Bands pack out venues every day, all over the world, but in this writer’s opinion, there’s no greater live act than Billy Talent.
Stick the five Canadians on stage, and there’s enough explosive energy in their performance to worry the UN. Must be exhausting stuff, I say to lead singer Ben Kowalewicz.
“It is, and we’re all not getting any younger,” he laughs. “But it’s like having sex. You mightn't feel like having it at first, but once you get horny you can have great sex and get really into it. Then recline for a cigarette afterwards, all satisfied!”
Speaking from Portsmouth, the band are back on the road with their second album, Billy Talent II, providing the excuse. Progressing their melodic hardcore punk by using more complex arrangements and even some vocal harmonies, it’s worth the three-year wait.
“We took our own sweet time to write the record because most second albums are shit,” he explains, in his unfailingly honest way. “We thought ‘Why rush it?’ when the only people that suffer are us and the fans. It makes it much easier that we’re 100% behind the record, as opposed to playing songs for the sake of playing songs."
Their gruelling tour schedule – they’ve only two days off this month – is even more impressive, considering that Aaron Solowoniuk, the drummer, suffers from multiple sclerosis. Surely such a harsh regime can’t help his health?
“Billy Talent saves him,” Ben states resolutely. “He’s happiest when he’s playing music. In a dream world he’d love to have his wife and daughter out with him, but touring keeps his mind and his body active and focused on something else.”
The ailment is managable, according to Ben, because Aaron makes sure to look after himself: eating well, sleeping properly and taking his medication.
“Sometimes he has to have injections in the hotel room and people see syringes lying around and they’d automatically look at me. I’m like: ‘I’m trying to quit cigarettes, but I definitely don’t do heroin!’”
The degenerative illness affects 65,000 in Canada and 6,000 in Ireland, so is not uncommon – which begs the question: why was it only made public two months ago, when he’s been aware of it for seven years?
“95% of our friends didn’t know for the first five years,” Ben reveals. “He didn’t want the sympathy card, where people treat him like a fragile, sick person. But we’ve been best friends for 15 years and I still kick the shit out of him, we still act like brothers.”
Another reason, he continues, is that Aaron has only come to terms with the disease recently.
“When he got diagnosed, it destroyed him. We had a lot of late nights trying to figure out what to do. It took him a long time but he finally turned a corner. By him finally accepting it, he’s saying to other people: ‘Don’t let this get you down – you can still do what you want to do’. He’s been an inspiration to everyone in the band for a long time, and now he’s an inspiration to a lot more people.”
A gallant move, to turn a negative into a positive.
He chuckles. “That’s all we try to do, sweetheart, that’s all we try to do.”