HISTORY OF BLLY TALENT

The band originated in Meadowvale and Streetsville, Ontario two neighbouring districts in Mississauga, a large city west of Toronto, Ontario. In 1993, Ben Kowalewicz and Jon Gallant were part of a band called "To Each His Own", where Gallant played bass, and Kowalewicz was on drums. Kowalewicz moved to vocals, and Aaron Solowoniuk was recruited in his place.

They then met Ian D'Sa backstage at their high school talent show. The trio would then go on to merge with D'Sa, whose current band "Dragonflower" happened to be breaking up at the time. They originally started playing music which was a mix of grunge, and hip-hop. Their merging would bring on the name "The Other One" for a short time, and eventually Pezz.

Pezz began writing, performing songs, and gaining attention and credibility at first locally, and soon in Toronto's broader indie music scene. Their first recording was a cheap 4-track demo. It was recorded in Ian D'Sa's basement in July of 1994, and was named Demoluca, after a friend of the band named Jason Deluca had stopped by the house, banging on a basement window while the band was recording.

Soon after, in January 1995, they all put in money to record another demo of better quality with engineer/producer Dave Tedesco at "Signal to Noise" studio which they called Dudebox. It wasn't until the band members maxed-out their credit cards, and collaborated with Juno-nominated music producer Brad Nelson, that they recorded their first full-length album, Watoosh!, in 1998 at a studio called "Great Big Music".While popular within Toronto's indie scene, it did not reach large mainstream sales levels.