It all started many years ago. Jared Berry and Jay Ross had been playing in bands together for several years and wanted to start a punk band. They searched for a drummer to play with and Jared happened upon Shawn Thompson at a party in May of 1995. After talking about music Jared asked Shawn to come out to the warehouse to jam. A couple of days after the party Jared, Jay, and Shawn got together and billy was formed.
Billy worked like mad writing songs and after a couple months played their first show at The Down Easy in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The gig went really well and word of mouth soon got the band other gigs opening for bands like Dayglo Abortions, The Hanson Brothers, Grimskunk, The Ripcordz, Maow, and Daytona among others. They went into the studio to record their debut recording 'One Pork, Two Pork, Three Pork... You Want More Pork Order Pork chop' (named after a friend's incident in a Chinese restaurant). Wes Sontag (of Disciples of Power fame) did the recording with billy helping with the mixing. Things roll along and billy continued writing songs that mix punk with heavy beats and built themselves a good following in Edmonton and area.
Fast forward to the spring of 1998. Jared decided he wanted to concentrate a little more on playing guitar so billy enlisted the help of long time friend Lee Hartmann to take over on the lead vocals, with Jared doing the backing vocals. The new mix helped the band explode and they wrote some of their best songs. The audience loved the new mix, as did other bands around town, including King Lettuce (RIP) whom they played with at The Rev in Edmonton.
In June 1999 billy went into the studio again this time with local recording guru Stew Kirkwood. The result was a 10 song CD that captures the excitement of a live billy show. Armed with the new CD they played some shows around town, which caught the attention of The Smalls who asked them to play with them. The Show helped define what a billy live show would become.
In March of 2000, Shawn decided to leave the band to pursue other musical interests. The rest of billy didnt sit on their asses and later that day contacted Nathan Ewasiuk. They got together for the first time two days later and found new life in Nathans punk rock beats and cool new attitude. With the missing ingredient finally found, billys working on writing their best songs ever and retooling their classics. Look for them at a show near you!
