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Most punk bands never survive long enough in the music industry to merit a 'Best Of'. Billy Talent are the exception.
The Canadian punk foursome have been gigging hard for the past 12 years and have just put out Hits, a career-spanning collection of their best moments so far as well as two new tracks ('Kingdom Of Zod' in particular is stunning). To mark the release Gigwise spoke to London-born guitarist Ian D'Sa about terrifying tour stories, admiring Taylor Swift's songwriting and the death of auto-tune.
Gigwise: What pleases you most listening back to Hits?
Ian D'Sa: For me it’s having the two new songs on there, ‘Kingdom of Zod’ and ‘Chasing the Sun’. Those songs were probably going to end up on the new record we’re currently writing, but it’s nice to have them on there because they really show the evolution of the band. Listening to the whole album back you get so many memories of the recording process of each record, so it’s a bit of a trip down memory lane. And then for guitar I’m glad ‘Devil On My Shoulder’ is on there as it’s one of my favourite guitar riffs to play live.
Is there a song that means the most in particular?
'Chasing The Sun' probably means the most to us because it was written about someone who was really close to the band and passed away a couple of years ago. We wrote that song about a week after the funeral and we never thought we’d put it out, especially as we’d never recorded an acoustic guitar track before. It just evolved into a special letter to the person we lost and it’s a really special song.
When you formed your very first band Dragonflower, what bands did you cover?
That was my very first band ever. It’s a horrible name. At that time, in 1991, Soundgarden was really popular and on our posters they used to say: “For Every Soundgarden there’s a Dragonflower” – hilarious. So we covered bands like Soundgarden, Outshine and Led Zeppelin and we’d play house parties and the high-school talent shows. After that things evolved, I met the rest of [Billy Talent] who were in a different band at the time called To Each His Own. Once they broke up we joined together and things were never the same.
What music do you love that would surprise people?
I downloaded the new Taylor Swift song because it had been stuck in my head for so long. I’d never really listened to her but when I downloaded that one song I just had to download a whole bunch more. They’re just greatly written songs.
What small festival would you recommend?
There’s one called Amnesia Rock Fest in Canada, which has had the best line-up that we’ve played on. Last year when we played we got to see Primus and Cypress Hill and just loads of classic punk bands. It was a really great festival, but I don’t think anybody really knows about it outside of Canada.
What is the biggest misconception about Billy Talent?
A lot of people that don’t know the band think it’s a guy, because they don’t know it’s a rock band and just think it’s some dude called 'Billy Talent'.
Describe your worst ever gig.
It was probably the first time we played in the UK; we played a place called The Metro in London. All the British press were there and my amp blew up after the first three songs and we had to cancel the rest of the show. Then because we were young and inexperienced we got really drunk that night and we had to play in Reading the next day. It was the worst show we’ve ever played. Hopefully there’s no video footage of that anywhere!
When were you last starstruck?
I think it was when I went to see Them Crooked Vultures in Toronto and I had a friend who got some backstage passes for us. I got to meet John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin so that was the last time I was star struck. It was pretty incredible because I used to listen to the songs and learn the guitar riffs so meeting the guy was pretty special.
What musical trend needs to die out in 2015?
Just the auto-tuned vocal drives me nuts. It was kind of interesting when it started ten years ago, but it’s just too much now and I can’t believe people still use it. It’s really gimmicky.
What purchase on tour have you regretted the most?
I don’t really regret this, but I think it was a little weird at the time. I’m a big Dr Who fan so I bought a life- size cut out of Tom Baker and the Tardis police box. I literally had to spend a lot of money getting it shipped back from the UK and now they’re just sitting in my living room.
Have you ever cheated death?
One time we got into a bus accident going across Canada and there was a woman reading a map in the car and I guess she must have taken her foot off the gas pedal and pulled out into the middle of the highway. We were all asleep at the time but our bus driver Rob swerved quickly to the right and probably saved her life and ours. There was still major damage and the bus took the back end of the car off and the car was rolling around and flipped into a ditch. The woman was ok afterwards, but it was pretty scary. If either of us had been going any faster we all could have been in pretty grave shape.
What new bands have you loved recently?
There is a couple of bands I’m working with right now. There’s a band called The Lazys, they’ve recorded a song called ‘Shake It Like You Mean It’ and we’re co-writing another one which I’m producing next month. There’s another album I’m co-producing with the drummer from Alexisonfire who’re called Say Yes. There’s also another really cool band called Greys and I think they just went over to the UK for the first time supporting Death From Above 1979 and I’m hoping for good things for them this year.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
I guess never give up. You have to fail 100 times to win and a lot of people give up too easily. Keep doing what you want to do and you’ll eventually get really good at it. I mean it took us 10 years and it was a lot of hard work before Billy Talent kicked off.
When can we expect you to come back over to the UK?
We’re hoping to have the new album out in 2016; we’re trying to get into the studio to finish it soon so we’re looking forward to coming back early next year. That’ll be a brand new album and we’ll probably do a handful of festivals this year, but we want to get the record finished first. We’re currently in the demoing process right now. In the space we rehearse in we’ve built a small studio so we can record stuff and demo a few songs. There’s just a few more to write before we’re ready for the real studio and finish the album.
The Hits by Billy Talent is out now (Atlantic).
Listen to it on Rdio below.
