Billy Talent

Editor’s Note: Every time I get to sit down with the guys in Billy Talent I seem to learn more about them. This was my second time interviewing Jon and fourth talk with Ian, but despite the numerous times we’ve talked before, we were still able to come up with a lengthy conversation. We touched on the sniper in Salt Lake City, their original name (before Pezz), the mixup with Fucked Up and the Bovine Sex Club in Toronto, Gavin Brown’s obsession with sea adventures and M.S. among other things. Once again, they were great guys, and I look forward to talking to them again. 

---

Bobby: Let’s start with the basics, you guys have been on tour with Rise Against for a couple months now, how’s that going so far?

Ian: Great. We did their US tour opening for them across the US, took a month off for Christmas and now they’re out with us.

Bobby: Has there been any really memorable moment in either the US dates or the three dates in the Canadian tour?

Jon: The US tour was just really good in general. We were the first band of four and it was nice to kind of be in that position again and play a half hour set and really go out there and kill it in front of people that didn’t really know us.

Ian: We played a lot of places that we’ve never played before, like San Diego.

Jon: We had a good time hanging out with Circa Survive, they were the other opening band. But the most memorable moment was probably the first day because our equipment didn’t get there until like five minutes before the show. So we didn’t know what we were going to do. We had to postpone two of the shows because of a family incident. How many did we cancel? Two right?

Ian: Four.

Jon: Oh. And then our gear ended up showing up really late and we didn’t know what to do. So we used Circa Survive’s gear, so Ian and I had to play on opposite sides of the stage for the first time in like ten years.

Ian: Oh yeah, that’s right.

Bobby: Is it a big deal playing on opposite sides of the stage? Or are you just used to it?

Ian: You get used to playing on the same side after ten years, so it kind of screws you up.

Jon: Yeah, it was weird.

Bobby: I was watching an interview Ben did with The Hour and he said that at Salt Lake City there was a sniper shooting at the cars on the way to the show. Do you know what happened? Did they catch the guy or what?

Ian: Yeah, they caught the guy. Luckily nobody got hit, but he did fire a couple shots. I don’t know if he was aiming at people or whatever, but he was standing on the exit ramp to exit onto the venue. So anyone’s that’s coming into the venue basically saw this dude standing with a rifle standing there.

Bobby: This is your first stadium tour, how different is it playing at the coliseum compared to places like Red’s?

Jon: Well, it’s just all so much bigger. The weirdest part about it has been the separation of us and the guys we’re normally on the road with, like our sound guy and our guitar tech and stuff like that. We’ve always been one big happy little family, but now it’s gotten so big it’s all just opened up.

Ian: Now our band gets our own bus and the crew guys get their own bus, usually everyone’s on one bus together.

Jon: But other than that, it’s been an amazing experience. It’s pretty exciting and the crowds have been so wild. Tonight is going to be amazing. Edmonton’s amazing; it’s like the best place to play in Canada.

Ian: We used to play Red’s for years, I remember we did interviews with you in that Chuck-E-Cheese gallery there.

Bobby: That was my next question. Like you guys said you once played Red’s for 14 people, then you played for a couple thousand people opening for Sum41. Then you came back and headlined Red’s twice, you headlined Starlite Room, Iron Horse. Is it weird thinking you played these one thousand to two thousand venues and now you just sold out this seventeen thousand capacity venue? Like is it weird going from two thousand to seventeen thousand?

Ian: Yes, it is weird. But I think a lot of it has to do with the other bands as well. Like Anti-Flag and Rise Against have a huge following obviously. I think this whole tour as a package is just really amazing. I think that’s what really helping drive ticket sales too.

Jon: We wanted to keep the tickets as cheap as possible and we managed to do that, I think it’s a pretty fair ticket price for four awesome bands. Like if I was a kid and I opened the paper and saw this tour advertised, I’d want to go to the show.

Bobby: Of course with this rise in popularity also comes a rise in people recognizing you. I remember the first time I interviewed you guys, it was at Red’s and it got postponed thirty minutes while you guys had supper. So I was talking to Laura while you guys were eating in the restaurant. During the meal at least three different people came up and interrupted you as you ate for photos and autographs. That was when you were just starting to get big, has there been more people just stopping you in weird places now or what?

Ian: Yeah, I guess it’s just natural I guess. As the band becomes more successful, people just recognize us.

Jon: When the show days happening, if we’re out and everything like that, people will want pictures and autographs because it’s all so relevant. But in days off, I’ve been walking around town and nobody’s noticed anything or said anything about me being in the band. Ian and Ben are a little bit more recognizable though.

Bobby: Yeah, with the hair.

Ian: Even without the hair man.

Bobby: This also brings up another idea. Back in November, in Edmonton there was this new bar called The Ranch. On opening night it was packed, nobody could get in. The security was like “no, fire regulations, we can’t let anybody else in.” Then Joffrey Lupul, the newly signed Oiler, comes up and they’re like “oh! Joffrey Lupul, come on in!” and lets him in right away. Do you think celebrities, musicians, athletes should be able to just walk in just because their recognizable?

Ian: Well, I don’t think it’s a good thing. But you don’t know, that celebrity or athlete might know the owner. You know what I mean? This happened to me once. I was going to this bar downtown called the Bovine in Toronto and I was going to meet friends there. And this bar has a regular’s only policy and I’ve been going there for a good seven years and know the owner really well; and so there’s a bunch of kids outside waiting for a show that’s going on, which I know nothing about, and I get let in. Of course, that makes me look like the bad guy and it’s nothing to do with the fact that I play in Billy Talent, it’s the fact that I’m a regular there so I get let in, that’s their policy. They do that because they just don’t want random people coming in and causing fights. I think it’s a good policy. They know and trust the people that come there often and there’s no fights there ever. So after that whole thing happened, I guess the band thought that I was getting let in in front of their fans and there was this big thing about it and, apparently, they wrote a song and all of this stuff; and none of it was actually true.

Bobby: Have you ever talked to the band, Fucked Up? I remember they said, this was their quote, they would officially exile all members of Billy Talent from ever going to a show again because “They take up room from people who aren’t slick douche-bag poseurs.”

Ian: Those are just cheap shot words.

Jon: We met them at… We opened up for Alexisonfire for one of their shows in Toronto as a surprise. They were playing at the Reverb, which is 150 people, it’s a small club. They called us up and said “hey, you guys want to be like a surprise opener, play for half an hour? It would be really cool.” We were like yeah. We hadn’t played the Reverb in a really long time. And Fucked Up was doing some of their shows too, so we were all hanging out together in the back of the stage. And they had their VIP section too with their people and stuff *laughs*. I think they were just trying to get a rise and maybe try to stir up something. But it’s all cool, Ben talked to them.

Ian: Ben ended up talking to them. I really don’t have anything to say about that.

Bobby: So it was pretty much just a he-says/she-says mix up conundrum?

Jon: Yeah, and the guy apologized to us, he said “I’m sorry for the mixup and whatever.” It’s all dead in the water, kind of a silly discussion to begin with.

Ian: Yeah, I know with the VIP thing and all that, like you don’t know. It’s easy for someone to kind of judge. Someone that is recognized is being let in, but you don’t know what that person’s history is with the establishment or the club or the owner or anything or if the fact that he’s a regular or whatever. So you can’t really just judge them.

Jon: And as far as the owner of the club is concerned, you can almost not blame him. Like if Joffrey Lupul’s drinking in his bar, it’s probably going to be good for his business. But, it would frustrate me if I was waiting in line and this dude walked by.*laughs*

Ian: Yeah, like don’t get mad at the dude that’s getting let in, get mad at the owner of the bar who’s letting him in

Bobby: Okay, well, with that behind us, let’s go on to a bit happier stuff. When Ben was on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos, in their bio section it said that before you guys were known as Pezz, you guys were also known as The Other Ones. I never knew that before, is that true?

Jon: Yeah, that name lasted for like two weeks.

Ian: That name lasted for like one show, yeah, *laughs*.

Bobby: How did George find out about it then?

Jon: Oh, George has known us since the beginning basically. He was coming up the ranks of TV as we were playing all the clubs in Toronto and eventually Ben and him got to know each other; and then they worked at the same radio station for a little while. He’s been a friend of ours for a long time.

Ian: He’s been a supporter of the band since before we were even signed to a major label deal.

Bobby: On Boxing Day, you guys did a show at the Opera House in Toronto called F.U.M.S. with all proceeds going to the M.S. Society of Canada. First off, what does “F.U.M.S.” stand for?

Ian/Jon: Fuck You M.S.*laughs*

Bobby: Ahh, that makes sense.

Ian: The name should’ve been F.Y.M.S. Well, I guess because people say “F.U.”

Jon: Yeah, I know, that’s Aaron.

Ian: Aaron just doesn’t know how to spell that well.

Bobby: Was it crazy thinking that after you guys announced the show, it sold out in eight minutes?

Jon: It was awesome. We were really proud of Aaron. He worked so hard to put it all together. He worked for months and he went around and talked to drug companies, record companies, the head of EMI Publishing, and he got all these people to contribute money. He ended up raising like eighty grand. Yeah, it’s awesome. And the fact that it sold out in eight minutes is just really cool. But it was us, Alexisonfire and Moneen. That’s a pretty cool show. At the Opera House, like a thousand people.

Bobby: Like you guys said, Aaron has been working a lot with the M.S. Society of Canada lately. Of course, he made the announcement last February saying that he’d been diagnosed with it for seven years. He said that in 2007, he’d be announcing a new program to help raise more awareness for it. Do you know when he’ll announce it?

Jon: No. He keeps us up to date when he has confirmed stuff, but we just let him do his thing and he really hasn’t given us any specific idea of when he’s going to be making announcements. He’s trying to put together a program though.

Bobby: You guys do a lot of charity work. Even when you guys were just starting off you did shows to help food banks, Ben did the snap advert, and Aaron’s doing all the work with MS. Do you think for the punk community it’s important to help give back? Or not give back, just help the community your in?

Jon: I don’t think it has to be just the punk community.

Ian: Yeah, I think in any kind of music scene it’s important. But what I noticed actually is that the punk scene tends to give back a bit more because they were brought up with those morals and ethics I guess.

Jon: I think in any entertainment field, or anybody who’s doing well in life, should have to give back because that’s kind of the way it’s supposed to be. To help others. It just feels natural to help others when you have this success. You see it a lot. Like we’re at the Edmonton hockey arena, those guys always go to the kid’s hospital and stuff like that. They give back too because it’s pretty lucky to be able to play music or sports or act, and do that for a living.

Bobby: On your website, you guys have both your albums online for streaming; you can just play them online. So obviously you’re not afraid of the whole MP3 revolution. What do you think of MP3s? Do you think they have made a big impact on CD sales or does it help bands promote themselves better or what?

Ian: I think it helps bands promote themselves for sure. Because a lot of kids can listen to one song on their MySpace page and all of a sudden you’re a fan of the band. I think at the end of the day, if a kid likes a couple tracks on your MySpace page, they’re gonna go buy your CD regardless. So it’s a good thing.

Bobby: My ultimate plan is to one day open up a CD store, because I think that even if the sound quality of MP3s get better and better you’ll never be able to replace the tangible object of the CD. Like your artwork was amazing, you want that.

Ian: Yeah, that’s it. It all comes down to giving the consumers a good package. The record buyer that goes and gets a record should not get ripped off with some dinky little art package. You know what I mean? And crappy songs, like ten crappy songs and two good songs. Like they should get twelve amazing songs and a full art package; like a really good looking package when they buy a CD.

Jon: I think eventually it’s just going to turn into… CDs will just be a niche market. Collectors will have a 100 CDs, their favorites. “These are my special CDs, the ones I actually paid for.” People will be proud to own the cool new Anti-Flag CD with amazing artwork and the sound quality will be superior to anything you can get on a computer and whatever. The internet, it’s obvious how it’s affecting record sales. They’re down, but I think all in all it’s just better.

Ian: It’s separating people into two different groups. It’s people that just want to hear the music and they don’t really think about record collecting, or CD collection. They’ll just get it on iTunes or something like that.

Jon: Immediate satisfaction.

Ian: Yeah, and that’s cool. People with MP3 players, they’ll get iTunes. And then there’s other people that actually like to have something tangible in their hands. That’s like even in the seventies and eighties, people would buy records to collect them, and there’s always going to be those people

Bobby: Yeah, like now there’s still people who go out and buy the vinyls even though vinyls are twice obsolete now. They still collect them.

Ian: A lot of people would have records just to have records. And a lot of people have cassette tapes made.

Jon: In the UK they do it right, because people do collect records still. And it’s important that all of our singles over there get released on seven inch vinyl and it’s a limited run and people buy them. Our UK record company has recognized that they can still survive even with all this stuff because they have other things to sell.

Ian: You can get every one of our singles on a cool seven inch disc.

Bobby: Yeah, like the Devil In A Midnight Mass in the Devil Head and the Clock shape. It looks good, you want to collect them.

Jon: Yeah, exactly.

Bobby: From your second CD, you guys have released three singles. Devil In A Midnight Mass, Red Flag, and Fallen Leaves. What made you release Fallen Leaves as the third single?

Ian: I think it felt right as the third single. The first two were pretty hard hitters and we wanted to go with something a little bit more mid-tempo, which we thought would be a good single; and I think Fallen Leaves is that.

Bobby: I really like the video; I think it looks pretty cool. But I find myself asking “what the hell is the storyline of the video?”

Ian: That’s the cool part of the video. A lot of people don’t get it. I was reading our message board and some of the kids don’t like it because they don’t really get it. But if you watch the video a few times, there’s a lot of metaphors for drug addiction and drug use in the video. Just right from the beginning, the four of us driving down the road and getting invited into a party is like us getting invited into the drug scene or whatever. Then trying to find our way in a Hansel and Gretel kind of forest and this party, and I think it’s pretty metaphorical. The whole video is very metaphorical. It might just seem like a crazy video when you first watch it for the first time, but there’s actually a lot of meaning behind it.

Bobby: You co-directed it, what was it like helping directing it?

Ian: Well, I didn’t really co-direct it. It’s more like… *laughs* I don’t even know how that happened.

Jon: It’s more of a political thing.

Ian: Yeah, more a political thing and I ended up just getting a credit for it. But Dean Karr did the majority of the work. The whole band came up with the idea.

Jon: Yeah, we all worked together with Dean.

Jon: The whole band talked to him about the concept and we worked on an idea together with him. It was really cool working with him; he’s a really cool director.

Bobby: On the album, The Navy Song was originally called In The Fall. Why did you guys decide to switch it up?

Ian: Well, it was originally called The Navy Song.

Jon: We went back and forth.

Ian: It was originally called The Navy Song and then we changed it to In The Fall because we thought that The Navy Song sounded a little like…

Jon: *singing the Village People theme and swinging his arm* “In the navy…”

Ian: *laughs* Yeah, too Village People I guess. So we just changed it to In The Fall, and then last minute we were like “The Navy Song sounded cooler.”

Jon: And we were always calling it The Navy Song anyway when we were playing it.

Bobby: I remember when you guys were still in the studio Much Music did a presentation about you guys, and one thing I remember incredibly vividly is the red toque. *Ian and Jon laugh* What was the meaning behind the red toques?

Ian: Well, at that time when we were recording the record, that movie “Life Aquatic” had just come out. I think songs like The Navy Song had this really kind of sea kind of feel, like the open ocean, going up and down on waves and stuff like that. I think it was more Gavin, he was really in love with that whole sea exploration kind of thing and he bought this Jacques Cousteau box set and we’d watch it in the studio all the time while we were recording.

Jon: He fancied himself as Steve Zissou.

Ian: And he has a really long beard, so he looked like a pirate as it is. I guess that just became the theme of the record the whole month we were there. He got one of the guys from the warehouse to go out and buy twelve red toques and we were wearing these toques all the time. So Much would drop by and be like “why are you wearing these toques?”

Jon: It was fun, it was like a team.

Ian: Yeah, we actually felt like a team and we were working on something, just like in the movie “The Life Aquatic.”

Bobby: Another thing I remember from that was a picture you had drawn of Gavin and kept on the wall. *Ian starts laughing* What ever happened to that picture?

Jon: Did it ever make it on TV?

Bobby: Yeah.

Jon: It was on TV?

Bobby: Yeah, that’s how I know about it.

Jon: The one with the cock in the beard?

Bobby: Yeah.

Ian: What?!? How was that on TV? You saw that on TV? Where?

Bobby: On Much Music.

Ian: You saw that on Much Music?

Jon: Was it a close-up?

Bobby: It wasn’t a close-up, it was a distant shot and you guys were talking about it and saying how funny it was. You could kind of see it, but not make it out that well.

Jon: If you go on our website or MySpace. You can zoom in, like we’re all standing there with our red toques, and if you zoom in behind all of us, it’s hanging up in the back.

Ian: Yeah, it’s in the background.

Bobby: How’d you come up with the photo?

Ian: I don’t know. I like to draw caricatures of people and I was drawing the caricature of Gavin and he had this big bushy beard so I just drew a dink coming out of it. *laughs*

Jon: Chin-dong!

Ian: Chin-dong. *laughs* Chin-dong! That’s where it comes from, the shirt, I didn’t realize that. That is hilarious.

Bobby: Okay, I was reading an interview you guys did in Vancouver on Canada Day with SaintRockAndRoll. It was Ian and Aaron, and you guys said that on the road, it’s constantly noisy. There’s noise everywhere. And you would give somebody twenty bucks just to be able to stare at a wall for twenty minutes in complete silence. Is that feeling consistent? Like do you guys still get it?

Ian: Was it from Warped Tour?

Bobby: Nope, it was from Canada Day. You guys did a one-off show in Vancouver. But there were kids downstairs yelling, trying to get your attention and you guys said it was just constantly loud, noisy on tour. You just wanted twenty minutes to stare at a wall.

Jon: Sometimes that feeling happens.

Ian: Yeah.

Jon: You get used to the noise.

Ian: When you’re on tour, like this tour is really nice because you get your own backstage and it’s pretty quiet, like you could close the door and you can’t hear anything and it’s really nice. But some tours, like if you’re doing a small club tour, you’re surrounded by noise all day. You do sound check, then the other bands are sound checking, and you’re playing and the other bands are playing, and there’s people around. Just constant noise. Sometimes it’s nice to just have your own little silence. Even if you just go to the bathroom and sit on the john for five minutes, it’s great.

Bobby: I guess that’s pretty much it. Thanks a lot for doing it. Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

Ian: Thanks.

Jon: Nope, just thanks for supporting us and we’ll be touring for the rest of the year, so keep your eyes open.

Ian: Yeah, we’ll try to be back here soon.