Punk Rock / Alternative Rock
About :
The band you know and love today as Billy Talent is approximately 13 - 14 years old. They've been at it for years. Struggling, practicing, playing shitty venues and shows, dealing with shady club owners and bookers, dealing with media doubting their super powers, building stages, putting on their own shows, fighting with each other, moving out of town, losing money and equipment, quitting the band, going to school, getting married and having kids; things that all bands go through. As far as I can remember the Billy T gang had always been a step ahead of everything else. They were always the band to come check out or the band to watch out for, especially if you were going on after them. Billy Talent started as four kids in high school … back then they were known as Pezz.
During their teen years the band lived in the newly developed suburbs of Mississauga, ON, Canada, in the towns of Meadowvale and Streetsville. These towns are located almost parallel to each other on the Northern tip of Mississauga. The communities were full of new houses, schools and churches open for business to the newlyweds and expecting parents looking to raise their families in a safe and quiet environment. That was the way life was before a brand new high school was erected in Meadowvale bringing teenagers from all walks of life together for the very first time.
From their second practice I knew that these four high school kids had something going on. After the popular high school band To Each His Own broke up singer Ben Kowalewicz (originally hired to play drums), bass player Jon Gallant, and drummer Aaron Solowoniuk hooked up with the guitar player from the band Dragon Flower (another popular local band) and hich school friend Ian D'Sa. They were influenced a lot by Rage Against The Machine and other "grunge-like" bands because at the time nothing like that had been heard before. There were lot of hip hop elements and 70's punk rock to this outfit named, for the time being, The Other One.
They played their first show (Jingle Bell Rock 2) in the cafeteria of their Catholic high school (Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary School). They quickly realized they had something going on after seeing the crowd's response to their debut. The kids were ready for something new and something groovy. Within a month or so they had changed their name to Pezz and started booking shows around town.
Ian and I never realized what impact we were about to lay on the city of Mississauga when we booked our first indie rock show at the local Masonic Lodge. Located in Streetsville, ON, the Masonic Lodge was a perfect venue for bands like Pezz. It's a square basement venue on the corner of Main and Thomas. It cost us $200 and was out of site of the public and concerned residents. With the help of friends, family and other band members the first independent rock show was a success; a hit with all the kids. The Mississauga music scene was born.
The summer of 1994 was an exciting one for Pezz. They were asked to play the Sonic Picnic concert in Orangeville, ON, a town located one hour north of Mississauga. It was put on by a local indie label named Sonic Unyon based out of Hamilton, ON. This was the biggest crowd the band had ever played in front of and featured other indie acts such as Hayden, Treble Charger, hHead, the almighty Trigger Happy and a slew of other Sonic Unyon bands. It was the success of this show that inspired them to make their first tape.
They recorded a demo on a four-track recorder in Ian's basement and called it DemoLuca, named after a friend Jason Deluca. The tape featured four songs showing what the band was all about. Hip hop beats mixed with Ben's hip hop inspired lyrical flow mixed with punk rock eclectic riffs. Picture Rage meets Jane's Addiction with very funky, raw Police inspired repetitive break downs. Pezz, with their new tape went on to play other venues outside of Mississauga but were always involved and more than willing to help out with the indie shows I was putting on.
Riding on the success of the Orangeville show they started playing more shows with more established Toronto based hip hop artists and other rock acts; all along gaining more and more fans and opening doors for other local acts that were struggling to find an outlet. This was apparent when they played the fourth Jingle Bell Rock show. The headlining act that year was London, ON's The Gandarvas. When the band came back for a paid encore they were assaulted by the crowd yelling "We want Pezz! We want Pezz!" and were pretty much booed off the stage.
In January of 1995 Pezz went into a proper studio (Signal to Noise) with engineer Dave Tedesco and recorded a proper demo calledDudebox. Pezz revisited two tracks from their first cassette and recorded four new tracks. A year later the band went in and recorded four more tunes live off the floor and re-released this tape. These songs were powerful, thought provoking and rhythmically superior to their first recording, but mostly, different than anything else out at the time. These songs made you move and feel what Pezz were saying. You wanted to jump up and down and stick your fist in the air and shout out loud "Yes! I believe!"
With this release, and with the help of their local following, more and more people started to take notice. Every high school kid in the Mississauga area knew of Pezz and the now legendary shows they were playing. Aspiring young musicians would often come up to the band and let them know that they were the reason for starting their own bands. The fame they were creating never went to their heads and they were never above working hard for every show they played or helped put on. That includes stealing hundreds of used milk crates to build a stage or plastering the streets with fliers designed by Ian or me announcing upcoming shows.
As the years went on the boys found themselves in different head spaces. Now out of high school some went to college and some went to work. Their different career choices never stood in the way of them sticking together and recording the brilliant and even-more-relevant-today self-released album Watoosh!.
With Ian attending Sheridan College for Classical Animation, Jon almost finishing a business degree, Ben between jobs, and Aaron working at Chrysler Canada, they found time to record 12 studio tracks and do it up right this time 'round. With their friend and producer Brad Nelson at Great Big Music, and with Darel Smith at Chemical Studios, Watoosh! was recorded. The songs were polished and they strayed away from their earlier hip hop sounding raw rap-rock. Ben actually started singing, as did Ian, creating unique harmonies accented by the loud rock sound that the band was pumping out. Most songs were catchy and angst-ridden why-did-you-break-up-with-me four minute pop punk anthems. Other songs were sonic builds. Punk rock meets a rave song with high and low points with ebbs and swells full of groovy bouncy bass lines and obscure guitar melodies topped off with a solid and deadly beat. The classic Pezz breakdowns have now found themselves in Billy Talent's surprising ballistic bridges.
At the time of this recording Pezz was a tough sell and against the grain. They were interested in experimenting with the song going with what felt right even if the songs were six minutes long. Some of the band's catchiest work is on this album. It was Billy Talent without direction. Every song had its own theme and sound and several musical styles were messed with. Ben's high Johnny Rotten-esque screams, Ian's awesome harmonies and crazy inverted guitar riffs, Jon's rhythmic busy bass lines and Aaron's impeccable timing and commitment to the back beat all indicated that Pezz was destined for greatness.
Billy Talent has been my favorite band since day two. On that one day in Ian's basement, on their second practice together as a band, I sat and listened to this new sound coming from these four seemingly innocent young men. I knew then what you know now and I will never forget that day for as long as I live. I am proud to call each member my friend and even more proud to of been a part of their career since its inception back in high school. Back when we wanted to change things but didn't know how.
Billy Talent singer Ben Kowalewicz has been front and centre in one of the greatest Canadian rock ‘n' roll success stories of the post-millennial era. But today, with the release of the long-lived Toronto quartet's third album looming large on the horizon and the final master of Billy Talent III still sitting in an unopened FedEx envelope delivered just hours before to his home, the normally hyperactive front man is betraying neither cockiness nor complacency as he reclines in the band's cramped east-side rehearsal space and candidly assesses what might await the group in the summer of 2009.
Go back and listen to the chorus of "Try Honesty, "the monster single that broke Billy Talent and its eponymous debut album wide to the tune of triple-platinum sales in Canada back in 2003, and you'll remind yourself instantly that this band had the chops on delivery to stick around much longer than the mall-ready "pop-punk" fetish with which it was in some quarters initially, mistakenly associated. Instant chart success can be a bitch, though, and it was only after Billy Talent demonstrated its lasting mettle in the wake of 2006's Billy Talent II with three more platinum sales awards, a sold-out show at Toronto's 20,000-seat Air Canada Centre and, most unexpectedly, a No. 1 debut in Germany to match the one already notched at home that most reasonable folks from these parts finally woke up to the fact that they'd been sleeping on a "real deal" in their midst.
Billy Talent is past all that, for the most part. Kowalewicz, guitarist Ian D'Sa, bassist Jon Gallant and drummer Aaron Solowoniuk have been slogging away together for more than 15 years now and, consequently, have nothing to prove from a "paying your dues" standpoint. It would be nice nonetheless if the scorching Billy Talent III decisively hammered home to both the fans and the doubters what a shit-hot, world-dominating hard-rock band has grown out of these four former Mississauga teenagers' shared high-school dreams of … well … growing into a shit-hot, world-dominating hard-rock band.
"We got a rough shake at the beginning, and then, I think, people started really understanding our band," says D'Sa. That was something that happened in the early years because, when a new band comes out, in the public's eyes, they need to be poked and prodded with ‘Where's this band really coming from?' I think people just got to understand us and now we don't have those problems that much anymore." Billy Talent is fairly oozing good songs on Billy Talent III, and for the first time they've all made it to tape in pretty much the same form they'd be heard during one of the breathless live shows that initially, decisively established and have since cemented the band's name and reputation.
For this, some thanks are due – if Billy Talent can be permitted a bit of uncharacteristic name-dropping – to producer Brendan O'Brien, who found time amidst a heroically busy schedule that recently added Bruce Springsteen and AC/DC to a list of superstar credits begun with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots to come north to Toronto and man the boards for the BTIII sessions.
The band never actually thought itself worthy of working with someone who'd shaped the sound of so many of its members' agreed-upon "formative" records. Nevertheless, when asked by attentive record-label folk to submit a list of "dream" producers for the new album, the boys gamely responded with one that placed O'Brien at the top, then shared a good chuckle over their hopeless ambitions and simply proceeded under the assumption that D'Sa would be picking up where he left off after quite capably co-producing the second Billy Talent LP alongside Gavin Brown.
"He was our first choice but we didn't think that he'd ever want to work with a band like us," says a still slightly boggled D'Sa, who traces the group's collective admiration for O'Brien back to his work on two of the Rage Against the Machine records. "They just sound phenomenal. They have these huge drum sounds, great guitar tones, the songs are all great – he did an amazing job on those albums."
"He engineered (the Red Hot Chili Peppers') Blood Sugar Sex Magik, too," adds Solowoniuk, "which is going back to albums that shape you as musicians because that was one of them. That album blew me away. It blew all of us away."
"On the first day of preproduction in Toronto, just him showing up here, in this room, was definitely kind of intimidating," concedes D'Sa. "We set a chair aside for him and wrote ‘Mr. O'Brien' on it. He didn't think it was funny."
As it turns out, O'Brien's involvement only wound up further coaxing Billy Talent in the meatier, more deliberately paced and oh-so-slightly "classicist" riff-rock direction with which it was already flirting on the nascent tunes for Billy Talent III.
Lumbering, low-end-propelled behemoths such as "Devil On My Shoulder," "The Dead Can't Testify" and "Sudden Movements" signal a marked departure from more customarily frenetic-but-melodic Billy Talent fare like "Tears Into Wine" and "Turn Your Back" (a pre-release teaser released to grateful radio audiences several months ago), unmistakably betraying a ‘70s AM-radio lineage shared with the early-‘90s grunge that first compelled four future chart-toppers from suburban Toronto to take up their craft in earnest. Once Brendan O'Brien was in the picture, it only made sense to keep going that way. He'd helped cultivate their musical roots, after all; if they were intuitively going back to them on their own, this had to represent the closing of some kind of circle.
"We never really planned out anything, but I'd been coming up with a couple of riffs here and there that were a little more on the '70s-rock side and some of those riffs ended up being songs like ‘Devil On My Shoulder,'" says D'Sa. "And we just wanted to keep going, just let things happen organically and see what happens. There was no real, grand design to it…
"At the time, we were all kind of listening to bands like Soundgarden and our favourite bands from the early ‘90s, all those grunge records. We kinda grew up in that generation, so I think that's where the influence kinda came from and it leaked into the music a little bit. You can hear it on the record. There's definitely a grunge-era influence on this record."
Kowalewicz concurs: "Just being musicians, you have allegiances when you grow up. We grew up in the early ‘90s, when all these amazing bands came out – Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Jane's Addiction. All these amazing things, we grew up with, and as time progressed we explored punk – the Clash, the Pistols and things like that. We explored that avenue and, I guess, over time, as a progression, you kinda revert to a time when things made the most sense. And, I think, the early ‘90s kinda shaped us and our psyches and who we are and why we even play music."
Regardless of how the tunes eventually shook down, tacit endorsement by an A-list production whiz of O'Brien's stature "probably lit a bit of that fire under us," as Gallant puts it, to step things up in the songwriting and musicianship departments heading into the studio. You can hear it in the playing, for sure, which has never sounded as dynamic and liquid and as definitively the product of 15 years' worth of dogged, sweaty, night-by-night toil as it does on Billy Talent III – check how limber the rhythm section rolls on the fond Police homage "Diamond On A Landmine" – and was, at O'Brien's urging, largely tracked for the first time while Billy Talent bashed it all out in the studio while playing together in the same room. And you can hear it in the broadened emotional range the band demonstrates in slower numbers like the wrenching "White Sparrows," an almost-ballad that, Kowalewicz will allow, "grew into something pretty magical" by the time recording had wrapped. Maybe because – shhhh – someone finally figured out how to get this notorious shrieker to actually sing a verse or two once in a while.
"People are always saying: ‘You sound so different from record to live.' And some people really like the way the records sound, some people really like the live stuff," says Kowalewicz. "So one thing that, I think, we really wanted to do was amalgamate both, so that it sounds really big and heavy but there's still, like, this feeling that's really visceral and alive."
Mission accomplished. Billy Talent has never sounded more visceral, nor more alive than it does here. Nor more ready for the trans-continental rock-star close-up it's been threatening for a couple of records now. Heaven only knows we could use a few more hitmakers like these guys to remind us why we all cared about hits in the first place.
History :
Origins as Pezz: 1993–1999
The band originated in Meadowvale and Streetsville, two neighbouring districts in Mississauga. In 1993, Ben Kowalewicz and Jon Gallant were part of a band called To Each His Own, where Gallant played bass, and Kowalewicz was on drums. Kowalewicz moved to vocals, and Aaron Solowoniuk was recruited in his place. Then backstage at the talent show of their high school, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary, they met Ian D'sa who played with a different band by the name of Dragonflower. The two bands started playing local pool halls and bars together. Eventually Kowalewicz asked D'Sa about starting a new band with him, Gallant, and Solowoniuk. He wanted to make a band that focused more on creativity, and D'Sa agreed. This merger would bring on the name "The Other One" for a short time, and eventually "Pezz".
Pezz began writing, performing songs, and gaining attention and credibility at first locally, and soon in Toronto's broader indie music scene. Their first recording was a cheap 4-track demo. It was recorded in Ian D'Sa's basement in July 1994, and was named Demoluca, after a friend of the band named Jason Deluca had stopped by the house, banging on a basement window while the band was recording. Soon after, in January 1995, they all put in money to record another demo of better quality with engineer/producer Dave Tedesco at the "Signal to Noise" studio which they calledDudebox. Originally, two tracks from Demoluca and four newly recorded tracks were compiled onto it, but a year later the band recorded four more tunes live in the studio and re-released it. After these releases and their continued performances in the immediate area, Pezz was gaining a following in Mississauga and it continued to spread.
D'Sa studied classical animation at Sheridan College, and even worked on Angela Anaconda as an animator. Gallant almost finished a business degree. Kowalewicz was in between jobs, one which included working at 102.1 the edge. Solowoniuk worked at Chrysler Canada. But during this, each member found the time and finances to max-out their credit cards, and record their first full-length album in 1999.They laid down twelve tracks at a studio called "Great Big Music", collaborating with Juno-nominated music producer Brad Nelson. Kowalewicz started singing in melody with D'Sa. The music began to transform from a "raw rap-rock" songs into "catchy and angst-ridden pop punk anthems". With that, Watoosh! was born and independently released. While popular within Toronto's indie scene, it did not reach large mainstream sales levels.
Billy Talent and success: 1999–2004
In 2001, the band and its management threatened to sue an American band also called Pezz, who formed under that name in 1989, which resulted in a name change. Billy Talent would become their new name, inspired by the guitarist "Billy Tallent" from Michael Turner's novel Hard Core Logo. The film adaptation by Bruce McDonald would be the inspirational medium for the band. However, this still led to fans mistaking Kowalewicz as being named Billy Talent.
Now known as Billy Talent, their sound began to move in a more aggressive, punk rock direction. During this time, Kowalewicz ran into Jen Hirst, at 102.1 the edge, the Toronto radio station he worked at. She had seen the band perform as Pezz, and he asked her to check out the band's performance at a club. This would prove to pay off, as Hirst was later hired by Warner Music Canada to work in A&R. This connection would get the band their producer Gavin Brown, and a demo deal with the label. Before the demos were recorded, a local manager called Atlantic Records A&R executives, who were already in Toronto, to see the band perform in its tiny rehearsal space.In toronto 2004, is where the band had a massive orgy
In 2002, the band met with record executives, and ended up signing a co-venture agreement with Atlantic Records and Warner Music Canada. In the fall of 2003, the band released their full-length self-titled album, Billy Talent. The album found considerable sales success. "Try Honesty" was a successful first single, and was followed by other singles "The Ex", "River Below", and "Nothing To Lose" into late 2003 and 2004. The band played sold-out shows in Canada and the United States and had success in Europe. The band received Juno, (They won two Junos, Best Album of the Year, and Best Band of the Year) and MuchMusic Video Award nominations and awards, and spent late 2004 and most of 2005 touring. Billy Talent went on to be certified 3x platinum in Canada.
A track from the album was titled "This Is How It Goes", and it was about one of Kowalewicz's friends who had multiple sclerosis. On March 17, 2006, Aaron Solowoniuk revealed in a personal letter to fans that he was the friend in that song. Solowoniuk was confirmed to have the disease, which causes anything from numbness in the limbs to paralysis or loss of vision, in January 1999. His neurologist prescribed him medication that he would have to self inject three times a week, possibly for the rest of his life. Although it was a struggle for Solowoniuk to come to terms with the reality of the disease, going to numerous doctor appointments, and touring with the band with a mini-fridge in their van has become normal routine. The medication has let him continue drumming with the band, as it eliminated his symptoms, and he has stated that "this changes nothing about my band or me."
Billy Talent II: 2005–2007
Billy Talent's third album was mostly recorded at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, which was produced by Gavin Brown again, and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge. This time however Ian D'Sa got a chance to try his hand at producing. Beginning in the fall of 2005, demos from the new album were purposely leaked by the band to gain publicity. This put about half of the record out in the public, "and then someone got the other half and then it was just all out," so the band purposely leaked it.
Billy Talent II hit the shelves on June 27, 2006. It fared very well in Canada in its debut week, landing in at number 1 on the Canadian charts It also enjoyed significant success in Germany, where it also debuted at number 1 in the album charts in its debut week, and was one of the top 10 selling albums in the country. As of June 15, 2007, the album has sold almost 700,000 units worldwide, 215,000 of them in Canada making it certified 2x Platinum, and 200,000 shipped units in Germany achieved it platinum status there.However the success did not duplicate itself in the U.S. The band has expressed that they know they are a new band there, and they are choosing to concentrate their attention to Canada, Europe, and other places overseas instead.
The album contains less anger and bad language than their previous self-titled album, as they had mellowed out and matured as men and as a band. More of the songs dealt with real-life issues, to the praise of fans and critics.
| “ | We wanted to do something completely different from the first record because we had changed dramatically and had learned a lot from personal relationships. Everyone in the band is partnering up and dealing with those issues. The general theme of this record is trust, the lack thereof or breaking up. That seemed to fuel the record. | ” |
—Jonathan Gallant, Ottawa Sun | ||
The band ventured off on another UK tour in support of Billy Talent II, but this one would include more shows in countries they had not performed in before. During this tour leg, the gigs at London and Manchester, on September 8 and 16, respectively, were recorded live. Limited edition CDs were released as the band's only live album to date, Live from the UK Sept./2006. Also during the tour, the band had to miss their Southampton show "due to a death in the family". The whole band returned the following month to play the show.
The band started their first Canadian arena tour with the bands Rise Against, Anti-Flag, and Moneen, performing in British Columbia, Alberta,Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec and ending in Ontario. Following the Canadian tour, the band ventured onto their first US club tour.
The band went on a large overseas tour, beginning on June 1, 2007. They temporarily came back in mid June to play shows at the MuchMusic Video Awards, the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto, and the Festival d'été de Québec in Quebec City. They returned overseas, selling out multiple venues inAustralia and performing at the MTV Australia Video Music Awards. They had planned to end their tour on September 3, but the band played shows in St. John's, Newfoundland, Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia on September 5, 7 and 8, respectively. As of September 11, 2007, the band has indicated that their 18-month tour has officially ended, and they are "home for a while to catch [their] breath a little before [they] start writing the next record." In the meantime, a live DVD album called 666 was released on November 27, 2007, featuring footage and audio from the band's performances at London'sBrixton Academy, Düsseldorf's Philipshalle, and Germany's Rock am Ring festival (at the Nürburgring).
In 2008 they opened for American group My Chemical Romance in the US with smaller group Drive By and attended several festivals and held concerts in Canada and Europe later on. Vocalist Benjamin Kowalewicz stated on July 1, on Billy Talent's official forum, that they're staying put in Canada until the album is finished, and that their promotional tour for II has come to an end.
Billy Talent III: 2008–2010
The single for "Turn Your Back" was released on September 15 in the UK and most of Europe, on September 16 in the US and Canada and September 20 in Australia and was also featured in the video game NHL 09.
The band entered the studio in November with Brendan O'Brien, who has previously worked with Rage Against The Machine, Incubus, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band embarked on a supporting tour for the third album, starting in Australia in the Soundwave Festival in February. Also, they played two sidewaves, one inSydney, and one in Melbourne, with Emery and Face to Face opening for them. After Australia, the band headed to North America, where they played the three day Coachella Festival. On February 21, at the Brisbane Soundwave Festival, the band unveiled a new song. Ian revealed during an interview that the new song is called "Devil On My Shoulder". Ian also revealed that the new album is to be called Billy Talent III.
During summer 2009, Billy Talent toured North America with Rise Against and Rancid. On February 26, the band was announced for Download festival in the UK. During the Melbourne Soundwave show, Ben announced they would tour Australia again in August. Billy Talent also played at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2009. Following the twin festivals the band toured the UK in late October/early November before moving on to tour the U.S. in support of their new album. In an interview with UpVenue, bassist Jonathan Gallant announced that the Canadian tour would begin in winter 2010 but would be an extensive one.
Their fourth album, Billy Talent III was released on July 14, 2009. On September 22, 2009, it was released in the United States, through Roadrunner Records.
Billy Talent will be touring with Against Me! and Alexisonfire in Canada in March 2010.
Billy Talent kick off their 2009 UK tour on the 19th October and say that they "can't wait to come over to Europe and the UK". Their new single off "Billy Talent III" is Saint Veronika.
Members :
Ben Kowalewicz : Lead Vocals (1993 - Present)
Ian D'Sa : Lead Guitar , Vocals (1993 - Present)
Jonathan Gallant : Bass, Backing Vocals (1993 - Present)
Aaron Solowoniuk : Drums, Percussions (1993 - Present)
