 by Karen Bliss Toronto pistol-rock band Billy Talent is holed up at EMI Music Publishing’s in-house studio putting the finishing touches on the album it recorded for Atlantic Records at Vancouver’s The Factory before Christmas.
“We finished roughly 90% of the album. We have to do one guitar solo and vocals for one song,” says guitarist Ian D’Sa.
“And two back-ups,” adds bassist Jon Gallant.
The studio, with its purple velvet walls and black shag carpet, is cozy and Billy Talent is very much at home here. The band is signed to EMI Music Publishing Canada and has cut numerous demos at this tiny facility with Gavin Brown.
Brown, whom the band also selected to produce its major label debut, is comping vocals, meaning he’s taking the best performed, recorded segments and compiling them on one master track. He plays back ‘The Ex’.
“My heart turned black/then the sky turned gray,” lead singer Ben Kowalewicz is firing from the speakers.
“My heart turned blond — that’s gonna be the remix,” he later jokes.
Offstage, the frontman is the sweetest, nicest, funniest guy, just like the rest of his bandmates. Onstage, however, he transforms into a red-faced demon, neck vein bulging, and pacing around like a wild animal on a short chain. His vocals back up the behaviour — raw, snarling, yelping, but surprisingly melodic.
The band, rounded out by drummer Aaron Ess, originally formed as Pezz in 1993 when the guys were still in high school in Streetsville ON. It released a few independent cassettes and a full-length CD, Watoosh.
In late ‘99, the quartet changed its name to Billy Talent after a character (Billy Tallent) in Bruce McDonald’s film adaptation of Michael Turner’s 1993 book Hard Core Logo. The band’s sound evolved too, into more aggressive emotional punk.
In 2001, Jen Hirst, who had seen Pezz before, bumped into Kowalewicz, at Toronto’s Edge 102FM, where he worked as Live On The Edge producer. He asked her to check out the band’s NXNE showcase in June at The 360 club, which she did. Later, when she was hired by Warner Music Canada to work in A&R, she touted Billy Talent. Her support helped land the band a lawyer (Chris Taylor), producer (Brown) and eventually a demo deal (Warner Music Canada).
Before recording the new demos, Atlantic A&R execs Kevin Williamson and Tom Storms were in Toronto to sign Slurpymundae and received a last-minute call from local manager Steve Hoffman to see the band play in its tiny rehearsal space.
Within weeks, with the demos completed, Billy Talent met with Warner Music Canada affiliates in the States, and a few others. The band accepted the offer from Atlantic, which cut a co-venture agreement with Warner Music Canada. Next Mosaic Media Group’s Scott Welch (Alanis Morissette, Audiovent) came on board as Billy Talent’s manager.
After spending five weeks recording in Vancouver, the band emerged with 13 songs, six of which are new; 11 will end up on the final album. As Brown plays back ‘Cut The Curtains’, ‘River Below’, and ‘How It Goes’, Kowalewicz is wearing a woolen toque with a big pom-pom that bobs as he does. Much like he is onstage, he can’t stay still.
He describes ‘How It Goes’, in his subtle silly humour, as “a loud number,” and a ballad, ‘Nothing To Lose’, for which he still had to cut the vocals, as “an evil dreary song.”
Also captured for the heck of it are hilarious takes of D’Sa singing snippets of AC/DC lyrics. “I can do a good Axl,” he insists.
The guys are a blast to be around.
“The four of us have known each other so long that watching the four of us together is like watching a Seinfeld episode, but it doesn’t translate to music for some reason,” says D’Sa.
“It comes from a different part of your personality than what you expose everyday,” believes Gallant.
“And I have about 26 different personalities,” Kowalewicz interjects with a laugh.
You gotta see BT live to know of what he speaks.
The album will be mixed in LA by Chris Lord-Alge in mid February, and is plotted for a July 1 release. |
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