A Conversation with Ben Kowalewicz of Billy Talent

This is the original transcript of the interview, only minor editing has been applied for readability. This has been the basis for articles but has never been published in the original form.

Wortraub: Your second album is out. So, what is new? What has developed for you guys?
Ben: I think, what has developed and improved is the fact that we toured for almost three years straight and because of doing so … like with anything in life, the more you do it, the more you practice, the better you get at your individual craft or instrument. We definitely as a band have improved. On this record we were more confident and more willing to try different things. Maybe we were not to keen on trying on the first record because we weren’t feeling capable of it. We tried to expand our horizons a little bit more. And Ian’s songwriting ability and guitar playing is just fucking amazing. It was just a a very nice natural progression for us.

Wortraub: Actually, I don’t quite see the willingness to try more. I rather had the feeling the record is pretty straight forward. A consequent continuation rather than an experiment. You did not even change producers. How about that?
Ben: Well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Kind of thing. That old saying. But what I mean is, that I sing a lot more on the record. I feel more confident in my abilities to not scream as much but to focus a little bit more on story telling and using the voice not only to bark things down. You can actually say some things without screaming. Not saying that the aggressiveness has changed, but that it has become more focussed. It is more of a cohesive piece as the first record.

Wortraub: But it still does not mean that you experimenting, right? It is sticking to a certain song structure and songwriting, right?
Ben: Oh yeah, I mean, we are not going to turn into the Mars Volta and have fifteen minute songs or anything. We are still big fans of that are experimental but with our band, we tend to work best in songs, like 3 to 4 minute songs. We did not change structurally how we approach a song but what we do within those structures we are different. Our song playing. If you want to talk about improvement listen to the first record, the drums, and then listen to this record, just the drums. Those are advancements. It is what we have done individually within the songs. The song writing stayed the same, though. We payed more attention to the instruments. We tried to focus on the things that each one of us does and tried to bring them out a little bit more. We kind of pushed each other a little bit harder than we ever have before.

Wortraub: So, for yourself, you have grown more confident of your voice?
Ben: I have grown to accept it a little more. When I first started to sing a lot of people found that it was not the most massive healing kind of voice. I guess it is an acquired taste. When we started out there were some reviews that would say: ÇThe music is great but the singer sucks‘ or Çannoying voice‘ and that kind of thing. At first it hurt a little bit, like any kind of negative criticism. I now learned to accept the fact of what I have. And there are people that appreciate it, that understand it. That has given me a lot of confidence.

Wortraub: Were you surprised at the success of the first album?
Ben: It was weird for us, because we have been together the four of us, going on 13 years. We were always writing and creating, and doing things for the longest time. Once we got the deal we did not know what to expect. We were just so happy, to actually document songs in a way that we can hear them. The sounded good to us sonically. Then things started happening in Canada and in the States. Then we came overseas and we drew a little bit of buzz. It was just one of those things where we were so happy just for people to come to the show and hang out. Then we grew pretty strong alliegences with our fans, because we were pretty appreciative of them. We worked our fucking asses off to get to that position. But it is a weird thing … with the first record no one knew who we were. And now, there are people anticapating the record. That is something we never had before. This is an exciting time for us. We are really proud and confident about the record. So we are not really worried about what is going to happen.

Wortraub: You are the king of understatement. Record sales, tours, festivals, music prizes, all this coming down on you. How do you handle that privately? Friends? Family? What is going on there?
Ben: To be honest with you, that is the only thing that in this lifestyle is a bit trying. I have a pretty close relationship with my friends and I have actually grown a relationship with my family over the last couple of years, which I never had before. I do have a girl friend back at home and that is the only thing that is really a drag about this lifestyle. As much as you love and are priviliged and blessed to do it, to play music, to entertain, and to perform and to create, as with every thing in life, there is a downfall. And with this the downfall is being separated from you loved ones. The people that we surround ourselves in our lifes support us and understand what we do. They know how much it means to us. Nothing comes without sacrifice.

Wortraub: Let’s get more special in regards to this album then. Is there a lyrical theme to this record?
Ben: I did not realize as I was writing it but I think it is hope. Hope is the word I would use. There is definitely a lot of dark issues and there is catharsis for me. I got a lot of things off my chest. It is one of those things, that makes me feel better, to talk about those things and hopefully people will be able to relate to them. So overall, the dramatics and scenes of the songs, the main thing is hope.

Wortraub: Again, I had the opposite feeling. You are describing an oppressive mood in songs like „Devil In A Midnight Mass“. Are you not?
Ben: Well, yeah there is elements of that. But what I am saying is, not to give up. There are dark topics like „Devil“ which is written about a true story about a priest that molested a hundred and fifty kids in Boston and was tried and convicted and put into prison. That was when somebody snuck into his jail cell and killed him while he was sleeping. I wrote that song because child abuse and things in that nature are touching me close to my heart. I want to be able to talk about things like that and have a conversations with people and have other people have conversations about it. We need to figure out solutions to those kind of problems and we need to be able to understand where they stem from, where they start. Maybe then we can figure out ways to prevent them from happening. To make it not happen as much. That is the hope I have with it.

Wortraub: So you are topicalizing these dark things and by doing that you have the feeling that you create hope?
Ben: It gives me hope anyway.

Wortraub: Is being young today hard, harder than twenty years ago?
Ben: Oh, I definitely would say that. I just think in general that the times have changed, that society has changed. Technology is advancing faster than we know how to deal with it. When I was a kid, we did not have the internet, we did not have cell phones, we did not have global communication, we did not have so many different things on the news like wars and terrorist attacks and poverty. There are so many things that are more relevant or maybe those things were happening, but they were not as apparent to us. Because we did not have as many vessels to tell us about it. I think it is really hard to be a kid today.

Wortraub: Are your lyrics guidelines then?
Ben: No, that would be too presumptuous. No, that is how I see the world and it is how I feel. If people react to that, that is ok and if they don’t then that is fine too. I don’t have a template or a solution. I just think, that is the way I look at it.

Wortraub: Well, some great novelists say that you do not need to solve the social problems of the world, all you need to do is point them out.
Ben: Well, that is a really good point and that is what I am trying to do. Regardless if people agree with them or disagree with them that is fine. At least I can bring them up, in passing.

Wortraub: Most of your lyrics deal with loss and hardship. Have you experience much of that?
Ben: Yeah … *laughs irritated* wow, yes. I’ve had a very unique life, I think. … Well, the way I look at it and the one thing that I have come to know, and I believe that is true for you and your friends as well. Every one had individually had their own problems and had to overcome adversities and have gone through shitty days and had good days, had hope … they had things happening, that they wished had never happened to them and you just have to deal with it. I’ve had my own fair amount of shit sandwiches, let’s say.

Wortraub: Is it a priviledge than to deal with it the way you do? To write about it in a personal way rather than deal with the global stuff?
Ben: It is a matter of being socially conscious. It is being aware of your environment and the things that do happen around you, that you can’t control and that just are. Especially in Canada, with the war and everything it was kind of strange. We had a liberal government in place for so long and now we have a really scary and conservative government and a guy called Steven Harper that is the Prime Minister of our country. He has a lot of ideas of where our country should go that don’t represent the norm of the people in my surroundings at least. There is definitely some things in my surroundings, that affect me, that I talk about.

Wortraub: Coming back to the lyrics. You said that in „Devil“ you speak out for the molested kids and on the last album you have used other peoples voices as well. Is using another persona a trademark? Why?
Ben: Certain things I do not have necessarily lived through. One thing that I always try to do, and it is the one thing that is important in life, is that I am trying to listen more to people, rather than speak. I find, that I learn a lot more when I shut my mouth and listen to people. They will give me a twist or a scenario that I have never would have thought about. The way the songs are put together is that Ian brings in the song on the guitar and we work on the arrangements. When the song is taking some kind of life to it, it invokes an emotion within me. That emotion will show you an idea, and from there I will sit with pen and paper and figure out what best kind of story would fit to the music. It happens naturally, in a way. And sometimes, things that I have lived through do not represent that best scenario, the emotion of the music. I don’t understand it. It just happens when Ian writes the song. We talk about it and sometimes they will say, that things are too strange or something.

Wortraub: Are kids reacting to your music? Do you get a lot of reactions?
Ben: Yeah, we do actually. It is the most flattering thing in the world. If you can benefit and help … if you can brighten somebodies day, especially a total strangers than that is an amazing thing. Our drummer Aaron just came out recently with his MS. He has been diagnosed about seven years but he recently decided to come public with it. The reactions that he is getting, the love and support, is amazing. Kids are coming up to him and saying they or some relative have certain elements of the illness and just by talking about it, it helps him. That is the over all thing with music. When I think back to my first experiences with a girl there was always music playing and you always have like certain cds that you remember with events. Like that cd I heard in that summer, when … music are the bookmarks of your life. If you can be part of someones life, then that is amazing, that is mission accomplished. That is the weird thing about music. It is part of every culture, all over the world. There is not a single one without it. It is the one thing that ties us all together. It is a very powerful magical device.

Wortraub: When music is so important, how do you feel about creativity then? With American Idols and stuff like that … is creativity still a part of it?
Ben: God, I would sure hope so. *laughs* When I look at that … what I see it as … when I think of all those idol shows as kind of the epidemy of everything that is wrong with the music industry in the sense that people are doing it because they want the acolades that go around with very successful superstars. Not the run of the mill musician. They want to be famous, they want to be on television. They want to be on the Grammys. The sorts of what they are creating … what they are trying to accomplish by that Karaoke, that is all it is, a big Karaoke contest, that is all so appalling to me. What pisses me off about it? We have been a band for a long time, and we fought and we bled and sacrificed and lost friends and lost girl friends and have done so much because we believed in ourselves and our music. Just because you got a cute voice and a nice set of tits and you get up on stage and you can jump up and down and can sing, how does that validate the actual artistry that you need as a musician. I think we are just victims of these force-fed illusions of grandeur. Lots of my high school friends when they came out of college, they expected a hundred thousand dollar job starting at the top of the company. But no one is willing to start at the bottom and work their way up. But that is how it should be, you have to earn everything that you get and you have to work your ass off. We have become a little bit too eager to have our dreams, especially financially, satisfied. It is really weird.

Wortraub: So, enough bitching … what’s up next? A lot of touring? And then the next record in 2009?
Ben: Yeah, lots of touring. Festivals, the Warped Tour and then the next record. Actually it is going to be in 2015. It is gonna be all done on synthesizers and a banjo. *laughs*