Billy Talent

Billy Talent singer Ben Kowalewicz has been front and centre in one of the greatest Canadian rock ‘n' roll success stories of the post-millennial era. The normally hyperactive front man is betraying neither cockiness nor complacency as he candidly assesses what might await the group in the summer of 2009.

Go back and listen to the chorus of "Try Honesty, "the monster single that broke Billy Talent and its eponymous debut album wide to the tune of triple-platinum sales in Canada back in 2003, and you'll remind yourself instantly that this band had the chops on delivery to stick around much longer than the mall-ready "pop-punk" fetish with which it was in some quarters initially, mistakenly associated. Instant chart success can be a bitch, though, and it was only after Billy Talent demonstrated its lasting mettle in the wake of 2006's Billy Talent II with three more platinum sales awards, a sold-out show at Toronto's 20,000-seat Air Canada Centre and, most unexpectedly, a No. 1 debut in Germany to match the one already notched at home that most reasonable folks from these parts finally woke up to the fact that they'd been sleeping on a "real deal" in their midst.