The last Billy Talent Album has been out for almost a year now (July), and we heard many major singles like Rusted from the Rain, Devil on My Shoulder and the lastest one Saint Veronika.
If you are like me a fellow canadian, you have probably asked yourself: How can i have missed them when they were in town ??? The answer is simple, the guys from Billy Talent had started their world tour in the other parts of the world. I suppose it’s just a way for them to warm up and be able to kick our ass even more, so be aware kids. The Canadian part of the tour kicked off on March 3rd In Victoria, British Columbia and there are 18 others stop that are planned for the rest of the country.
I had the chance last thursday to talk on the phone with Ben Kowalewicz (singer of the band) for a few minutes to talk about the tour, the album and a couple of others things. Montreal Fans don’t forget they’ll be in town on March 24th. Visit GEG for your tickets, and here’s the interview…
First congratulations on the 4 Juno nominations…
Thanks man, that was pretty cool.
Do you get used to it a little thru the year, like Christmas, or is it always the same kind excitement ???
(Laughs) No, i mean, we haven’t played the Juno for a couple of year, so we were not really planning on even getting nominated or anything, I wasn’t even thinking about it. And then i was in my hotel room in Victoria and my friends started sending me congratulation texts and i didn’t know wat was going on (Laughs). But no its very flatering, its very cool.
Really disapointed that none of your music videos have been nominated, man they always kick ass…
Oh thanks
How important are the music video for the band ???
Well it’s interesting cause you know the music video back in the day was really for Much Music and MTV, and these kind of things, but now Much Music and MTV don’t really play videos anymore. So it’s become equaly as important to have them on your Myspace and Youtube and you know…All those media sites, because they give people around the world a chance to see your videos. Yeah, we still believe that they are an important aspect of a record and i think it’s good to give people visuals sometimes and we’ve been pretty lucky with our videos, for the most part they’ve been pretty good.
Why are we always seeing you as a band in your videos and never as characters ???
Oh god i don’t know…Yeah we are always like the rock band playing, but yeah we’ve never done the kind, with the narrative with the heroin. I don’t know, maybe in the future who knows.
When you’re writing or composing for a new record do you feel some kind of pressure, cause in some way now you have something to lose ???
Well i think there’s always pressure on musicians when they’re writing you know. You don’t think about what other people are saying, you just put your head down and write what feels good. And that’s one thing about Ian and his song writing, it’s just you know we don’t talk about it, they’re nothing ethical about it . We just sit down and whatever comes out we just kind of work on it. You know. But i think when you start listening to, oh my god you know, we have to write this kind of record for people and that’s where you start, that’s when your carrier start fading. On this record we just wanted to try something different and it just kind of happening that way, really naturally.
What would you say has changed and what has stayed the same from Billy Talent to Billy Talent III ???
I think for the most part, it mostly stayed the same. I mean we approach our records the same way , we just kind of hang out together and kind of shut ourselves away from the world and just for 6 or 7 months we show up at our shitty rehersals studios and we sit there for hours and hours a day. But i don’t think anything has really changed. We’re writing, and we don’t talk to anybody from the label, management or agent, we just kind of tune everybody out.
Thru all the album you send a positive images of people and believing in their capacities, be strong and never give up. Do you see that as a responsibility of a band or it’s either something that inspires you ???
I think it’s something that just inspires me. I don’t think that it is something that every band has to do. For us it’s about believing in the good of people. We believing in putting out good energy and treat people with respect and kindness. You know the world is a very small place, and very tighty done and i think it’s easy to be nice. So i don’t think this is necessarily something that we have to do, i think its’ who we are as people and we try to promote that.
I really love the idea of the Guitar Villain Edition, where did it come from ???
It came from a gentleman that we work with actually, Chris Monkada. He’s a really nice guy who works at Warner Canada and he kind of came out with this idea and we tought it was amazing, and no one have done it before and it seem to have worked out very well, alot of people are really keen on it.
On each tour you have unbelievable opening act and this time too with Alexisonfire, Against Me! and Cancer Bats…is Billy Talent the band choosing those hot acts ???
We choose them….i mean they’re all our friends. It’s very important i think for us you know. I remember we we’re on a summer festival with Alexis and we wanted do a tour and tour and tour, and we heard that they had March available, we have march available so we say let’s do it. Then we’re in LA and our friends of Against Me! came down to the show because they we’re recording there and we asked them and they said : Sure let’s do it ». And we asked the Bats cause we brought them with us in Europe for 6 weeks and they we’re available . So it kind of ending up being this amazing cosmic kind of thing where we got all of our friends bands to play.
What does the setlist look like ??? Is it more from the first, second, or third ??
We definitely are playing the longest set we’ve ever played before. So i think it’s a good balance where we actually play quite a few songs from the first record, quite a few songs from the second records, and alot of song off the new record. So it’s a good balance.
Where does that MIGHTY energy come from when your on stage: the crowd, the music, or just living the dream ???
Both, the crowd and the music. They definitely move you and make you wanna do it that’s for sure.
We got a question from Pascal Dubois, which is from Europe and who saw you last month in Luxembourg and says that the show was totally awesome…
He says the first time he heard your voice, he tough instantly of Jon Anderson, the singer of Yes. He knows that Jonathan is a big fan, and also Chris Squire the bassist of yes. He ‘d like to know if this is an inspiration for the band even if your miles always from each other musically ??
That’s cool, but i would have to say maybe Ian and Jon like Yes, but i definately do not like Yes (laughs). I’m more of a Hip Hop and Punk rock kind of guy then a Yes fan. I like the musicality of it and i respect it, but it’s not my cup of tea.
Pascal also told me that your last name (Kowalewicz)means in Polish a black smith. He tought that pretty nice since you do a steel of a storm at every concert…
Ha ha ha, thank you very much Pascal I really appreciate it.
