Press/Interviews
What is this, the Junos, part two?
This year's MuchMusic Video Awards nominations look a hell of a lot like this year's Juno nominations, considering most of the artists were up for Junos last month.
Drake, Billy Talent, Hedley, Alexisonfire, Justin Bieber and Classified lead the list of nominees, which also includes international artists like Adam Lambert, Ke$ha, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Kings Of Leon, Gorillaz and others.
This year's MuchMusic Video Awards will be televised live on June 20 at 9 p.m. ET, and will be co-hosted by Miley Cyrus. Parents, please make sure your teen or pre-teen has access to a television set at that time, or they're likely to get quite upset.
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For many years, Billy Talent has been a band that teens across the globe worship and relate to. The four members have been together for more than 17 years, and consider themselves brothers. Just finishing off their recent Canadian Tour, drummer Aaron Solowoniuk said him and the band couldn’t be more excited about their next string of shows, as well as Billy Talent IV.
Aaron, from when you first started playing, and throughout your career, who has been your biggest music inspiration?
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Punk rock is not a spectator sport. It's a communion. And it's pretty fucking hard to pull off in a venue that fits 18,000. (Green Day can do it, but that's another review.)
And it was the challenge facing Alexisonfire last night as their Canadian tour with Billy Talent, Cancer Bats and Against Me! came to a close in a sold-out, hometown show.
AOF are road warriors with honed live skills. There's no question they can blow the roof off clubs and rock open air festival crowds.
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It was like Ben Kowalewicz was relishing his hometown arena-sized Billy, er, bully pulpit.
As lead singer for Toronto band Billy Talent, the energy and crazed-eye intensity he possesses was in full force Sunday night at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre. And it was that verve which had the near-capacity, teen-dominated crowd in the group’s hand for most of their 90-minute set.
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You know you have a powerful song when people are willing to eternally etch your lyrics into their skin.
In the case of Mississauga’s Billy Talent, it’s not the obvious anthems like “Try Honesty,” “Devil in a Midnight Mass” or the 2010 Juno-nominated Single of the Year “Rusted From the Rain” that are prompting people to permanently puncture their flesh; it’s “White Sparrows,” a ballad of lament and longing from the band’s latest album, Billy Talent III, that’s doing the trick.
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There was a time, around the initial success of bands like Sum 41 and Simple Plan, that mainstream Canadian punk seemed about to fully descend into emo whinging and the brattier melodies of Avril Lavigne.
But in front of more than 10,200 fans at the Bell Centre, Mississauga's Billy Talent showed why all was not lost to bubblegum pop run through a distortion pedal. With St. Catharines's Alexisonfire and Toronto's Cancer Bats, Wednesday's concert presented a look Canada's punk scene from various angles, with a solid performance from Florida's Against Me! thrown in for good measure.
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The high value-for-dollar quotient of last night's Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre concert might have had more to do with the current economic climate -- Olympics, anyone? -- than the acts on stage.
The opening night of Billy Talent's 19-date tour of Canada featured an extremely solid lineup, with enough visibility to warrant its arena-sized ambition. A quartet of rock and punk acts spread over four and and a half hours, all for the price (in the late going, at least) of a case of beer -- hard to argue with that in a depressed economy.
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Music producers, like coaches in professional sports, rarely get their due.
Theirs is an intangible talent. According to the court of popular opinion, hockey coaches throw pucks on the ice and the hockey players do the rest. The same is true for producers working with veteran rock acts. Most music fans figure that producers simply press record and get out of the way.
But when singer Ben Kowalewicz of Toronto rockers Billy Talent talks about the influence producer Brendan O'Brien had on his band's third recording, Billy Talent III, it is with the highest praise. As it should be: Upon its release in July, the recording debuted at No. 1 on the sales charts in Canada.
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Przy okazji wizyty zespołu w Polsce, udało nam się zamienić kilka słów z Ianem, gitarzystą grupy Billy Talent.
Eska Rock: Wasz najnowszy album, "III", wyprodukował legendarny Brendan O` Brien. Ten sam człowiek, który produkował między innymi ostatni krążek Pearl Jam. To chyba ważne wydarzenie dla Was?
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1 - Friendship, Development
2 - Writing Songs, Leadership
3 - Multiple Scleroses
4 - Releasing Records
Plus, check out these interviews from 2007...
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One of the most successful Canadian bands in recent memory is back with their fourth studio album, Billy Talent III. Do they feel any pressure with this album given the multi platinum success of their other releases? And what do they think about today’s record business? Jordan found out.
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
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"If I like a record the first time I hear it, I get worried," admits Billy Talent vocalist Ben Kowalewicz. He's talking about the band's tertiary effort, Billy Talent III, and how it takes some time to fully ingest.
In Kowalewicz's mind, sometimes an album you instantly love eventually reveals itself as having little of merit — it winds up sucking, in other words. However, the opposite can apply as well. One may dislike an album at first listen, yet with more plays, it eventually becomes a favourite. Naturally, Kowalewicz believes this may be the case with III. Fans may be apprehensive at first, but with time, he's confident it will become the band's most enduring effort to date.
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Toronto band Billy Talent has struck gold with their first two records and if early sales of this newest record are any indication, their third record is on the same track of success within Canada at the very least. Mega-producer Brendan O'Brien is manning the control board for this newest album and the benefits of the band working with him are immediately heard.
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Billy Talent's Ian D'Sa and Jon Gallant are sitting in Starbucks sipping on bottles of water on a quiet evening when we meet.
It's hard to believe these are two of the guys responsible for such explosive hits as "Try Honesty" amongst "Red Flag," "River Below" and their latest, "Rusted From The Rain." The intense energy of these songs doesn't show here.
Instead, D'Sa and Gallant are completely laid back and chill, eager to talk about their new album, Billy Talent III, which dropped July 14. Everything about the meeting is collected and still, a calm before the craziness of the album's release and the extensive touring set to follow it.
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Billy Talent's new album Billy Talent III has found a new home in the States and Japan on Roadrunner Records. The album, which will be released on September 22, was recorded by noted producer Brendan O'Brien (AC/DC, Stone Temple Pilots) in Los Angeles and Atlanta.
The first single "Rusted From The Rain" will be serviced to Active and Modern Rock formats in late August. A video for the track was recently shot in Los Angeles with director Wayne Isham (Metallica, Bon Jovi, Avenged Sevenfold).
Billy Talent III, will was released in the band's native Canada on July 14 and debuted at #1. Billy Talent III has the highest one week sales of any Canadian release in 2009.
This marks the band's second #1 debut in Canada. The album also debuted at #6 on the Billboard International Top 100 chart, as well as #2 in Germany and #3 in Switzerland. "Rusted From The Rain" is having a great run at Canadian radio, spending its seventh week at #1 on the Modern Rock chart and fourth week at #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The band has previously had three Top 5, five Top 10 and two Top 15 singles on Canadian rock radio. The band is currently on tour with Rise Against and Rancid in the U.S. A headline tour is planned for the U.S. for September.
On July 28, Roadrunner will be releasing a 3-song EP, Rusted From The Rain EP, available via all digital retailers.
The track listing is as follows:
1. Rusted From The Rain
2. Devil On My Shoulder
3. Cold Turkey
4. Red Flag
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