A Billy Talent 13 éve alakult [számold ki mikor :P ], a 4
srác még a középiskolában (Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Secondary
School ismerkedett össze, és mivel mindegyikük bírta a
punk-rockot, azt kezdtek el játszani :P Jon, Ben és Aaron eredetileg 1ütt
játszottak 1 "To Each His Own" nevű bandában, Iannal később alapították a Pezzt.
Az akkori Pezz aztán kiadta a Watoosh című korongját, ami az indie stílusba
sorolható. 2001-ben vették fel a Try Honesty-t, amivel aztán rögötn sikereket is
arattak. a nevüket jogi okokból + kellett változtatniuk, mert 1 másik 1üttes már
lefoglalta a Pezz nevet. [mázlijuk van, mer kb senki nem hallott vna róluk, ha a
Billy Talent nem fut be :D úgy tűnik mégis ők lettek a nagyobbak XD ]. az
első lemezük 2003-ban futott ki, a fantáziadús Billy Talent címmel. a másodikkal
már gondban voltak, nem akarták csak úgy "összecsapni" [oan ismerős ez a szó a
suliból :P], a következő 3 évet a családdal, haverokkal, a társadalomban
töltötték, és nem rendelésre-szerűen írták a dalokat, hanem természetesen. így
jött össze a 13 tökéletes szám, amit 2006-ban adtak ki, a II. CD-n.
A banda multinacionális, ugyan mind1ikük kanadai, de
származást tekintve két lengyel, 1 indiai és 1 igazi kanadai tag van csak
XD
A Billy Talent stílusa punk-rock, stb, a dalaik
alapvetően személyes tapasztalatokon alapulnak, és ők maguk írják
őket. érdekesség pl. h a "Devil in a Midnigght Mass" (ördög egy éjféli misén)
Ben élményeiből keletkezett. OK, igazából ő csak elolvasott 1 történetet 1
pedofil papról, akiit végü börtönbe csuktak 30 évre vmi 150 gyerek
molesztálásáért, és vki meg is ölte. Mivel Ben a gyerekek jogainak elkötelezett
védelmezője, +írta ezt a dalt, hátha 1 kicsit felnyitja az emberek szemét.
rem sikerült neki. :) A Red Flag arról szól, h a jövő generációi fognak
fizetni azokért a hibákért, amiket a mai felnőttek követnek el. am eredetileg ez
csak 1 demo szám vt, az interneten terjedt, de aztán 1 csomó videójátékba
betették, aláfestő zenének (Pl.: Burnout Revenge, SSX On Tour, NHL 2006)
XD aztán a Fallen Leaves a drogfüggő haverokról
szól, és szinte az összes számnak van vmi mélyebb tartalma. és aki nem érti a
szöveget (bár télleg elég érthetetlen nem angolok számára... igaz h Ben azt mta,
h dolgozott az énekstílusán, mert nem akarta, h a Sikítozó Pasiként emlegessék
:P de jófej XD )szal, aki nem érti, annak is naon cool a zene. tuti
XD
Diszkográfia a
híreknél!!!
COPY A HIVATALOS OLDALRÓL (ennek nem látom értelmét lefordítani egy az egyben, a fontos
részeket max kiszedem... de végül is csak interjú, + általános
dolgok)
Appearances can be deceiving. By all accounts, Billy Talent is a
young band just releasing their second album. Hell, it’s even called II. But
like most stories worth hearing, the best part often lies beneath the
surface
While II is the Toronto-based quartet’s sophomore record, the
number hardly seems appropriate for this group of friends that first began this
journey 13 years ago. And it’s those years of grounded experience that kept them
from sacrificing II to the dreaded second album curse.
“There can be a
bit of a curse but it’s a curse that’s explainable,” says guitarist Ian D’Sa.
“You have your whole life to write your first record but sometimes you only have
a few months to write the second one. The most important thing is to not get
bogged down in other people’s timelines and just do it when you feel comfortable
with the work.”
The band finished touring for their award-winning
self-titled debut in late December 2004 and were scheduled to hit the studio the
following February. But going from the road right to the recording studio isn’t
how Billy Talent rolls.
“We took some time off, spent time with our
friends, family and all the different people that need to be connected with,”
says singer Ben Kowalewicz. “You need to have things to write about, you need
real life to give you things to write about. I’m not going to write about
touring up and down the highway.”
“We definitely wanted some time to slip
back into normal society and let the songs come out naturally,” says D’Sa. “I
think it was important to take our time with it like that. We were very
confident with the material we had early on so we didn’t want to rush it and end
up with three good songs and seven others that were filler.”
The band
will be the first to admit that the last three years has been like living a rock
n’ roll dream. Whether jamming backstage with their musical idols or showing up
to awards ceremonies in a full-on military tank, Billy Talent has taken
advantage and fully appreciate where they are and how far they’ve come. But it
was working day jobs and playing everything from rented suburban halls to
downtown Toronto dives for more than a decade that set the stage for their
explosive debut, so it’s no wonder the band wanted a return to regular life in
order to refuel for the follow-up.
Billy Talent’s version of regular life
started when Kowalewicz, D’Sa, Jon Gallant (bass) and Aaron Solowoniuk (drums)
began playing together in high school forging their own creative vision through
a common love of punk rock. Bands like The Clash, Rage Against the Machine and
Jane’s Addiction provided the foundation for what would become the foursome’s
own unique sound. The band, then called Pezz, put out a few independently
released cassettes and recorded a full-length indie CD called Watoosh. By 1999,
Pezz was traded in for a new moniker, lifted from a character in the film Hard
Core Logo based on the book by Michael Turner.
With all four guys working
full-time jobs – autoworker, financial planner, radio producer, animator – they
released their 2001 EP Try Honesty. It was then Billy Talent planted the seeds
that would take them from Toronto-rock club obscurity to a North American major
label record deal, sharing stages with heroes the Buzzcocks and Jane’s
Addiction, touring with Lollapalooza, the Warped Tour and a gaggle of European
showcase stops including the U.K.’s infamous Reading and Leeds festivals.
Their self-titled major label debut came out swinging, establishing the
band as a melodic tsunami of fist-in-the-air rock n’ roll that garnered the guys
accolades from Best New Group, Group of the Year and Album of the Year Junos
trophies to Best Video and Best Rock Video MuchMusic awards, as well as a
passionate following of fans at home and abroad.
For the follow-up, Billy
Talent maintains the elements that makes them who they are – hard-hitting,
hook-filled, tight arrangements with an edge – but with a more refined sense of
purpose.
“The first record was very angst-fueled,” says D’Sa. “We had
spent 11 years as a band together and hadn’t really gotten anywhere so the
result was an angst-filled album. This record is a lot about trust and trust
issues, and a little more of a personal and emotional record. That said, it’s
still Billy Talent. There’s a good balance of simple hard songs and more complex
songs, but no 10-minute prog jams.”
While it’s definitely clear the
months of constant touring have sharpened their musical chops, one of the
stand-out differences is the way Kowalewicz has tempered his screeching lungs of
steel to reveal his inner punk rock crooner.
“I sing a lot more than I
did on the first album,” he says. “I don’t want to be known as the Scream Guy,
so I’ve worked on that. When you’re telling a story you need commas and periods.
I think I was more angry on the last record, all around. And on this one, I’m a
bit more focused and pick my moments.”
One thing Kowalewicz and the band
haven’t changed is their deft lyrical depiction of personal experiences and keen
observations. The blistering opener “Devil in a Midnight Mass” shows how
Kowalewicz can take an issue and talk about it in a personal way.
“It’s
from a story I read about a priest in Boston who had been arrested for child
abuse and the church kept moving him from parish to parish,” says Kowalewicz.
“The Supreme Court tried and convicted him of molesting 150 kids over a 30 year
span and while he was serving his sentence another inmate broke into his cell
and murdered him. I stumble upon these stories, they don’t necessarily have to
be directly personal but it’s things like this that move me. I’m a big advocate
for children’s rights and this song looks at sexual abuse. It’s not against the
church or anything, it’s more about that individual betrayal between adult and
child. I don’t have the answers but hopefully if I sing about a certain issue it
will get people talking about it.”
The album seamlessly weaves such the
issue-based songs with more personal tales, from friends falling victim to drug
addiction in “Fallen Leaves,” to hipster snobbery in “Where is the Line?” to
dealing with people who don’t stand by their convictions in “Covered in
Cowardice” – the music sets the scene while the words tell the vivid
stories.
“I think this record is more focused for us as writers and
people telling stories that are a bit more personal and revealing the side of us
that we were more hesitant to reveal on the first record,” says
D’Sa.
Musically, the song “This Suffering” melds all the sounds and
styles that fans were first introduced to on their first record. “I think it’s a
good representation of the band and all the little things we do in our music,”
says Gallant.
But while individual songs can be picked out and
highlighted, II is not a collection of singles but a single work put together
with purpose – which explains the spartan title.
“A lot of times you look
at certain songs to get the name of the record, but the problem with that is
then you’re saying that is the song – fast-forward to this song,” says
Kowalewicz. “For us, the record is an entire album not just a few songs and some
filler.”
Like getting to know a good friend better over time, their
lyrics and sound are familiar but delve deeper into who Billy Talent is and
where they stand. The first 13 years of their career established them as an
authentic, honest and direct force of energy and these next 13 songs add to that
legacy. Welcome to part II.
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