Tag Archives: billy talent

#790: Pezz (Billy Talent) – M & M

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Here it is. The return. The Music in My Ears is back with the M’s. Looking through my phone, there are a lot of fine songs to cover. Today, we start with ‘M & M’ – a track that was the first of 17 on Billy Talent’s first ever album, the one they made before they were even known as Billy Talent. For a few years, the band from Canada was called Pezz. They released an album in 1999 called Watoosh!. The group went away afterwards, changed the name and image and came back with a completely different style.

Around 2004/2005 I was really excited about Billy Talent. I was on their official website a lot of the time and trying to find where I could listen to their songs. Came across a fansite on Geocities which had a list of their rare tracks available in a very low quality and in .wmv format, and Watoosh! was on there. Only the links for ‘M & M’, ‘Fairytale’, ‘Nita’, and the cover of ‘New Orleans Is Sinking’ worked. I think that site was also where I found ‘Beach Balls’ too. If only I could remember that website’s name… As someone who discovered Billy Talent first and then found out that they made this years before, I was very surprised in the best way possible. The whole first ‘official’ Billy Talent album was perfect in my eyes as a nine-year-old. And those other songs convinced me that this was a band who couldn’t write a bad track.

‘M & M’ was inspired by the group of goth kids who used to come into the HMV store where singer Ben Kowalewicz worked back in the day and is something of an observation and a look into the minds of the kids of that subculture. It doesn’t seem to be too different from the whole emo scene of the mid-2000s. Kids still loathe their parents, they’re made fun of because of their extravagant makeup, and they have a fascination with death. Instead of the usual heavy approach that Billy Talent would be known for on their first album, Pezz take things on with, dare I say, a bit of playfulness. The group play with the tempo a bit more and add a bit of skip to their rhythms. It’s like a strange ska-punk song. And then halfway through the track takes a bit of a dramatic turn and ends in a way that you wouldn’t have guessed when it first started. That happens a lot throughout ‘Watoosh!’ I still really like that album to this day, even though the members of Billy Talent don’t acknowledge it that much.

#756: Billy Talent – Living in the Shadows

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It never occurred to me how many songs from the first Billy Talent album begin with the letter ‘L’. It feels like I wrote the last one to do so only a few days ago. It’s been three weeks! There are only three songs on that record that begin with that letter, but that still makes up a quarter of the tracklist. This is the last one from those that I’ll cover. It’s ‘Living in the Shadows’, and it’s the second song on the album.

This track just carries on the anger and ferocity that is established on album opener ‘This Is How It Goes’ and threaded throughout the 41 minutes the album lasts for. There’s a theme of seeing through artifice and lies that also runs through the album – and a lot of the band’s discography, thinking about it – and it’s definitely the predominant subject in this song too. Ben Kowalewicz’s sings/screams about those who hop on trends and put on a front to try and look cool but are ultimately lying to themselves because it isn’t truly how they are. All of this is summed up in a chorus which blasts these people for trying to change other people when they don’t even know themselves and are ‘living in the shadows’.

I think this song’s just great. Everything about it is so furious. How Kowalewicz’s can switch from singing to screaming in a split-second during the choruses is beyond me. And the song’s ending where he repeats the chorus among the barrage of guitars, snare hits and cymbals makes it a classic to me. I see it like a sister song to ‘This Is How It Goes’; they’re both sort of similar musically and even use the stop-starting guitar break in their respective instrumental bridges. Both those tracks are just so negatively charged in their outlook of the world… but they both work as a great one-two punch to begin the album.

#745: Billy Talent – Line & Sinker

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After finally finding out who Billy Talent was after months and months of wondering – I had seen the video for ‘River Below’ and promptly forgotten who the band and song name was – I took it upon myself to visit the band’s official website. In that time, you had to go to some weird sites to find your favourite videos. And dodgy sites had to be accessed to get your pirated music. It wasn’t as easy as today.

Back in 2005, ‘Line & Sinker’ was one of three tracks that were available to listen to for free on Billy Talent’s homepage. That along with ‘Try Honesty’ and ‘Standing in the Rain’, I want to say. And as a ten year old, as I was then, there’s nothing that gets you pumped up and hyperactive like a man screaming in your ears alongside some fast guitars and thrashing drums. ‘Line & Sinker’ delivers these two things for a predominant part of its length, and is probably the edgiest song on the first Billy Talent album. The track looks at a narrator who’s a bit of an outcast, despises the popular kids who consider themselves great, gets picked on and feels downtrodden but still knows that they still have potential even if no one else sees it.

I’ve read some reviews or pieces that deride singer Ben Kowalewicz’s vocals for being a bit grating. I could see it. But I’ve also been listening to this track for about fifteen years now, so clearly I have no problem with it. think it perfectly fits the mood and tone in this one. And alternating with guitarist Ian D’Sa’s vocals in the chorus, it makes for some good listening. I wouldn’t call it my favourite from the album, but it’s a great cut that really keeps the energy going. Some people may also recognise this song from a scene in 2003 film Grind. Though I did have my interest in skating phase for a while, I don’t think I’ll be watching that any time soon.

#735: Billy Talent – Lies

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From the age of ten to about seventeen, Billy Talent was my favourite band. It’s a long story that I could go into. I may have already done so in a previous post of a song by them. I’ll probably save it when I get to ‘River Below’ because that’s the first song I ever heard by them. I’ll gush all about them then. To put it short though, every time Billy Talent put out a new album I thought they could do no wrong. Dead Silence was the last new album of theirs I’ve listened to in full, I’ve never had the urge to listen to Afraid of Heights. I think my interest has obviously dwindled a bit. It’s their first two albums, though, that I can still play in full today and still feel the same way I did when I was younger when listening to them.

‘Lies’ is the fifth track on Billy Talent’s first album and is probably the hookiest one on there, with a very memorable and repetitive chorus that is also mimicked by Ian D’Sa’s guitar playing. The one aspect of Billy Talent that impressed even when I was ten was how D’Sa was able to use his guitar in a way that sounded like there were two guitarists playing at the same time and that is on show here, as he plays the song’s main riff while also keeping rhythm on the lower pitched strings.

Since I was ten years old when I heard this song for the first time, I’ve been singing along to it for all these years without really taking into consideration what it’s about. The melody of the chorus is so earwormy, it’s like one of those teasing ‘you can’t catch me’ taunts that schoolchildren sing. Not as annoying though. A quick look through the lyrics will more or less show that the track is about how lies can be disguised and come in all shapes and sizes, how they are essentially a part of life, and how they can come back to bite when someone finds that liar out. I don’t know what other Billy Talent fans think of this song. I’m not sure if the group have ever had the will to perform it in recent years. I think it’s a great album cut though. I feel like it could have been a clear single for a lot of other bands, but that would have been the easy route for this lot.

My iPod #358: Billy Talent – Fallen Leaves

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Ahh. Billy Talent II. What a great album. When it comes to Billy Talent, for me their first two albums can’t be beaten. “Billy Talent III” and “Dead Silence” are cool, but they don’t have that oomph that really came across in the opening couple of the Billy Talent trilogy. Just don’t ask me to choose between the two because I seriously can’t.

I’ve known “Fallen Leaves” before it was even a single. Ha. I honestly can’t remember the first time I heard it. It may have been when the then-new album was on the band’s MySpace profile or whatever. But I’ve listened to it for almost ten years now, and it always sounds as brilliant as when I heard it the first time. It’s not even my favourite on the album, which is saying something.

“Fallen Leaves” came to be one of Billy Talent’s most popular tracks, being released as a single in late 2006 and receiving its own video where the band stumble across a gang of freaks. I still don’t quite get the video; it’s quite weird. But there is a very funny part where Ian looks very very surprised when the four discover a lady a some very large assets.

“Fallen Leaves” will appear on Billy Talent’s greatest hits compilation “Hits“, which is to be released soon. Here are the group’s thoughts on that particular song: