It was all going to plan until it wasn’t. The first time Kerrang! spoke to frontman Ben Kowalewicz about Billy Talent’s eagerly-anticipated sixth album in 2020, they were still hard at work on it in the studio. The Toronto titans – completed by guitarist Ian D’Sa, bassist Jonathan Gallant, drummer Jordan Hastings and Aaron Solowoniuk (who stepped down from drumming owing to his fight with MS but continues “to play a part of every decision, every email”) – were writing songs and drip-feed releasing them as they went along. And then… Well, you know the rest by now. “The world shut down,” sighs Ben of how the pandemic changed not only their plans, but also the record they were making. “Since then, there’s been so much that has happened, not only just within our lives as the band,...
