Billy Talent Hits Out At Hipster Culture

Canadian punk rock outfit Billy Talent have just released Dead Silence, the band’s fourth studio LP since changing their name to Billy Talent. Like all good punk records, the album is chock full of rebellious sentiment and anti-conformist attitude with Billy Talent sparing no-one, not even perhaps a certain sect of their own fan base.

Taking time to talk to Spinner about the self-produced record that breaks from the band’s tradition of simply numbering their albums, Billy Talent guitarist Ian D’Sa opened up about his thoughts on the so-called hipster counter culture

“The whole hipster counter culture phenomenon is just being sold to them by advertisers. It’s very different from any other counter culture of the past because it’s based around money, it’s based around advertising and American Apparel,” D’Sa told Spinner.

The issue of marketed anarchy is addressed on the record’s third song Surprise Surprise, on which Ben Kowalewicz sings, “You got the look but not the credit, they wrote the book on how to sell it. From cigarettes to skinny jeans, you got the money they got the means.”

Lyrically speaking D’Sa says that Dead Silence is the most relevant record the band has ever penned, deciding to write the lyrics towards the end of recording as to best address current issues.

“It’s definitely more pertinent to what’s happening right now than anything we’ve done before,” D’Sa said.

Check out D’Sa’s and Spinner’s full chat here

Watch: Billy Talent – Dead Silence – Trailer

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