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Ian D'Sa | |
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 D'Sa performing in 2017 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Southall, London, England |
| Origin | Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | Post-hardcore, alternative rock, punk rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, producer, songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar, vocals, keyboards |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Labels | Atlantic, Warner Music Canada, Spinefarm |
Ian D'Sa is an English-born Canadian guitarist and producer best known as a member of the rock band Billy Talent.
Ian was born in the suburb of Southall, London. He is of Goan background. His family moved to Canada when he was three years old. He grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, learning guitar at the age of 13. He attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary School. In 1991, he formed a band named Dragonflower with some fellow schoolmates. After Dragonflower broke up, he formed another band named Soluble Fish and recorded a five-song demo entitled Nugget Sauces. He eventually met Benjamin Kowalewicz, Jonathan Gallant and Aaron Solowoniuk in 1993 at a high school talent show. He started a new band with them named Pezz (later to become Billy Talent) while also playing in Soluble Fish. Both bands played shows together until Soluble Fish broke up in 1996. Still playing with Pezz, D'Sa went to OCAD and then Sheridan College where he got his degree in classical animation and has worked on the TV shows Angela Anaconda , Birdz , and the film Adventures in 3-D IMAX as a character animator. Pezz changed their name to Billy Talent a few years later in 1998. [1]
In 1998, Pezz changed their name to Billy Talent after the fictional character in Michael Turner's Hard Core Logo book. D'Sa co-produced the album Billy Talent II with Gavin Brown. He also did art direction and package design on the album. He received co-direction credit for the video "Fallen Leaves", for which the band was awarded Best Video and Best Rock Video at the 2007 MuchMusic Video Awards. Released in September 2012, the fourth album of the band, Dead Silence , was produced entirely by D'Sa. He was nominated for Producer of the Year at the 2017 Juno Awards for his work on the band's fifth album, Afraid of Heights .
D'Sa produced his first two singles on Die Mannequin's EP Slaughter Daughter , the songs being "Do it or Die" and "Saved by Strangers". He played guitar on Sarah Slean's song "Lucky Me". He makes a cameo in The Operation M.D.'s single "Sayonara" as a doctor pushing Stevo in a wheelchair. He also makes a brief cameo as a year book photo in the K-OS video for "ELEctrik HeaT - the seekwiLL". He also sang guest vocals with Alexisonfire during a few live shows.
D'Sa is known for making unexpected appearances at other bands' live shows and to guest as vocalist sometimes with Alexisonfire. He joined Sum 41 as a guest guitarist for a one-off performance of their popular encore song "Pain for Pleasure", and also performed as a guest in one show with British band Reuben in 2006, while the band supported Billy Talent. He produced the first single, "Buried at Sea", from The Operation M.D.'s second studio album Birds + Bee Stings , which was released on 29 June 2010.
D'Sa has been involved with Song for Africa since 2007, a project to connect Canada's youth to the AIDS pandemic, playing guitar on the song and in the video and single. In July 2007, he travelled to Kenya for 10 days to be part of the Song for Africa documentary film. D'Sa also wrote and recorded the song "Land of a Thousand Hills" for the benefit album Song for Africa – Rwanda: Rises Up! , in which he sings lead vocals and plays guitar with punk rock band Noble Blood. In November 2012, he contributed a guitar solo to the song "Toast to Freedom", recorded by Anti-Flag for Amnesty International as a benefit single. He played solo in the video for the song.
D'Sa and fellow Billy Talent bandmate Ben Kowalewicz appeared in the music video for Emigrate's song "1234", whom Kowalewicz provided co-lead vocals for.
When playing live shows, D'Sa plays an Olympic White Fender Stratocaster Fat Strat Deluxe with a black pickguard loaded with Seymour Duncan JB Trembucker pickups. He also plays a Montego Black Stratocaster Fat Strat Deluxe with a red pickguard loaded with Seymour Duncan JB Trembucker pickups. When recording in the studio, his favourite guitars are a '52 Fender Telecaster Reissue (nicknamed "Crispy Chicken"), a '72 Fender Telecaster Deluxe (nicknamed "Rooster"), a '57 Gibson Les Paul Junior and several other vintage guitars.
D'Sa has said that "Crispy Chicken" is one of his main recording guitars, and has been used on all six Billy Talent albums along with other guitars such as his '57 Junior, for overdubs. He also owns a three colour sunburst stratocaster with a white pick guard, which is shown in the "Devil in a Midnight Mass" music video. His main live amp setup consists of a 60 watt head custom made by Mark Stephenson of Stephenson Amplification, along with a Diezel VH4. [2]
Jake E. Lee is an American musician best known as lead guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne between 1982 and 1987 and later as a member of the heavy metal band Badlands with Ray Gillen. He formed the band Red Dragon Cartel in 2013, and their debut album released in January 2014 entered the Billboard Album Chart at number 69. He has also recorded solo works under his own name—examples being the instrumental album A Fine Pink Mist (1996) and cover album Retraced (2005).
Alexisonfire is a Canadian post-hardcore band formed in St. Catharines, Ontario in 2001. The band's members are George Pettit (vocals), Dallas Green, Wade MacNeil, Chris Steele (bass) and Jordan Hastings. The band has won numerous awards, and in Canada their albums have all been certified either gold or platinum.
Billy Talent is a Canadian rock band from Mississauga, Ontario. They formed in 1993 with lead vocalist Benjamin Kowalewicz, guitarist Ian D'Sa, bassist Jonathan Gallant, and drummer Aaron Solowoniuk. There have been no lineup changes, although Solowoniuk has been on hiatus from the band since 2016 due to a relapse of multiple sclerosis. In the three decades since their inception, Billy Talent has sold well over a million physical albums in Canada alone and nearly 3 million albums internationally. During their most successful period, they were ranked as one of the top 10 best-selling native bands in Canada.
James David Ward is an American musician. A self-taught guitarist and pianist, he is the lead singer and guitarist for the band Sparta; he is also a co-founder of the post-hardcore band At the Drive-In, which he formed in 1994.
Benjamin Ian Kowalewicz is a Canadian singer and songwriter. He is the lead vocalist of rock band Billy Talent.
Aaron Solowoniuk is the drummer for the Canadian band Billy Talent.
Watoosh! is the only studio album released by Canadian rock band Pezz, released in 1999 before they changed their name to Billy Talent. The album was re-released in 2005 through Atlantic Records. The album was remastered by guitarist Ian D'Sa and re-released on May 31, 2024.
Try Honesty is an EP released by Canadian rock band Billy Talent in 2001. It was recorded and mixed by Justin Koop and Billy Talent at The Music Gym in Burlington, Ontario. The first version of the EP features black-and-white lettering on an all-green background. The re-released version has black and white lettering with a picture of the band on a red background. This EP is very rare and sells for hundreds of dollars on eBay. This recording eventually gave them their credibility, allowing them to be noticed by producer Gavin Brown, in which he soon helped them finally sign them to a major label, and to explode onto the mainstream.
"Devil in a Midnight Mass" is the first single released from Billy Talent's second album, Billy Talent II.
The Fender Bullet was an electric guitar originally designed by John Page and manufactured and marketed by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. It was first introduced as a line of "student" guitars to replace the outgoing Mustang and Musicmaster models.
Dudebox is seven-song EP cassette tape released by Canadian rock band Billy Talent in January 1995. It was a follow-up to their previous release, Demoluca. The decision to spend money for a professional recording by Dave Tedesco at Toronto's Signal to Noise studio enhanced Pezz' sound dramatically. The EP led the way to Pezz' 1999 underground breakthrough full-length album Watoosh!
666 Live is a 2007 live CD/DVD album by Canadian rock band Billy Talent. It has three of the band's European performances from their past tour, which took them around the globe multiple times over eighteen months in support of their latest studio album Billy Talent II. The basic version includes footage of six songs each from the shows at London's Brixton Academy, Düsseldorf's Philips Halle and Germany's Rock Am Ring Festival. A second disc has the audio portion of the entire Düsseldorf concert. The deluxe edition is a 2-DVD/CD that expands the shows on two DVDs. The album is produced by Pierre and Francois Lamoureux, who have worked with The Tragically Hip and The Who.
Dead Silence is the fourth studio album by Canadian rock band Billy Talent. It was released on September 11, 2012 and was produced by the band's guitarist Ian D'Sa.
David Michael Murray is an English guitarist, best known as a member of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. He joined Iron Maiden early in its history, and is the second-longest serving member of the band after founder Steve Harris. He and Harris are the only members of Iron Maiden to have appeared on every album.
Afraid of Heights is the fifth studio album by the Canadian rock band Billy Talent, released on July 29, 2016. It is the band's first album in four years following 2012's Dead Silence.
Crisis of Faith is the sixth studio album by Canadian rock band Billy Talent, released on January 21, 2022, through Spinefarm Records. It was preceded by five singles; "Forgiveness I + II" "Reckless Paradise", "I Beg to Differ ", "End of Me" featuring Rivers Cuomo, and "The Wolf". The album had particular success on the charts in German-speaking Europe, debuting at number one in Germany and Switzerland, and number two in Austria.
"Forgiveness I + II" is a song by Canadian punk band Billy Talent. The song was initially released on November 27, 2019, as a standalone single, but was eventually included as the first single on their sixth album, Crisis of Faith. The song was written by Ben Kowalewicz, Ian D'Sa, Jonathan Gallant, and Jordan Hastings.
"Reckless Paradise" is a song by Canadian punk band Billy Talent. Initially released as the first single for their sixth album, Crisis of Faith, it became the album's second single after the band chose to include their previous single, "Forgiveness I + II", on Crisis of Faith.
"I Beg To Differ " is a song by Canadian punk band Billy Talent. The song was released on April 3, 2020, as the second single from their sixth album, Crisis of Faith. It eventually became the album's third single after the band chose to include a previously non-album single, "Forgiveness I + II", on Crisis of Faith. The song was written by Ben Kowalewicz, Ian D'Sa, Jonathan Gallant, and Jordan Hastings.
"End of Me" is a song by Canadian punk band Billy Talent. It was released on September 10, 2021 as the fourth single for their sixth album, Crisis of Faith, and features Weezer frontman, Rivers Cuomo, on guest vocals. The song was written by Ben Kowalewicz, Ian D'Sa, Jonathan Gallant, Jordan Hastings, and Cuomo.
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