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Songs of praise. Adored and worshipped, Canada's cult heroes BILLY TALENT have a secret society of devoted followers that are lifting them to megastar status. Here's how it all began...

BEN KOWALEWICZ looks concerned. Placing a bag of ice on a dressing room table, he runs a finger over his forehead and examines a lump, which seems to be growing by the minute. “I have a friend who worked on a TV show called Monster Garage”, explains the motormouth singer. “They customise vehicles and he offered to make a mic stand that would never break. My head put it to test this evening. It turns out he was right...”
You join us backstage in Nürburgring, a motor racing track 45 miles of Cologne, Germany. Just 30 minutes ago, Billy Talent played their biggest show to date in front of an estimated 100,000 people at Rock Am Ring, an annual rock festival in the sleepy village of Nürburg. Billed just under the recently reunited Limp Bizkit, the response that greeted the Canadian quartet was deafening.
The band are a household name in Germany and cause hysteria wherever they go.
They scored a Number One album with their second album, 2006's II, and combined with their self-titled debut, Billy Talent have shifted an impressive 456,000 albums an this country alone. Their faces are splashed across the covers of the nation's music press and their videos sit alongside Kanye West and Black-Eyed Peas on MTV Germany's daytime playlist. Their last tour was plotted in venues which can comfortably hold 7,000 to 12,000 people.
Back in their native Canada, the band are also megastars. The band's self-titled debut album attained triple-platinum status – that's over 300,000 copies in a country with half of the UK's population – while, like in Germany, their second album debuted at Number One in the national charts. There, the band are an arena-sized draw, attracting 20,000 fans to their hometown shows.
And yet, despite their international success, the band – also featuring Ealing-born guitarist Ian D'Sa, bassist Jon Gallant and drummer Aaron Solowoniuk – are still regarded as rock's best kept secret. Here in the UK, the band sold 160,000 copies of their first two albums, while their most recent tour concluded at 4,900-capacity, London's Brixton Academy. But with the imminent release of their third album, III, this is all about to change. Their transition from mass cult appeal to mainstream stardom is about to begin. And after 16 years of hard slog, the four childhood friends are ready.

OUR STORY begins inside a stuffy Roman Catholic educational institution in Mississauga, a suburb 35 miles south-west of Toronto. Sixteen-year-old D'Sa first ran into his future bandmates at a talent shoe held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary School. Kowalewicz and Gallant played in To Each His Own and eventually recruited Solowoniuk to play drums. D'Sa, meanwhile, was in a band called Dragonflower. From that night, the two bands struck up a friendship and often shared stages in local dives.
“Ian was the best guitarist in school which, when you're 16, is the entire universe”, smiles Kowalewicz. “A little later on, we decided to quit our band and start something new with Ian. The plan was to keep things simple: guitar, drums, bass and vocals.”
Naming themselves The Other One (the first of a few names), the band would spend hours learning their favorite songs by Rage Against The Machine, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Ontario heroes The Tragically Hip.
“My previous bands lacked a charismatic frontman”, explains D'Sa, whose parents relocated from Middlesex to Canada when he was just four years old. “But during our first rehearsal – the first song we played was [Neil Young's] Rockin' In The Free World – I remember seeing Ben bouncing off the walls. It felt like I'd stumbled upon something amazing and new.”
The four teenagers turned the basement of the guitarist's family home into a practice space and spent all of their free time noisily honing their skills, much to the delight of the D'Sa's parents.
“They were really supportive and loved that I was in a band with my friends”, smiles the guitarist. “The only time we had to stop rehearsing was 6pm on a Sunday evening, as she held prayer meetings at home. Sometimes we'd forget the time, so there'd be a bunch of old ladies sitting around upstairs, while we were playing Rage songs, with Ben screaming 'Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me!'...”
“Even though Mississauga had a population of about half a million people, there wasn't much of a scene”, says Solowoniuk. “We all had the drive to put on our own shows and in local bars, pool halls and basically anywhere we could drag our stuff in and play.”
“We once played a Masonic Lodge called The Kinsmen Hall and had to build our own stage using milk crates and duct tape”, adds Kowalewicz. “It gave our friends an excuse to drink and have fun. Thing is, rave hadn't really arrived, so everyone still loved rock. The grunge scene had exploded, so when we'd play those songs, people would freak out and start moshpits. It was an amazing feeling to see that.”
After beginning to attract attention around Toronto, the band pooled their waged and took their credit cards to the limit in order to finance their first album, 1998's Watoosh!. D'Sa was studying animation at college and worked on kid's series Angela Anaconda. Solowoniuk worked on the assembly line at Chrysler Canada, Kowalewicz worked behind the scenes at Toronto radio station 102.1 The Edge, while Gallant studied for his degree in finance.
“For a long time, we had to do everything ourselves”, says Gallant. “We never had a plan as such, we'd just be constantly figuring out what the next step would be. We were just having fun.”

FUN, HOWEVER, doesn't pay the bills. In 1999, things started to get rocky. D'Sa was offered a job in England with Electronic Arts, but instead decided to relocate to Montreal, just over 300 miles away in order to keep the band going. Gallant – a man who looks like he could tear a phonebook in half – left the band briefly in order to go traveling to celebrate completing his degree.
“It felt like the band was really stagnant and I really considered moving to England”, says the guitarist. “Although it seemed like the band wasn't going to work out, I'd go home every couple of weeks to see the guys and feel things out.”
Disaster also struck the band later that year. Solowoniuk was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system.
“For a couple of years, I would experience numbness in my legs and things like that”, reveals Solowoniuk. “I thought it was because of the physical demands of my job building cars. Eventually, it became difficult to walk. Once I was diagnosed, I told the guys that I needed a couple of months off to reevaluate everything. It was an absolute mindfuck at the beginning – I suffered from a deep depression – but the drug therapy worked and enabled me to carry on doing what I love. The band was a very pleasant diversion.”
The opening track on Billy Talent's self-titled debut album, This Is How It Goes, is about one of Kowalewicz's friends with Multiple Sclerosis. And on March 17, 2006, the drummer felt it was time to tell fans, by way of an open letter, the truth behind the song.
“Today, I would like to let you know that I am that friend”, he wrote. “I didn't let something like MS get in the way of me becoming who I was supposed to become. I kept it a secret for so long because I thought it could get in the way or even help me achieve my goals out of pity. That's the last thing I wanted.”
To this day, Solowoniuk has to travel with a mini-fridge of medication and needles to inject himself three times a week. But there's no sense of self-pity. Instead, he exudes an aura of rude health and a Zen-like calm. He refuses to be defined by his desease.
“I can't overdo things”, he shrugs. “I eat well and rest. I enjoy the odd beer or seven over a game of poker. I've been going strong ever since. There was no way I was going to let it stop me from what I've always wanted to do.”
“Aaron is a hero to the rest of the band”, smiles Kowalewicz later. “He's our spiritual guide.”

THE FOLLOWING year, things started to change for the better. D'Sa still in Montreal, was given a copy of At The Drive-In's career-defining album, The Relationship Of Command. Inspired by the explosive, volatile nature of the El Paso quintet's songwriting, the guitarist started writing immediately and quickly regrouped with his bandmates who adored the direction D'Sa's songwriting was taking. It was also around this time that the band we-named themselves Billy Talent, after going under the monicker of Pezz.
“It marked a rebirth for us”, explains D'Sa. “Everything seemed to click when we recorded the new songs as a four-track demo.”
The demo – featuring This Is How It Goes, Beachballs, Cut The Curtains and Try Honesty – caught the ear of an Atlantic Records employee who met Kowalewicz during his days at the Toronto radio station and things, finally, started to move up a notch.
Cut to 2003, almost ten years after their first show, ans Billy Talent had released their debut album and embarked on a Canadian tour opening for their heroes, Brit punks the Buzzcocks.
“We were living the dream”, smiles D'Sa. “We had a van and a trailer and would sleep on people's floors. Fuck, we were naive!”
“We didn't know a damn thing”, laughs Kowalewicz.”We got fucked over a lot by a lot of different people, but we learned a lot and fast.”
“The video for Try Honesty was all over Much Music [Canada's music channel]”, he adds. “That's when things started changing for us. We won a Juno – which is like a Canadian Grammy – and all the things which seemed unobtainable for so long were now in our grasp. We'd been doing this for a decade, remember – I think I spent most of that year going 'Holy fuck!'.”
“The weirdest thing for me”, smiles D'Sa. “was being mistaken for Dave [Baksh, former guitarist] from Sum 41. That happened a lot. I heard he gets the same thing now...”

TWO DAYS after their triumphant Rock Am Ring show, the band are busy preparing for a warm-up show at London's Underworld, a 600-capacity sweatbox in Camden. In three days time, they'll be playing to over 60,000 smiling faces at the Download festival in Donington.
The queue snakes around the building, with many of the people queuing since lunchtime. One fan, Craig, 19, has traveled from Manchester to see the band at such close quarters.
“There's something really special about them”, he says. “I can't put my finger on what it is. They've helped me get through some really shit times and listening to them always cheers me up. I can't understand why it's taking so long for them to become properly massive.”
“That's a good question”, laughs D'Sa downstairs, a pork-pile hat covering his iconic hairstyle. “We've just tried to build a career by hitting lots of countries and pay attention to them equally. Some bands just hit the same places year after year and fade away. I would have hated for us to be a flash in the pan.”
“This, to us, has been the perfect incline”, adds Kowalewicz. “I wouldn't change a single thing. All the bands that got really big really fast when we signed with the label aren't around any more. I would much rather follow the path we have – slower and more steady. Hopefully, we'll have longevity that way. We've dedicated our lives to this.”
Do you feel you're a cult band?
“Yes, actually”, smiles D'Sa. “When we played small club shows in countries where we're not as established, it keeps us hungry. When we play Paris, we have fans who make the road trip from Germany just to see us. We have very loyal fans and we're so appreciative of that.”
So who is the average Billy Talent Fan? Well, according to the frontman, there isn't one.
“One thing I love about this, is that we have such a broad spectrum of fans”, he smiles. “We have 50-year-old guys who loved punk first time around and then there's the five-year-old kids who know all the words. It's really cool.”

AS THIS issue of Kerrang! hits the shelves, the band well have embarked on a month-long tour across the United States with perennial punks Rancid and political rockers Rise Against. In August, they'll kiss their wives, girlfriends, and children goodbye, drive to Toronto's Pearson International Airport and fly to the UK for the Reading and Leeds festivals.
With a massive UK and European tour scheduled for the autumn, there's every possibility they'll become strangers in their home country as the cult of Billy Talent begins to spread like wildfire.
That's, they say, is the only disadvantage of living their dream.
“Being away from our loved ones is the only part that sucks”, says the singer. “Apart from that, every single thing is awesome! You need to focus on home while you're away. You need that center in your life.
“This can't be your center”, he continues, circling his finger around the cramped, graffiti-covered Underworld dressing room. “Otherwise you can get lost in an absurd tornado. We keep each other sane. I date one girl and three guys. It's like a marriage and there's a lot of respect for each other. That's the major factor in how we've stayed together for a long time.”
“You know you've been touring for a long time when you feel abnormal at home”, adds D'Sa with a chuckle. “Especially when you see your friends and it's awkward for the first 10 minutes. It's not an easy life. But it's what we've always wanted to do and – fuck – it's a dream come true.”
For a band who once admitted that selling 100 albums in Canada would have been “amazing”, are they satisfied with their achievements so far?
“Absolutely”, nods Kowalewicz. “Your goals are always to build on what you've achieved so far and what we have achieved has been a dream come true.”
“But”, he grins, eyes widening, “we're still hungry for more.”



CANADA'S GOT TALENT
Get to know the four members of Billy Talent...

BEN KOWALEWICZ (vocals)

Special skills: “Talking to a lot of people about a lot things. I can lighten a mood quickly or darken it. I get carried away doing that, but I've learned to rein the horses in.”

After a show, you'll find me: “Just sitting around by myself, taking five minutes to breathe. I'm normally first in bed. Rock n' roll, huh?”

I love BT because: “We're good together. It's all I know.”

IAN D'SA (guitar)

Special skills: “Hair maintenance. Apart from that I look after the album artwork and merchandise design.”

After a show you'll find me: “At the local bar, drinking with the crew. We all put a lot of money in the jukebox and control the music for the night.”

I love BT because: “We're all such good looking guys. Look at us!”

JON GALLANT (bass)

Special skills: “I translate financial terms into a language musicians can understand. And bass playing.”

After a show you'll find me: “Hanging with Aaron, drinking beer. We used to play a shitload of poker, but it's hard to get a game together after shows.”

I love BT because: “These guys are my brothers. I didn't have any brothers, so they're adopted.”

AARON SOLOWONIUK (drums)

Special skills: “Not much, but I try to do a lot charity work. I started three years ago. I put on a concert every year for FUMS [the driving force behind the MS Society of Canada Scholarship Fund] and we raise a lot of money for that.”

After a show you'll find me: “Hanging with Jon drinking beer.”

I love BT because: “They're my bros.”