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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.[1]
[edit] Billy Talent and mainstream success
In 1999, Pezz ran into some legal trouble over their name. A punk band from Memphis, Tennessee used the same name, and indeed had released their first record under that name in 1990 (however, their first full-length was not released until 1995). At first, the Canadian Pezz's management threatened a lawsuit and demanded $5,000 from BYO Records, the Los Angeles-based record company, at the time, for the American Pezz. In time, the band relented, and soon renamed themselves Billy Talent in 2001. The name was inspired by "Billy Tallent", the name of a guitarist in Hard Core Logo, the novel by Michael Turner and its film adaptation by Bruce McDonald.
