TORONTO -- By all indications Toronto's Billy Talent is poised to be the next rock band to break in and out of Canada. The self-titled debut by the band entered the Canadian album sales chart at No. 6, after selling more than 7700 copies since its Sept. 16 release. The single "Try Honesty," released in July, is now top 20 at rock radio in Canada and top 25 at alternative rock radio in the States.
As spins of the single increased at Canadian radio and every Canadian music video outlet put "Try Honesty" into heavy rotation prior to the album's release, awareness of this explosive new rock band increased. Frontman Ben Kowalewicz' voice is raw, yelping, and surprisingly melodic, and the band's pistol-whipping rock powerful and intense. Think At The Drive-In meets the Sex Pistols.
A last-minute show at the Horseshoe in August prompted a line-up down Queen Street hours before the band hit the stage, and last week's Opera House gig (with alexisonfire) sold out well in advance. The two bands have just embarked on a Canadian tour, which ends in Vancouver at the Croatian Cultural Centre on Oct. 2.
Friends and bandmates since highschool, Kowalewicz, bassist Jon Gallant, drummer Aaron Solowoniuk (formerly known as Aaron Ess) and guitarist Ian D'Sa have been playing together for a decade, first forming a band called Pezz in Streetsville, Ont. It wasn't until they changed their name in late '99 to Billy Talent after a character (Billy Tallent) in Bruce McDonald's film adaptation of Michael Turner's 1993 book Hard Core Logo, and honed their new, aggressive sound, that the music industry took notice in 2001.
Jen Hirst, now A&R at Warner Music Canada, is the person who initially got the ball rolling. "They were doing something that not a lot of people were doing. The closest thing at the time, I guess, was at the drive-in," says Hirst, who had seen Pezz before. She had bumped into Kowalewicz,at Toronto's Edge 102 FM, where he worked as Live On The Edge producer. He asked her to check out Billy Talent's NXNE showcase in June, 2001, at the 360 club, which she did - and became an instant supporter.
Later, when Hirst interviewed for the A&R job at Warner Music Canada, she touted Billy Talent. When she was hired, she continued to bend the ears of her superiors about the band, but until a shake up led to a change in the executive line-up at the label, only the head of A&R, Steve Blair, paid attention. Meanwhile, she hooked Billy Talent up with Toronto entertainment lawyer Chris Taylor and producer Gavin Brown.
Brown brought Billy Talent to his publisher, Michael McCarty, president EMI Music Publishing Canada, who signed the band, and, finally, Warner Music Canada kicked in money towards the demo via a demo deal.
Before recording actually began, Atlantic A&R execs Kevin Williamson and Tom Storms happened to be in Toronto to sign Slurpy Mundae (now called Idle Sons) when they received a last-minute call from local manager Steve Hoffman. He had just seen the band perform in its tiny rehearsal space and he insisted they come down right then and there for a brief set. Even in such tiny confines, Kowalewicz' performance was rabid. The A&R guys chatted with the band for a while, and left with its independent CD single that contained "Try Honesty."
That night would kick the interest into high gear, especially after the new Brown-produced demos were completed a few weeks later. Meetings with Warner Music Canada affiliates in the States, and a few others, began to flow.
"At first, you don't really know what these people are looking for," Kowalewicz reflects. "So the way we approached everything is just be ourselves and just play our music and let it speak for itself. I think that's a problem nowadays -- people play music that they think everyone wants to hear in the business, but if you're just true to yourself and what you're playing and what you're writing, then people will take notice of that. It's all about being credible and being passionate about your music."
With offers on the table, Billy Talent chose to sign with Atlantic, which cut a co-venture agreement with Warner Music Canada.
"Atlantic has the rock background and they've been known to break cutting edge rock bands," says D'Sa. "And we're a little bit different. We're not your average rock band. And everyone from the guy working the door to the top of the company seemed really enthusiastic about the music and seemed really genuine.
"They were letting us use Gavin as a producer," he adds. "We feel that Gavin, making those demos for EMI Publishing, contributed as part of Billy Talent's formula, as far as how we sound. And we wanted to work with an American label, just for the fact that we don't sound like anything in Canada and we felt like we have more of chance in the U.S."
Next, Mosaic Media Group's Scott Welch (Alanis Morissette, Audiovent) came on board as Billy Talent's manager, who says he was drawn to their character as people. "I'm at a point in my life where that's what I'm looking for when I sign things," Welch says. "I don't care how good they are, if they don't have character, and they're not decent human beings, I'm not working with them. Life's too short. And they impressed me. Not only does their musical talent, but just their character as people."
After spending five weeks recording in Vancouver at Factory Studios, the band emerged with its self-titled, full-length debut. On the album, Billy Talent creates a unique mix of mayhem and melody from the high-octane yelp and spit of "Line & Sinker" to the soldiering sear of "Living In The Shadows" and purely menacing chant "How It Goes."
As the label set up the album, Billy Talent hit the road, touring Canada with Sum 41, the U.S. with the legendary Buzzcocks, and then on the second stage at Lollapalooza. At the end of August, it played the Reading Festival in the U.K., followed by European dates. After this current Canadian tour, the band will continue with U.S. and U.K. dates throughout October into early November.
