jen and Nina’s hand, said good luck for the show that night and quickly stopped by the table Lucas was sitting on, to thank him for having us and for his great music.

This interview was very interesting and I hope it gave you a taste of what The Cliks are all about. If you want to know more you can do so by going on their MySpace at www.myspace.com/thecliks and on their website http://www.thecliks.com