Billy Talent Interview
Interview with Benjamin Kowalewicz of Billy Talent
Words by Brendan Monteiro / Photos by Marcus Maschwitz
For years and years now the United States have been synonymous with great music, however in the past couple of years Canada’s music scene has been making a global impact and one of those fine Canadian Exports is Billy Talent. This has not come without a price but 16 years on Billy Talent are finally starting to get the recognition they so rightly deserve. The fact that these four men have continued to make music for so long without any line-up changes is owed to the fact that the Billy Talent members are more like family then anything else. Recently on their UK tour Clink got to spend some time with Ben Kowalewicz before their sold out show at the Brixton Academy.
Firstly welcome back to the UK, I have heard that you describe the vibe in the UK being similar to Canada, would that be a good indication that you feel at home while over here?
I definitely feel at home but that could also be because I half English, my mom was born in Sussex and of all my family I am the first generation born in Canada. So when I come here it kind of feels natural to be stumbling around the streets and and thinking “hey for some reason this feels right”.
Have you been to Sussex?
No I haven’t which is weird because we have toured extensively all around the UK but have never actually stopped in Sussex. We did Brighton though which is where my grandparents were married so that was pretty cool to be in the town where they said their vows.
You probably get asked this a lot now but are you ever going to give an album a name other than a numerical value?
No, no more numbers. It’s funny how it works you know because we are the type of individuals that think sometimes simple is the best way to go and so we named the records l, ll and lll. Oh the first one is not even l it was just self titled and with the second we thought that ll would work and with lll we just continued that. Other people seem to be making a bigger deal about it though, we thought it made sense and called it lll. It’s kind of cool, BT lll, it rolls off the tongue, done. Then you get the whole “oh well that’s not cool, that’s not creative, your so…way to go.”
And how has the response been to lll?
It’s and interesting thing because we knew there would be some backlash because it is different sounding than our last two records. Nowadays being an artist you get into these situations where your damned if you do and your damned if you don’t. If we had written a record that sounded like our last people would have said “hell man change, this is just the same old shit”. Then you go write a record that is challenging to us and to the listeners it’s a little different and has a different pallet and a different feel and vibe, then they’re like “nah they’ve changed so much”. As long as we like the record, that is the most important thing and then hopefully the people like our previous records will like this one. I think you have to be happy with your work and we are very proud of it, is the next album going to be the similar, nope it will probably be totally different to this one.
Progression is a good thing though.
Every band that I grew up listening to and that we grew up listening to collectively as a band challenged us as kids. If you listen to Nirvana’s first record and then listen to In Utero it is worlds apart. Especially when it first came out, we have now had over a decade to fully absorb it but when that record came out we were like “what the f*** is that?”. The pop element was really suppressed but now you listen to it and it’s just great songs covered in dirt. It’s the same when Evil Empire came out and everyone was like “beep, thumbs down” and critics were saying it sucked but it turned out to be one of the best records. I think it’s really cool now that the album is out because playing the songs now they take on these new personas.
You have stated that in the early days you were influenced by At The Drive-In, has the new album gone in to different territories with regards to influences? For example Diamond On A Landmine, the opening vocal harmony just screams Fleetwood Mac to me.
Yeah Yeah Yeah I guess I can see that, that was us making a Police song pretty much. We are all big Police fans, when they reunited we all went and saw them and hung out. Stings kid is a big fan of ours so we hung out with him for the night. When we were writing Diamond In A Landmine Ian was singing that bit “ah ah ah” and I was like “woah that is really Police-e”. As it took shape we just thought “fuck it, it does sound like a Police song but we love the Police”. It’s sort of like a tip of the hats to them and that song ended up being one of the better songs on the record.
So is there any influence in your sound from At The Drive-In anymore?
I don’t know, with this record we were kind of kicking it old school and explore into our Nirvana days and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and just exploring that world again. We were 15 or 16 years old when those bands were happening and that was when we first learned how to play our instruments. Eventually over time with cycles it just felt right and when we were writing this record a lot of the times we were saying to each other “this doesn’t sound like a Billy Talent song or what people expect of us” but that is good because it shows that we are diverse. We never really fit in with anybody, we do hardcore shows but were not a hardcore band and we do punk rock shows but we have never really been a punk rock band. We are kind of like these nerds that have been asked to the party because we wont cause any problems, we were probably just room fillers. Now though I think the same thing applies, with Ian’s songwriting and unorthodox guitar playing and my weird little voice it’s just a case of whatever happens because that is what we are.
Some people have thrown the emo tag at you which just sounds ridiculous, how do you feel about that?
About us being an emo band, well what can I say, some people are just fucking morons. There is nothing about us that is emo, isn’t that whole scene over anyway. Were a rock n roll band and like I said we don’t really fit in to any genre. I do find it strange when people lump us into that genre and they are obviously not fans of the band or even understand what we are doing.
Going a bit back now, I have heard rumors that Red Flag was from earlier Pezz material. On purchasing Watoosh! I was slightly confused because nothing on there resembles it to me, can you set the record straight?
It’s wrong, that is incorrect. The one riff was originally from a song called Nothing To Lose off our first record. We had the two parts as one thing but it obviously did work very well so we kind of cut them in half and so Nothing To Lose was born and later Red Flag came to be. We didn’t even want to put Red Flag on our last record, when we were done recording that record we were like “yeah that will be a b-side” and people were like “no, what the fuck are you talking about”.
With regards to creating music, who would be the ultimate musician you could have feature on Billy Talent song?
Oh to come in and do a collabo, that would have to be Eddie Vedder. He is someone that I really look up to, just the way he handles himself and composes himself with his beliefs. They have always just done what they wanted to do and I got a chance to meet him and he was just an awesome dude.
What made you decide to get involved with the Skate4Cancer charity?
Rob Dyer who runs it is just one of those special people and a very inspirational guy who has dedicated his life to this cause. We have always been a charitable band and have always believed in helping out our friends and family. He was connected to a lot of bands like Alexisonfire, Cancer Bats and we got to meet him and hang out with him and he really has inspired Aaron and the charity that he runs. So he has mentored Aaron and given him a lot of direction. He’s coming out with us in Europe actually.
With such noble things like that how come you named your DVD of the Brixton show 666?
Ah I am the Devil!
I have a terrible thing that I see 666 everywhere in my life, like everywhere! I will see them on car number plates and it’s got to the point where it’s freaked out my friends and girlfriend now to the part where I have to take pictures when I see them so that they believe me. Numerically those numbers are just always around for me so for whatever reason and as quirky as it may sound, if I see 666 I kind of know that I am on the right path. The number 666 much like a lot of things in history has been warped into something evil and 666 is not an evil thing. They are very powerful numbers and for whatever reason it keeps coming up. Also we decided, as we were discussing the DVD to take six songs from six shows. You see there is not much to us, if you break it down it’s all pretty straight forward.
Lastly Have you ever thought about attempting to add subliminal messaging into music video’s.
No but I think that would be really cool, not to help promote sales but just to warp people’s minds.
